hodorskib's Small Scale RO Build

[troynh]

Thanks Bret for a well thought out tutorial and parts list c/o this small scale RO build. Now it's hurry up and wait for next year.
I still have to build my feed tank area which will be in the garage up those stairs in the picture. No rush, I have all year...

Find the build info here: https://sites.google.com/site/mattat...osmosis-system

-Tim

[wobbletop]

Nice tidy setup!

[hodorskib]

You are welcome and very nice setup - hopefully next year will be a good one

[jrako724]

Bret,
Love the unit you designed. Would you have any ideas on how to make it a bit larger? We get about double that amount per day and i'd like to build a unit with as many of the same parts you did. Can we use the same pump and split the flow between 2 sets of filters? How would you preheat the sap and whats an ideal temp? I'm new to RO but would love to try this and have to burn less wood. Thanks
Jeremy

[themidnightsapper]

We are looking at building our first RO for the upcoming season. What would be your thoughts about adding a couple more membranes in order to get to a 10 - 12 percent concentrate? Biggest questions is if the pump will maintain the pressure across additional membranes. Thanks for posting this system and any input you have would be appreciated!

[hodorskib]

If you are looking for a larger RO you may want to search for the one Diesel Pro put together that would be better. The setup I use is really for around 75 taps or 120 gallons or less per day. You could run two setups but then you are at the cost of the larger systems others have built.

[Clinkis]

Built this same RO and used it for 2 seasons. Works great but has limited capacity. If your are collecting under 100 gallons a day and want to remove 50-60% of your water this system will work great. Can go to higher concentration but your flow rate drops off.

Adding additional membranes will not increase the capacity of this system. There is not enough flow from the pump. If you want more capacity you need to use commercial RO components which are readily available and will not break the bank if you want to build a simple RO.

[hodorskib]

From my research and experience I have found that once you go above 8-8.5% residential membranes begin to foul quickly. I run mine with 4 membranes and I am looking at possible adding one or two more this year not to increase concentrate but to increase the flow. Not sure if it will work but I think I am going to give it a shot the theory of going through two more membranes with less back pressure should give me the same concentrate level but at a faster rate of process.

[themidnightsapper]

Thanks for the info. This will be our first RO, we expect about 100 taps this coming season and was hoping to get to a 10-12% sugar content using RO. Last year was our first try an making more that a pint or two of syrup...we had 65 taps on a very good gravity system....no RO and a homemade block arch evaporator. Needless to say we were overwhelmed and hope to be much better prepared this season.

[wlatrout]

If you uped the membranes to 200 GPD instead of the 150 GPD would you need a bigger pump and would how much would your GPD rise? Or would it be better to just add 2 more membranes?