To keep or upgrade watermaker

[senormechanico]

I backflush my Spectra filters with dock water at our house. No chlorine is used in our community water system.

[Nicholson58]

We have a Spectra 24 volt 200 manual, no auto, in the Caribbean. It runs every 2-5 days. Two people on board. Toilets are fresh water. Run time is about four hours. Four Tanks are 250 gallons total. We change cartridges about every 2-3 months. Get 5 micron cartridges anywhere they are sold. Get a big box on line. Try Home Depot. Same for the carbon solid brick cartridge.

We have been running on 660 watts of solar. This season we will have added 350 watts. Batteries are 740 AH @ 24 volts lithium. We have a 12.5 kw generator. The 660 watts is almost enough given good days but running the generator with the watermaker makes the WM run better, slightly higher volts. We also have DC refrigerator and freezer.

My opinion regarding your situation is, cartridges are cheap. Many people clean and re-use. Tow it behind the boat after a sloshing in a moderate bleach solution. Install a double chamber filter with valve switching. You could just tough it out until you get south.

If I had known we would usually run the generator I would have bought a big WM to coincide with generator run time.

[nofacey]

As a comparison, we cruised for 5 years with a Cruise RO producing 30 gps. Ran watermaker once every 5 days to avoid having to pickle, usually for an hour, (unless doing laundry, then it’d be two hours). Had 20 and 5 micron pre filters, might have gone though 2 of each a year (I changed out at the beginning of each year as routine maintenance, any changes between were normally because we’d gone skunky).

My thoughts:
- you seem to be going through a lot of freshwater. Look to reduce, zero costs.
- your pre filters are physically too small (and not sure if you have 20/5 combo or just the 5) If you don’t have a 20 micron, add one - and buy big, with off shelf generic filters. Replace your 5 micron unit with something 4 times as big too.

Going with pure solar powered watermaker is nice, but not at the cost of having to run the thing for hours every day - that’s unsustainable going across the Pacific - there aren’t enough parts stores.

[NYSail]

Originally Posted by CarlF

Depending on the size of your battery bank, a DC watermaker gives you a lot more flexibility. The best time to make water is when underway because the filters last much longer - I hate listening to the genset while sailing. And you can still make water with a 12v watermaker if your genset or inverter dies.

The second choice is energy recovery (Spectra is the most common) or not energy recovery ((CruiseRO and many others). Spectra’s are double (or more ) the cost. It is often cheaper to invest that money in more solar panels and/or battery capacity. I love my CruiseRO 12 volt even though I have a genset and large inverter. .

https://www.cruiserowaterandpower.co...-water-makers/

Sounds like good advise..... Thanks!

[rescher]

Originally Posted by themorb

Hi all, looking for some advice. We are a 49' monohull with 3 kids on board, ages 8, 10, 12 going from BC, Canada to pacific Mexico, across to Hawaii, and back home, on a one-year sabbatical. Not exactly sure what will happen after the year is done... options are keep the boat at home, keep going, upgrade to a larger boat, etc.

Researching water makers lead me to energy recovery 12v units to run off solar ie. Spectra. Turns out the Canadian Spectra dealer was right in my home town. Since they all use about the same 4 watts / litre, and people say watermakers "like to be run a lot" I calculated that the Ventura 150 at 6.3 gallons/hr should be fine. Our tanks hold 120 gallons, so it should take 20 hours to go from full to empty. We have never used anywhere close to 60 gallons in a day, so I was thinking <10 hours run time per day. Probably more like 5-8 hours.

So we bought the 150C with the touch screen fully automatic control for convenience, and I spent close to a week carefully installing it in our boat. I was told the filters should last a month+ so they are neatly installed under our bed.

What I didn't fully consider is 5-8 hours of run time outside of a harbour is kind of limiting. What if we are staying in the same anchorage for days at a time? We left Canada on August 2 and a few days later, ran the watermaker in an "open anchorage" for about 12 hours. The filter quality went from 100% to 10%. The next time I ran the watermaker, it quickly dropped to 0% and shut off. I put in new filters and the next time we ran it for about 8 hours about 10 miles offshore. They clogged up in those 8 hours.

Talking to a few Spectra experts on the phone, yes filters can clog in a day in an anchorage but even 10 miles offshore there is still enough plankton up north that it's not much different than a harbour. There is a plankton filter kit we could add, but as we are heading south they recommended not bothering with it as the plankton should subside.

Right now we are in southern Oregon, and will be in California soon where there are a bunch of Spectra dealers. Obviously I need to pick up a case of filters at minimum.

Talking to the Spectra guy in SF, there are a couple other options we could consider to increase output and shorten run time. He could rebuild our Clark pump for 10% output and turn our system into a 200C, so two extra gallons per hour. The other option is to buy a whole new system, the 340C, at double the output, and leave our 150C with him on consignment. This is quite an expensive and time consuming option, but one I am strongly considering. I also like how the 340C has a longer lasting feed pump, although I could carry a replacement pump head for ours and that would be far cheaper than a whole new system.

