Trying to fix a Katadyn water maker

[davil]

Originally Posted by HisseO

Good news, I believe I have found why the pump may not put enough pressure with Salt water: The PIP ring on the piston is cracked.
Attachment 235923
The rest of the pump don't appear to be in such bad shape.
Attachment 235924
I have ordered the repair kit (waiting to receive it). I will then clean, reassemble and test with my old containers. We will see ...

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good for you
yesterday I wrote a long series of observations and manage to lose the write up before sending, was so pissed eventually went to the boat to do some more work
Actually, the gist of my observations was why not to disassemble the pump totally, something will be a good idea anyways.
You already have taken the membrane casing out, left with the pump, manifold and motor.
The motor is fine, as is working, check!
The pump, well we call it pump actually is just a cylinder and piston, you now have an idea of what needs to be corrected, the second part on the pump is to make sure the cylinder is not marred or compromised by grit, or
debris that may have scratched or damage it.
If that checks then the manifold is the last component.
Lots of very small little pieces mostly valves, springs and seals/o rings. Since they are all included in the replacement kit is just a matter of patience and have a nice flat clean surface to work and good lighting!
did have some difficulties because my arthritis
did take a lot of pics as I moved along to remind me what things look like and how they fit "memory issues

[HisseO]

Originally Posted by davil

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good for you
yesterday I wrote a long series of observations and manage to lose the write up before sending, was so pissed eventually went to the boat to do some more work
Actually, the gist of my observations was why not to disassemble the pump totally, something will be a good idea anyways.
You already have taken the membrane casing out, left with the pump, manifold and motor.
The motor is fine, as is working, check!
The pump, well we call it pump actually is just a cylinder and piston, you now have an idea of what needs to be corrected, the second part on the pump is to make sure the cylinder is not marred or compromised by grit, or
debris that may have scratched or damage it.
If that checks then the manifold is the last component.
Lots of very small little pieces mostly valves, springs and seals/o rings. Since they are all included in the replacement kit is just a matter of patience and have a nice flat clean surface to work and good lighting!
did have some difficulties because my arthritis
did take a lot of pics as I moved along to remind me what things look like and how they fit "memory issues

Thanks for your input and sorry for the late reply.
Indeed, I have disassembled the pump and found the root cause: broken seal on the piston.
Replacing the seal on the Piston requires a good amount of force (and using the tool provided with the kit), at least for the first ring seal that is made of hard rubber.
I have replaced all the seals, valves, etc...

[HisseO]

Guys, you are not going to believe it: my PowerSurvivor 80E is back to life!
The broken seal on the piston was the root cause of not producing water with sea water source, but producing some water if source was tap water.

But what seems incredible is that the 2x membranes are "kind of OK", despite I have this unit in the garage for many years. I can't say how many years it have not seen any water, but at least 3 years from my side, and many more years according the previous owner! Seems these membranes are not so fragile, or I was ultra lucky.

I'm mentioning "kind of OK" because I measured 350ppm, and that was with the very first glass of water produced.
I will try again, letting it working longer to see if PPM improves. Worst case I know I have the membranes to change, and will more likely go with Captain Bill proposal.

Thanks all for the help!

[davil]

excellent
enjoy it

[sailalibi]

dont run fresh water thru a katadyn system. The membrane cant handle that much flow thru. I destroyed a membrane using my 40e with well water that was brackish. You cant control the pressure from the katadyne pump...800 psi is too much! The flow destroys the membrane quickly.

[HisseO]

Originally Posted by sailalibi

dont run fresh water thru a katadyn system. The membrane cant handle that much flow thru. I destroyed a membrane using my 40e with well water that was brackish. You cant control the pressure from the katadyne pump...800 psi is too much! The flow destroys the membrane quickly.

Hi,
Thx for the information, and for sure it must have destroyed my memebranes: As I was explaining in my last post, after fixing the pump I finally managed to get production of water, but longer I was.running it, higher was the ppm, going even beyond 1000.

I replaced the 2x,memebranes and now produces stable 300ppm for hours.
I believe I can now vlaim this unit is fixed!

Thx all for the precious information you shared it definitively helped.

[Tellie]

Originally Posted by HisseO

Hi,
Thx for the information, and for sure it must have destroyed my memebranes: As I was explaining in my last post, after fixing the pump I finally managed to get production of water, but longer I was.running it, higher was the ppm, going even beyond 1000.

I replaced the 2x,memebranes and now produces stable 300ppm for hours.
I believe I can now vlaim this unit is fixed!

