Poor Water Quality from Dessolator D60

[psychfeld]

Hi all,

I have a dessolator d60 that came with a boat I purchased. I have been using it about 2 weeks now. Just today it displayed "poor quality" as I've run the system. I flushed it several times with fresh water under no pressure.

It still is not producing fresh water.

I'm not sure what to try next. Any thoughts, suggestions, troubleshooting ideas would help. The manual does not seem to offer any suggestions that I can find.

thanks!

Rob

[Sailmonkey]

Where have you been getting the fresh water for the flush? Is it chlorinated?

Do you have a tds meter or are you relying on a light to tell you "poor quality"?

[psychfeld]

I'm not sure what's in the tap water in bahamas, but that's what I used to flush - nassau tap water. I ran out of watermaker water on that tank and switched to the other water tank to flush.

[psychfeld]

also, I dont' have tds meeting, just getting "poor quality" idiot light from panel and the system is dumping the filtered water overboard

[Sailmonkey]

If the Nassau tap water is chlorinated you've just bought a new membrane.

[psychfeld]

eeks! no kidding, damn

[Sailmonkey]

If you've got a standard membrane the cost isn't that bad.

I always keep enough product water around to pickle the water maker with sodium metabosulfate when I plan on being in port.

[psychfeld]

have you got a supplier you recommend?

[Sailmonkey]

I do not....our water maker uses a proprietary membrane so I don't get to shop around.

[Sailmonkey]

It would be a good idea to purchase an inexpensive tds meter from amazon or similar to confirm the idiot light too.

[a64pilot]

Rich Boren at Cruise RO will likely know what membrane you take.
I do not own a watermaker yet, but I believe your premature in condemning your membrane just yet, you might get lucky and it be a bad O ring or something simple, but I do believe chlorine is a sure way to kill a membrane.
Give rich a call, even though its not his watermaker I bet he will help. I think he is smart enough to know he sells a lot of product that way

[Rivatar]

If you have a charcoal filter in the flush line, that filter is designed to remove chlorine from the flush so as not to kill the membrane

[sailguy98245]

Desalinators are relatively simple so the fix may be fairly easy. Call Desalinator or their rep. They're very helpful over the phone. We did this on a boat in Madeira this past fall and they helped us solve the problem over the phone and without any parts needed.

[Lepke]

membrane may need cleaning.

[SV Bacchus]

If Rich can't help you then check with Tellie, a CF member, who sells Spectra but services and has knowledge of many brands. He is located in Ft. Lauderdale.