You paid HOW much for THAT??????

[ibby458]

A deal jumped up in front of me recently and I bought an RO sight unseen. I've got it home now, and hope it's a good one.

THe label & manual says it's a Small Brothers "Sap Brother", made under license from Osmonics. It's name plate says 240 GPH, but the previous (original) owner added another membrane, so It's probably a bit more.

The manual calls them sepralators, but can I assume they're a standard membrane? They're inside 3 seven foot long SS tubes, capped and filled with a storage solution. Since I wouldn't know what I was looking at anyway, I left them sealed up. They were new the last year the guy ran the unit, so they've only got one season under their belt.

It's got a 1hp feed pump and a 5hp high pressure pump. I didn't test them, but was assured they worked fine.

The defect? There's supposed to be a small restrictor plate in a valve on the concentrate output. It shattered under pressure and was lost somewhere. I'll need to get another one, or get a measurement on the hole size so I can get one made. The previous owner called everyone that might be able to help, but nobody could tell him what size the oriface should be.

Does anyone else have this machine and could measure that hole for me?

Oh - By the Way - I paid $200 for the machine, so I can't say I got a raw deal.

[Jim Brown]

ibby458- Even if you have to spend $2-3000 dollars to get it to work WHAT A DEAL!! I though we got a deal when we bought ours sight unseen still in the shrink wrap NIB(new in the box) for $4500. Had to drive to NH to get it but so what!
Works GREAT you'll love it!

Jim

[mapleack]

ibby458, could you possibly just replace the valve/ restrictor plate setup with a new needle valve?

[KenWP]

Osmonics is in Minnesota so you could try and ask them if they have any idea about the oriface.

[tuckermtn]

see if you can get a hold of Asian Longhorn Beetle on here...he has a similar one...if that doesn't work I know a guy outside of syracuse who has one also...pm me if you need his contact...

best of luck- sounds like you got an excellent deal...

[ibby458]

A needle valve was just what I had in mind, too - IF I can get one that'll take the pressure. This might be a try it and see project.

I got it completely dis-assembled, so I gotta put it back together before I can figure out much else. The manual is a lot less than clear on many areas, there's not even a picture of the assembled unit so I can figure out where stuff goes. I do think it's all there, but won't know till I try to put it back together.

The previous owner called every LaPierre and Osmonics number he could find, and nobody could tell him the size, just urged him to buy a new unit. Which he did, but not from them!

[ibby458]

I discovered yesterday that it's 240 GPH permeate, PLUS 50 gpm concentrate, making this a 290 gph rig, not counting the additional membrane the previous owner installed.

It also says it'll run 6-8 hours between flushes. That seems a bit long compared to the posts I've been reading?