| |
Watermaker Tips
|
Our Village Marine "Little Wonder" watermaker has performed just fine so
far. We installed it in 2002. Click
here to see a schematic. There are a
few operational things we have learned that
likely apply to all water makers.
1) If the water cloudy or brown or
green with plankton, don't use the watermaker. Try and move
to clear water before starting the machine. While you can make
water under these conditions, filters will plug quickly and the
produced water will soon be stinky and not so pleasant. |
| |
|
|
| |
2) You can reuse the
filters a couple of times. Clean them with blasts of clean water.
Then leave them in strong sunlight for a day or two to cook any smells
out of them. Cleaned filters will last about 1/2 as long as the
last time you used them - depending on the cleanliness of the feed
water. |
| |
|
| |
3) The manuals say you can
leave the machine for a few days without flushing, but I find a
fresh water flush after every use helps avoid stinky water and shortens
the start up time. |
| |
|
| |
4) Water production varies
significantly with water temperature and water salinity. In the
Straights of Georgia, where the water is not very salty, but
quite cold we were hitting and exceeding specified production rates.
Out in the Pacific, however, production dropped.
At first I thought we had plugged or
screwed up our membrane because of low production. After applying
the manufactures correction factors for temperature, the unit was
meeting its design production. It was disappointing to find
my 200 gallons per day unit does about 150 gallons per day in Southern
California waters. Then again it was great to see production climb back up
to its 200 GPD specification as we reached the warm waters off mainland Mexico.
Output was steady until we hit cooler waters off South America. |
| |
|
| |
4) Filters need monitoring if feed
water is less than perfect. In Mexico, filters lasted a few weeks at best. In
the South Pacific filters lasted months. The oil in the high pressure pump needs
changing every six months or so. The manufactures recommended secondary boost pump
was very low draw but failed twice in two years. We now carry a spare. |
