240 vs 12 volt Watermaker

[Freedom Family]

Hi there,
Getting ready to jump on board early next year so doing plenty of research on systems. One being the Watermaker.
A few questions spring to mind.


- High output 240v or lower 12v ?
- Solar or honda gen to power?
- If solar .. how many panels/batteries needed?

I know these are ball park queries.. but some examples of working installations would be appreciated

Also:

Good watermaker brands - hoping to install myself.

Thnx

[john61ct]

Context makes a huge difference. Starting with, what type of boat and how big?

Mostly-solar setup, rarely get ICE (ICE = Internal Combustion Engine)energy inputs, focus on energy efficiency, gallons produced per Ah consumed, lower gph rate means watermaker running for many hours.

Bigger boat running a genset, then focus on a high gph production rate so you can minimize runtime, don't worry about energy efficiency.

A stinkpot with alternators providing most of the boat's electricity, could go with high-gph from DC, Rich Boren @ Cruise RO could easily set you up, or could use a 240Vac unit off a big inverter.

Running off the battery bank without an ICE source running, pretty much need to focus on the energy efficiency.

Most boats don't have room for more than 600-800W of panels, especially if sailing performance and aesthetics are important.

That much power would usually be served by a 300-800Ah 12V bank, at the higher end if other sources are also significant.

[Freedom Family]

sorry...yes looking at a 45' mono - family of 4. Sorry for ignorance.. what are ICE (ICE = Internal Combustion Engine) energy input?

[CatNewBee]

Ours is both, 12V and 240V Dessalator duo 100, came with the boat, semi-automatic. You turn it on and regulate the pressure of the high pressure pump, the unit measures the ppm / water quality and automatically enables the flow when the quality is ok. Depending on how you turn it off, the unit either shuts down or rinses the filter and the unit with fresh water prior shut down.

https://www.dessalator.fr/de/produkte/serie-ac-dc-duo/

At 12V it takes 70A, so 70Ah for 100l of fresh water.
We run it off solar and / or LFP battery.

We can run it on 240V too using the inverter, than it draws 90A on 12V, or use the generator and run on 240V, while charging the battery and doing other high current applications.

Works so far OK, meanwhile over 550h on the counter.

We are a couple living on board, we need about 100l per day, so we run it daily for 1h on solar, when we use the washing machine, we need 50...60l more per day.

Regarding solar and batteties, we have large capacity on both on board, mainly because we also cook and bake on solar and battery, but important for you is the current of 70A you need to proovide for 1..2h per day so for 4 people using the shower and washing dishes with fresh water you need a source that provides at least 70...140Ah per day and batteries, that can handle the current for one to two hours on topp of the other loads.

[john61ct]

ICE: genset or alternators, IOW high-current sources of electricity, burning dino juice in an internal combustion engine.

As opposed to alternative, low-current sources like solar, wind and hydro.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by john61ct

ICE: genset or alternators, IOW high-current sources of electricity, burning dino juice in an internal combustion engine.

As opposed to alternative, low-current sources like solar, wind and hydro.

High current ICE and low current solar is relative, our alternator on the engines delivers 40A charging current each to the house, while our solar delivers 100A., our solar set up delivers more power than both engines together, also we run the engines for docking only and rarely when under way.

[john61ct]

Yes I did not mean to imply ICE is always higher-current.

But if say 200-400A currents are wanted, ICE would usually be the path taken.

[lamadriver]

I have 12V system and if i were to do it again I would go 240v. just for volume

it takes the 8-10ah to produced 30LPH, and it very voltage sensitive. I need to be running the motor or reallying sailing fast with using the hydro-generator. I can run it with the portable gas gen-set when at anchor.

Being able to run the motor or a Genset and get 100. liters in an hour makes way more sense IMO. Id have a long talk with the Cruise RO people. he seems to have great customer service and come up with good solutions

These things aren't very complicated and you can build your own.

[cjbouldin]

We utilize a 9kw genset to run the water maker. I bought an off the shelf system. SeaWater Pro. We produce about 37 gal/hr while also charging batteries etc. I installed it myself as it is designed to be owner installed using off the shelf parts. Mike, the company owner is great with support.
Water makers aren’t rocket science and it wasn’t that complicated to install.
Best of luck!

[SV THIRD DAY]

The important thing about this question is to realize that there is no right answer as long as you get the water maker that works for you and your boat set-up. There are great AC and Great DC water makers on the market from Manual to ones that will email you when they need filter changes with touch screen automation! I know the "no right answer" line isn't as satisfying and can actually contribute to the "analysis Paralysis" but it's the truth.

Generally, this question comes down to if the boat has a Generator.
Cruisers with generators usually take advantage of that power and go with an AC water maker. Cruisers without a generator don't have that choice and need to go with a DC water maker. I'm an AC water maker guy from their simplicity and cost BUT if I was going cruising on a boat without a generator (Honda or Diesel) then I would buy what I think is the best DC water maker on the market (a Spectra) and cruise happily, although as the owner of Cruise RO, I might remove the spectra logo from the control panel to avoid all the abuse I would get...ha ha ha…

Just like solar and time out cruising, water is one of those things you just can't have too much of on a cruising boat.

The crew of SV Totem recently finished a circumnavigation with their 3 kids with a 12v DC water maker and are now in the process of taking it out and replacing it with a Honda 2000 AC water maker. I won't mention the brand because that could be considered bragging....

[Scott Berg]

We sell and install both. The customer dialog goes like this. Do you have an installed genset? Yes=get a 120/240v model. No=Look at a Spectra. After that it gets more complicated but if you already have the investment of an installed genset your gallons/liters per hour per dollar/euro will be a lot less with a high voltage unit.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

I would buy what I think is the best DC water maker on the market (a Spectra)

But if very high-current DC power is plentiful and convenient, then one of your Cruise RO high-GPH units can be adapted to use it.

Right Rich?

[Paul L]

We have an installed genset, but still decided to go with an efficient DC Spectra when replacing our old Village Marine. The VM produced 7 gal per hour at about 17amps. The new Cape Horn Spectra produces either 7 gph at 8amps (dc12v) using one pump, or 15gph at 17amps using two pumps. This gives us the ability to produce more water than we need when running at high output, usually when motoring or on cloudy days when we use the genset. Or we can use the excess solar in the afternon and run at low output.
Where we tend to sail we do a lot to avoid using the genset. Dumping additional heat into the boat is just not what we want to do. Our built in diesel genset is pretty quite. Unlike the so called quite portable Honda gensets that whole anchorage knows you're using. Especially on boats that have all kinds of creative ways to put the gas(petrol) beast in remote locations on the bow or swimstep or even tbe dinghy to reduce tbe noise on their boat.
An efficient DC watermaker gives you power options. I also like having tbe built in redundancy.

That said, I totaly agree with the It depends philosphy. This is what works really well for our tupe of cruising.

[CatNewBee]

We have both with the Duo 100, but use 99% of the time the DC 12V motor on solar and battery. It depends on your power sources and what you do with them.

We have 1650Wp solar, 1000Ah LFP, Onan 8kVA generator and 5000kVA inverter / charger. So we have all options, but use the solar almost always, it is more quiet, efficient and we do not need to get fuel too often. During this sailing season we run the generator during the spring time for about 10h mainly for maintenance and heating, and 1h during the summer for maintenance and charging the battery after some overcast days and lots of washing machine loads needing lots of fresh water.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by john61ct

ICE: genset or alternators, IOW high-current sources of electricity, burning dino juice in an internal combustion engine.
As opposed to alternative, low-current sources like solar, wind and hydro.

ICE = Internal Combustion Engine