Water Maker - Horizon /Sea Recovery Aqua Mini 170

[Screen Saver]

Anyone played with Water Maker - Horizon /Sea Recovery Aqua Mini 170 (7g/h or 26L/h )
Has anyone done any modifications or upgrades.
These units are small by today's standards, but I have had mine some 15 years and its done 1200 hours. In 15 years it has never given me any trouble, haven’t even replaced the membrane, only pre filters, though I'm careful where I run it. It’s a 12v DC unit and has auto rinse cycle which I believe is what has saved the membrane, along with only running it in clean water. It has a small 26” membrane, now due for replacement. So Im contemplating replacing the existing membrane with a 42” version.. I have a low estimate of this being successful, but someone has suggested the existing high-pressure pump (see attached) has sufficient flow to keep up the 850PSI and if that’s true it should work. But if not then the plan is to replace the high-pressure pump with a typical 230v Hydroblaster (water blaster) The idea being to keep all the rest of the plumbing, electronic smarts, gauges and cosmetic integration.
So has anyone played around with Horizon water maker, any first-hand experience, any conformation the attached pump can keep up, along anything along any of these lines?

 

[kloudie1]

The pump itself is rated for 30 gallons per hour and 1200 PSI .. Asking it to flow a good bit more (42" membrane should flow roughly 60% more).. The pump can probably handle it but the motor would need to make roughly 60% more horsepower. It would draw roughly 60% more current to do that .. You can measure the current that the existing motor is drawing when making water and look at its current rating ; if there is 60% more capacity available in the motor AND the wiring can deliver that , it'd be OK.
The motor would have been attached to the pump by the watermaker manufacturer.. That info should be available in the watermaker's documentation.

 

[jssailem]

In 15 years it has never given me any trouble, haven’t even replaced the membrane, only pre filters, though I'm careful where I run it. It’s a 12v DC unit and has auto rinse cycle which I believe is what has saved the membrane, along with only running it in clean water

15 years seems like a long time for a membrane to be running. I am unclear what you mean by “clean water”.
Does that mean open ocean, not Sydney Harbor?

 

[capta]

Is the 230v Hydroblaster a food grade pump. As motors heat up they can pass dangerous offgasses into the water you are making. I know they are more expensive, but stick to food grade parts in your watermaker.

 

[Screen Saver]

The pump itself is rated for 30 gallons per hour and 1200 PSI .. Asking it to flow a good bit more (42" membrane should flow roughly 60% more).. The pump can probably handle it but the motor would need to make roughly 60% more horsepower. It would draw roughly 60% more current to do that .. You can measure the current that the existing motor is drawing when making water and look at its current rating ; if there is 60% more capacity available in the motor AND the wiring can deliver that , it'd be OK.
The motor would have been attached to the pump by the watermaker manufacturer.. That info should be available in the watermaker's documentation.

Ah hadnt considered the motor to be honest. Thats probably why the next model up has 230v 1HP motor. I had assumed if the pressure was the same, then the load would be roughly the same. Yea 60% increase in draw would put it up at 40 amps on 12v, that would also reduce the available time I could run it of my solar.

 

[Screen Saver]

Does that mean open ocean, not Sydney Harbor?

Yes basically your correct. I don't run it in harbors or anywhere I can't see at least 2 or 3m. I didn't run it in Lake Macquarie for example either. If I can see the bottom of the keel 7ft, and not lots of other stuff like the grass in Lake Macquarie then yep if I need to, I will run it. I won't say I have never run it when the water is cloudy and I did run it at Stores Beach just in Sydney Heads a few times, before the hard top, but generally I try not to. We carry about 900L of water and we have a solid bimini now with gutter so most times in a month or 6 weeks it general rains. In the tropics we can easily get 200-300L in the afternoon shower ( or more) You can also see by the hours that in 15 years its done about 80 hours per year.

 

[Screen Saver]

Is the 230v Hydroblaster a food grade pump. As motors heat up they can pass dangerous offgasses into the water you are making. I know they are more expensive, but stick to food grade parts in your watermaker.

I wasn't aware they made Hydro blaster using food grade pump. A quick Google didn't turn up any, but if you know of such a thing a pointer would be good. I will dig around further.

 

[Screen Saver]

So perhaps I need to look at economies of scale.

Currently at about 24-26amps DC and with new Membrane, the existing unit should produce about 7g (26L) per hour. This I can run on solar most days for at least 6 hours per day if I want to and still charge my batteries, maybe not full though.

Trying to workout the output of the proposed membrane (SW30-2540) its quoting a Permeate Flow rate (Im assuming that’s RO water to the tank) of 700gpd(29/hr) this is much higher than the existing unit at 7g/hr. Thats 4 times the volume and its not even twice the length. So I’m thinking the length increase is not directly proportional to the product volume increase, probably the area increase.

Anyway, If I go up in size and assuming the DC motor will stand it, in theory I could produce 29g/hr(109L)
So ultimately in my very rough theory even if the power consumption doubles my water production has gone up 4 fold (26l to 109L) So Im better off.

If the DC motor cant deal with it, which now seems quite likely, at the last Sydney Boat show one of the water makers had there equipment being driven by an everyday water blaster and I have herd of others doing this. Given my system always does a freshwater rinse both once per week and after each time its run, the pump would be left with mostly freshwater inside, and given the price of these things, I could buy a couple. It roughly looks like something less than 1200 watts and this I believe would drive more than my proposed 2.5 x 40 membrane. This still needs a bit more homework. Before I invest money and start

So existing: 26 amps @12v say 312watts for 26L/hr
Upgraded: 45amps @12v say 540watts for 109L/hr
Karcher: ?? Amps (+inverter loss)

 

[jssailem]

It is an interesting subject. As you experiment, let us know what you experience.

 

[capta]

I wasn't aware they made Hydro blaster using food grade pump. A quick Google didn't turn up any, but if you know of such a thing a pointer would be good. I will dig around further.

High pressure washdown pumps are not interchangeable with watermaker high pressure pumps. The latter has valves and seats coated with something which will not allow those parts to send bits and pieces of themselves into the water. There is also a different drive seal which will not allow vapors from the drive motor to compromise the pumped water.

 

[kloudie1]

In addition, I didn't include the brine bypass flow in my thinking (with a nip of Sailor Jerry) My mistake.... so the pump may be adequately sized for the existing membrane and nothing more.. Continued ruminations are necessary! (and probably a new pump for the upgrade)