Say we need to run ours on average for 5-8 hours per day, so upgrading to the 340C would cut that in half to 2.5-4 hours per day. So we will still need to run "near shore" and in "clean anchorages" in Mexico. We aren't going to want to up anchor and motor way out on a calm day just to make water for hours.

So that leads me back to -- if we need to run for 4 hours in an anchorage, what difference is it running for 8 hours? It is quiet enough not to be too annoying. I believe it would be overall the same volume of water passing through the filters. So maybe I should save my money and just get used to the idea of changing filters more regularly. I will move the filters from under our bed to the other side of the bulkhead in the sail locker where they will be much more convenient to replace.

We have a Honda 2000 generator on board, and I did consider a much cheaper AC unit from CruiseRO at 30 gallons per hour, but that would mean running the generator for 2 hours per day, every day, which I am thinking would get very old very fast.

So if you have read this far, what do you think? Upgrade or keep? I would love to hear thoughts from anyone, particularly if you are cruising with kids or happen to be around the Sea of Cortez where we are headed!

Thanks!!!
Nathaniel

Spectra is a nightmare. It’s fine for a weekend sailor, but not live aboard cruisers. We ditched ours and bought a CruiseRO 40 GPH. The Spectra is too automated and requires too many spare parts to operate reliably. CruiseRO is simple and just runs. Yes you will need a ton of filters. We’ve been cruising full time eight year and carry about 24 of each filter. We wash them in the washing machine. They last two to six weeks between change.

[markxengineerin]

We wash them in the washing machine. They last two to six weeks between change.

Have you tried spraying them off and storing dry after each use? This was an absolute game changer for me- I went from replacing filters every week to still using the same one months later (don't remember how many, but it seems it may last forever at this rate).

I do have some complaints about Spectra (diaphragm feed pumps were junky, I replaced with procon pump, and material choices are sometimes questionable, hi pressure fittings) but there are many, many full time cruisers who have worked out the bugs and happy with the product.

[nmccubbin]

It seems a pity to lose cruising time and $$ installing a new watermaker, particuarly when you are on only a one year cruise. You should be in Mexico, not held up in civilisation.
In our experience you could easily cut your fresh water consumption in half.
Two things we have are
1) Saltwater feed to galley sink. Ours is a very convenint foot pump, but electric would be even better, and perhaps easier to retrofit. 90% of the water used is seawater when we are in reasonably clean areas
2) Saltwater, outdoor shower. Use Dawn dishwashing soap, great in seawater, with a fresh water rinse

BTW, our 10 g/hour watermaker does us fine. In the South Pacific and Caribbean the prefilters last from a few weeks to 5 months.

When we were young and tough, we used 450 litres (about 110 US gallons) in three months in the caribbean. Two adults and a big dog on board, and a couple more adults part time. NO fresh showers.

[themorb]

Thanks for all the thoughts -- just a quick update. Our current plan is to get the Spectra 150 Clark pump rebuilt into a 200 (3 hours in the workshop -- very simple) which increases our output by 30% and makes it slightly more energy efficient (4 watts/litre vs. 4.5 watts/litre.) The concern re: cold water is not a concern as our water back home isn't really that cold and we have no plans to cruise in colder water. Also, the salinity decreases in colder water, which decreases the pressure issue further.

I have already been noticing that the filters are staying cleaner as we move south (currently in northern California.) I have been cleaning and reusing and will pick up a bunch of replacements at the next opportunity. If we do end up using the watermaker much back home in the PNW after this trip, I might consider adding better plankton pre-filter(s) at that time.

I will try to remember to report back on this thread a few months after the upgrade with my thoughts in case it is helpful to any future users.

[Simi 60]

240v 140 lph diy build for us
20mic and 5 mic filters cleaned when they look manky, about 3rd or 4th run.
Flush with product water after every use

Run it from about 9:30am to 1:30pm ever 5 to 7 days to keep the 2000 litre water tanks full.
Enough solar onboard to run it.

Use as much water as we like, even have fresh water flush toilets.

[Lepke]

I live onboard and I make water all year. In the winter on the Columbia River, so I have a series of filters from 20 micron down to 1 micron and others that take out chlorine, etc., and make the water taste better. I use Big Blue 4.5x20 and they last about a year. The larger micron filters are washable, but the 1 micron is disposable. If you buy filters in bulk, they're a lot cheaper. Filtering the water gives a lower TDS. In fresh below 5 and salt below 100. My membranes are over 10 years old. Entire system is flushed with fresh RO water after making water.

I use a lot of water and have a washer and dishwasher. Sometimes many guests. I set my boat up to be as comfortable as life in a house.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by themorb

Thanks for all the thoughts -- just a quick update. Our current plan is to get the Spectra 150 Clark pump rebuilt into a 200 (3 hours in the workshop -- very simple) which increases our output by 30% and makes it slightly more energy efficient (4 watts/litre vs. 4.5 watts/litre.) The concern re: cold water is not a concern as our water back home isn't really that cold and we have no plans to cruise in colder water. Also, the salinity decreases in colder water, which decreases the pressure issue further.

A Spectra 200 will not work in this area.