Reverse Osmosis must have equipment

[n8hutch]

So I ordered an RO this spring, went with a 600gph unit, my question is what are my must haves as far as equipment to go with having an RO, I know I need Permeate storage and a heated room. But I really haven't a clue as to how much soap I'll need or pre filters and the like. One thing I'd for sure I'm not going to miss boiling 1% sap.

[DrTimPerkins]

Permeate tank large enough to hold amount needed for wash & rinse. Extra is good.
Sap prefilters - often changed each time you run RO.
Concentrate tank - reuse your head/feed tank.
Soap - as specified by RO & membrane supplier.
Wash/heat tank - if needed for your type of RO.

May also want to consider:
pH test strips - to be sure your rinses are complete
conductivity meter - to check permeate for mineral/sugar passage.
Refractometer - to test for sugar passage.
Membrane storage vessel - off season storage or to return for professional cleaning.
Citric acid - for when soap isn't enough.

Probably the most important thing to keep handy is the phone number
Of the RO service tech.

[BAP]

Nate, what did you get for an R/O? The way I had ours setup at my old place that I sold, was had a concentrate line that had a tee in it with 2 valves so that we could either send it back to the feed tank to concentrate it more or send it up to the head tank to boil. We also had an overflow pipe on the head tank that ran back to the feed tank in case the r/o got ahead. Makes life easier than risk running it over. You want at least 1 gallon of permeate storage for each gallon of capacity of your r/o. Extra is better so you can do a good rinse. Pre-filters are something you want enough on hand, because some years you will go through more than others. When they plug, they are done and you don't want to be caught on a Sunday afternoon not being able to R/O because you are out of filters. Make sure you have plenty of power with big enough wire to feed it. The biggest killer of the pumps is undersized wiring and power shortage. Like Dr Perkins said, get a phone number for the service person because they never break down 7:30am on Monday morning. It's usually a Saturday or Sunday afternoon with the biggest run you have ever had. And they do break down if you use them enough, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[maple flats]

It is generally suggested that you have 2 hrs worth for permeate storage, so a 600 would mean 1200 gal. In use I found I rarely use that much. For my 250 I started with a 550 gal tank and never ran out, until I bought a flue pan washer, it uses permeate to clean the flue pan, once thru and flows to drain. If I run that for 90 minutes I go thru about 300-350 gal. Then I got a 1000 gal tank and it serves well.
My RO came with 4 prefilters, one in it and 3 extras. I soon bought a full case of 25. Mine came with enough soap to last a season, and also came with enough acid wash and preservative for the first year. Check to find out what is included with yours. You may have enough supplies for the first season except the pre-filters, or you may need everything, that might depend on what you bought and who you bought it from.
I as a rule early in the season use 1 pre-filter each day, as the season advances, I sometimes use 2 mid-late season and a few times used 3 in very late season but that was quite rare.

[SeanD]

Everything mentioned already doesn't go bad, so it doesn't hurt to over buy. Then after year 1 you have a better idea how much to order going forward. I use a preservative in the off season, so you might need that, too. As said, the best thing to do is check with the manufacturers instructions then you won't void your warranty.

The other thing not mentioned yet is looking ahead to how you will filter the syrup coming off the rig. You are going to have a lot more coming off quickly and you don't want to have a log jam messing things up. I jumped from about 1 gal/hour to 2-3/hr. I hadn't put any thought into that aspect of using an RO, but just by dumb luck I gave the Optimizer a try this year and thank God I did. The traditional cone setup would not have kept up and I would have had a mess on my hands... and floor.

You are right about not missing the time boiling 1%. You will also not miss missing out having dinner with your family or putting the kids to bed. Congratulations on the new sugar maker.

Sean

[n8hutch]

All good ideas, I will definitely stock up on pre filters, I hadn't thought of a storage vessel. can these be made out of schedule 40 pvc? Definitely going to get some better testing equipment, going to try and strech the budget for a press, But if I have to I will struggle through one more year with the flat filters.

BAP I went with a CDL. I have a very good dealer near bye and it was slightly cheaper than the MES quote I got and the MES quoted had a Fiberglass vessel and that kind of seemed like a step backward to me.

Sean my son was born 2 months ago, guess I need to update my signature , thanks for the well wishes.

Thanks for all the tips, sometimes it gets Kinda slow on here in the summer. Thinking I'm going to try and go to MapleRama on Friday August 4th maybe I can pickup a few things on the tours.

[maple flats]

For 4" membranes I made mine out of pvc pipe. Your's will likely be an 8", to make a vessel just put a cap on one end and on the other you need a fitting that will not reduce the size of the opening and it must close tight. For my 4" I have an adapter that glued onto the PVC pipe and it has a female thread on the other end. I screw a plug into there.
For filtering, it was said syrup draw went up to 2-3x, mine went up by 3-6x, that all depends on how far you concentrate. If you go from 2% to 8% you draw 4x as much, if you go from 2% to 12% it's 6x and so forth. My rig only does to 14-15% well in an initial pass from 2 to 8 then recirculate until 14-15%. Better RO's go to 18-20-22 or even more, be ready for the syrup.
Before my RO I drew 5-6 qts an hour, now I draw 6-9 gal. an hour.

[Potters3]

Filter press if you don't already have one, draw tank hooked up to the press, and places to put finished syrup. Our first year with a RO going to 6% the cone filters just wouldn't keep up or do a good job when you are pushing them with a lot of syrup. It will come a lot faster now. Extra strainer for the "Y" strainer if your machine has one.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

I may have missed it here in other replies but be prepared for faster niter build-up. I change direction every time I boil on my 2x4.

[maple flats]

On that topic, I learned to watch the boil in the syrup pan. With a little practice you can tell when niter is starting to build on the bottom of the pan. My pan has 4 sections. When I start to see evidence of niter building I confirm the amount by using a nylon spatula and slide it on the bottom. If there in niter a slight drag can easily be felt. As soon as I can feel it in the last 2 sections (counting in the direction of flow) I reverse the flow. That often either clears the niter or at least it helps hold off on the time before needing to shut down to clean or swap out pans (I have a second pan ready to go).
You will definately get niter faster with an RO, but I rarely need to shut down to clean before I've finished the day's sap.