RO.jpg
Greetings All, thanks for the wealth of info on this site. Just finished my build - 3- 400 gpd membranes, first 2 in parallel, 1 in series. Flushed with water, ready for sap !!
RO.jpg
Greetings All, thanks for the wealth of info on this site. Just finished my build - 3- 400 gpd membranes, first 2 in parallel, 1 in series. Flushed with water, ready for sap !!
100 taps
2' x 4' Patrick Phaneuf flat pan
Oil tank arch
Interesting layout. Could you describe the rational for having two membranes parallel in series with a single third membrane. I also have three 400 gpd membranes and ran them all parallel last season but am rethinking there may be a better arrangement.
His next door neighbor told him to put them all in series to keep flow rates up but he didn’t listen to him either!
Nice build neighbour!
Maple Rock Farm
www.Maplerockfarm.ca
400 taps on Vacuum
18”x60” Lapierre propane evaporator with Smokey Lake auto draw off
Homemade 3 post RO with MES membranes
Ford TS110 tractor sap hauler
The design was originally to copy the RO Bucket, 3 in parallel, but then I saw a post from Dr Perkins that
mentioned this layout. I plan to run some sap through it tomorrow , so I’ll see what kind of flow I get. I was just trying to get the most out of the pump and membranes.
100 taps
2' x 4' Patrick Phaneuf flat pan
Oil tank arch
This looks like something I can build. Do you have a material list? Thanks for the post.
2016- 32 taps, 3 1/2 gallons
2017- 150 taps, 13 gallons after building an evaporator
2018- goal is 240+ taps. 20+ gallons.
2018 Reality- 235 taps, 5 gallons of syrup. Average 50 birch taps and 3 gallons of syrup.
2019- 180 maple taps, 20 gallons of finished syrup.
~ 160 birch taps, 13 finished gallons of syrup.
Latitude 47.278150
www.facebook.com/livingoffmyland2015
What do you typically see for sugar content? You may not have enough flow/pressure with the membranes in parallel to prevent them from fouling. I ran into that myself as we have fairly high sugar. The flow being split between the two membranes was not creating enough turbidity and they would begin slowing down on performance after a short time.
Season TotalsCurrent Equipment
- 2019 - 24 Taps / 11.5 Gal. Syrup
- 2018 - 24 Taps / 20 Gal. Syrup
- 2017 - 18 Taps + 7 Taps added Mid-Season / 15 Gal. Syrup
- 2016 - 18 Taps added Mid-Season / 5.25 Gal. Syrup
- Off-grid solar/battery powered home-built RO and "Sugar House"
- Homebuilt 34x17 Propane Evaporator
RO is up and running with sap. At 120 psi, i'm getting about .65L/m concentrate and .35L/m permeate. Concentrate is just under 5%. Any suggestions ??
Last edited by Harken; 03-20-2019 at 12:39 PM.
100 taps
2' x 4' Patrick Phaneuf flat pan
Oil tank arch
Start boiling!
Not sure what you wanted for suggestions, but here are a few along with a few notes with your type of setup...if you want a higher concentrate level you should either recirculate or plumb in series. With that in mind these types of RO's max out around 8%. The higher the desired concentration the slower the system processes. Ebb and flow I guess. Your starting sugar content plays a factor here as well, my trees run from 2.6 to 3.2 during the year. I never get above 7% final. What I shoot for is matching output gallons to the speed of evaporation. Maybe not the best allowable performance of the RO, but I relish that my boiling is cut by 45 to 50%.
Have fun!
SDdave
It's not the size of the tree...it's what inside that counts!
How much do you have into it? Looks like something I would like to try. Is that the same capacity as the RO bucket that is sold?
It cost me close to $600 CDN ( including taxes and shipping).
Its similar to the RO bucket, just plumbed a bit different.
Ran it today, after a bit of recirculation, had sap up to 6%.
100 taps
2' x 4' Patrick Phaneuf flat pan
Oil tank arch