Thx all for the precious information you shared it definitively helped.

Jumping in a bit late here. If you need any advice or parts just let me know.

[HisseO]

Originally Posted by Tellie

Jumping in a bit late here. If you need any advice or parts just let me know.

Thx, I may consider storing 2x membranes as spares.

Cheers,
FreD.

[stuartm80127]

I just went through the washing machine with Katadyn support.

But first to the thread. It sounds like worn seals on pressure pump or bad spool valve. Get the Seal Repair kit and Spool Valve kit from Defender Marine - it's a 2 hour job. Do it yourself as it's worth it. You can drain and replace the gear oil too (supplied with Seal replacement kit) while you are at it.


I have a 12 year old PowerSurvivor 40E. It has the standard 30 micron pleated polyester pre-filter with no added pumps.
It has been serviced by Katadyn once in 2014 and that was the last time I had changed the membrane. TDS output was below or around 100 until 2021 when the Membrane needed to be replaced and it was 180PPM and flow was 3.2oz/min. The seals were visibly leaking on exterior of unit.

I purchased the Katadyn Seal Repair kit and the Membrane.

It took me 2.0 hours to clean and replace everything. Heed special attention to swapping the big seal on the supplied Membrane to the other end of the membrane.

Flushed it with RO water for 30 minutes. TDS on input 34PPM water. Flow was around 4oz/min. Tested with salt water a week later and the unit was oscillating between 200 and 400ppm, staying mostly on the higher end and output was 3.0oz/min. I was a very unhappy customer as the water didn't taste good.

I taked with Katadyn support and they advised me that it's possible I need to replace my Spool Valve, so I ordered the Spool Valve replacement kit from Defender. Upon replacing and testing, same exact result. Katadyn says that anything below 1,000ppm is drinkable and hence their standard, yet, 400ppm was discernably brackish to me and not anywhere close to the previous water quality I had with this unit.

I had adequate flow through Membrane thus great pump pressure, no visible leaks in the case, so I presumed all seals were doing their job. Besides, bad pressure pump seals would not impact water quality, only quantity.

I purchased another filter membrane from Defender. This one was white and I swapped the large seal to the other end, per instructions. Tested it and Wow!!! 54ppm TDS at 3.1oz/min in 65f clean ocean water. I went back to Katadyn support and they reminded me that the membrane producing up to 400ppm was considered good and 1,000ppm is their standard and that they have several Membrane suppliers.

Long story short, be advised of the Blue membranes. The previous old one I had replaced was white(180ppm and 8 years old), the bad one (up to 400ppm) was blue and the latest working one was white(54ppm).



Stuart

[Tellie]

Membranes are the one part of any watermaker that is impossible to get exact numbers from. Though I certainly agree that 54PPMs is fantastic, I'd also say that you have the only watermaker in the world that can make 56PPMs. Check to make sure your hand-held TDS meter doesn't have a small (x10) in the corner of the screen. This would make 56 in reality 560PPMs. Reading your above post, I would think that makes more sense, not certain, but it sounds like it from here. I would also say that the last membrane at just under400PPMs is a very, very good offshore number for any brand-new membrane. If I got a below 400PPM number on a repair job and new membrane I'd send you on your way confident that all is well with your watermaker. Katadyn/Spectra has a few new tech support people answering the phones. They are pretty good but, the watermaker industry, Katadyn/Spectra included, will tell you that anything under 500PPMs is an acceptable number. The World Health Organization are the ones telling us that anything under 1000PPMs is acceptable "Drinking" water. This number has nothing to do with the proper operation of any watermaker. Anything over 500PPMs is telling us that there is something amiss in the watermaker itself. Between 500 and 1000PPMs is still drinkable water. Anything over 500PPMs indicate that the pressures, flows, and membranes are not working together optimally.

[hzcruiser]

Originally Posted by sailalibi

dont run fresh water thru a katadyn system. The membrane cant handle that much flow thru. I destroyed a membrane using my 40e with well water that was brackish. You cant control the pressure from the katadyne pump...800 psi is too much! The flow destroys the membrane quickly.

Aren't you supposed to flush it with some product water at the end of every run? How does that fit together, one wonders?

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by hzcruiser

Aren't you supposed to flush it with some product water at the end of every run? How does that fit together, one wonders?

There is a clean/run valve. Clean flushes the membrane and run pressurizes it. Katadyn does not recommend flushing after each use, unless it is going to be more than 5 days until the next use. Then they recommend you put a preservative in.