Anyone used a "Chinese" ro watermaker

C

Captain Phil

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Hi all
I've been contemplating adding a water maker to my Fairline T45 since last summers trip around Menorca staying out of marinas as much as possible and enjoying the beautiful bays.

I have looked at many of the smaller ones in the approx 3-5k price range and I'm sure they would do a job - but finding it difficult to justify 5k plus fitting for a couple of days a year when we need the water!

My question is - has anyone got experience with one of the Chinese water makers like
3000~5000lpd Small Watermaker For Boat / Modular Watermaker / Yacht Watermaker Sea Water Desalination System Seawater Treatment - Buy Marine Desalinization Maker Land Base Desalinator Compact Desalinization Purifier Full Automatic Seawater Treat Ment For Boat,Seawater Desalination Plant Salty Water Desalination System Brackish Water Desalination Equipment Well Water Desalination Machin,Underground Water Ro Plant Rainwater Ro System Sea Water Ro Equipment Water Maker For Boat Boat Water Maker Salt Water To Drinki Product on Alibaba.com

About a thousand pounds at todays exchange rate I know if it looks too good to be true it probably is - but I fitted one of the cheap and cheerful Chinese diesel heaters and that is a brilliant little bit of kit. Took a punt on that with great results.

Any advice and comments, especially from anyone who has got one of these, much appreciated
 
I’ll be interested to know how you get on. The pump seems to be the expensive bit normally so if that can maintain pressure for reasonable power then it’s probably a win
 
two points:
A. the manifold of the high pressure pump seems to be bronze/brass whatever but not stainless steel. That alone typically is close to 1k with a decent throughput.
B. I guess the cheapest one will have one short pressure vessel which is good for 20-30lt per hour.

Now, if you're careful and flush it with fresh water after your week long vacation, carefully pickle it and keep it like that till next use/year, it's probably going to be OK. After all ppl use karcher pressure washers motors to run watermakers and they make a few years use out of them.

20-30lt per hour is simple too little to be useful - don't be fooled with the lpd value they state, you're not going to be running this thing 24/7, unless your generator is also running for many hours! I had a HRO watermaker with a membrane like that, just added an SW2430 membrane + pressure vessel and I'm up to almost 100lph which is bearable/acceptable.
I'm using on passages, I generally do an hour or so every couple of days and makes the water we need for the two of us. If we have kids and/or friends, then I may have to run the generator and use it daily, or run it through a victron multiplus inverter midday using solar power (600W in the med) for 30-45min each noon, reasonably quietly. Again, if you run on anchor your geny 3h a day, on a small vessel you'll be making 60-70lt, not sure it's worth it.

Conclusion:
IMHO, bearing in mind that the bronze/brass/whatever high pressure pump is a probably circa 100euro piece, and comparing with the price of a decent autobackflush/auto whatever watermaker, I'd get one with a long pressure vessel (for SW2430) and know I'll be having circa 70-80lph. I'd also get a spare pump just in case :)

V.
 
Well worth a punt. Would want to be sure about spares. 20 to 30 l per hour would be fine for our needs even just running for 3 hours when we have excess solar.
keep us informed and create a good English set of instructions to share with us!
 
vas said:
two points:
A. the manifold of the high pressure pump seems to be bronze/brass whatever but not stainless steel. That alone typically is close to 1k with a decent throughput.

Please explain that. I would pit stainless steel (316) against brass (grade?) for some applications any day. Even bronze needs to be defined by grade.

B. I guess the cheapest one will have one short pressure vessel which is good for 20-30lt per hour.

20-30lt per hour is simple too little to be useful

Good grief! What size family are you catering for? :)

V.
Click to expand...
 
Graham,

there are more knowledgeable ppl than me in here, I guess they'll join and comment. I'm only stating what I've seen /heard over the last 5yrs. No branded watermaker comes with non ss pump, I guess there's a reason there.

Daughter and 3-4 of her friends for a week last summer, that was fun...
A month with the wife was ok, would run it off excess solar every two days for half an hour or so.
It's mainly that I don't like running the generator at anchor so don't want the watermaker to run for long hours. If you don't mind that, go ahead with the small one.

V
 
pcatterall said:
Well worth a punt. Would want to be sure about spares. 20 to 30 l per hour would be fine for our needs even just running for 3 hours when we have excess solar.
keep us informed and create a good English set of instructions to share with us!
Click to expand...
motor would be (I guess didn't check) close to 2kw@230V Can you run on solar through an inverter for 2 or 3 h? At 24V, that's over 80A on mine, batteries don't like that at all (4XTrojans T105RE on their last legs admittedly, will move to LifePO4 next summer)
 
Captain Phil said:
Hi all
I've been contemplating adding a water maker to my Fairline T45 since last summers trip around Menorca staying out of marinas as much as possible and enjoying the beautiful bays.

I have looked at many of the smaller ones in the approx 3-5k price range and I'm sure they would do a job - but finding it difficult to justify 5k plus fitting for a couple of days a year when we need the water!

My question is - has anyone got experience with one of the Chinese water makers like
3000~5000lpd Small Watermaker For Boat / Modular Watermaker / Yacht Watermaker Sea Water Desalination System Seawater Treatment - Buy Marine Desalinization Maker Land Base Desalinator Compact Desalinization Purifier Full Automatic Seawater Treat Ment For Boat,Seawater Desalination Plant Salty Water Desalination System Brackish Water Desalination Equipment Well Water Desalination Machin,Underground Water Ro Plant Rainwater Ro System Sea Water Ro Equipment Water Maker For Boat Boat Water Maker Salt Water To Drinki Product on Alibaba.com

About a thousand pounds at todays exchange rate I know if it looks too good to be true it probably is - but I fitted one of the cheap and cheerful Chinese diesel heaters and that is a brilliant little bit of kit. Took a punt on that with great results.

Any advice and comments, especially from anyone who has got one of these, much appreciated
Click to expand...
Generally speaking, if it looks too good to be true it isn't true.
An aquaintance of mine who came into a lot of money bought a brand new 42-footer and among many other toys, had an expensive branded watermaker fitted. After three years it still doesn't work. What chances for a cheapie?
 
The ones build has 1.5hp 230 AC motor I not yet tried it with my new invertor but off the Gen it uses 12A at 230 thats going to be over 200A at 12v thats without startup .
Be interested to see what happen when I do try it .
Mine give we 90lph
 
What's the worst that can happen? You're only removing salt from water.

Surely the worst that can happen is that it's rubbish and you lose you money, but it has to be worth a punt, surely.

and stop calling me Shirley...
 
Spirit (of Glenans) said:
Generally speaking, if it looks too good to be true it isn't true.
An aquaintance of mine who came into a lot of money bought a brand new 42-footer and among many other toys, had an expensive branded watermaker fitted. After three years it still doesn't work. What chances for a cheapie?
Click to expand...
Better to waste £1k than £5k then
 
Hi all. This was my first post. So well impressed with the broad knowledge and skills of you alll

thanks for the comments and suggestions I’m now thinking that it may well be worth a punt. But would probably think the second model up (only about another80 quid) would in theory give double the output They quote 50 lph.

not sure if that’s enough based on some comments. But it is only a bit of back up. And we will be relatively close to civilisation so could go port to fill if needed

appreciate any further comments.
love to hear ftrom someone who has tried this route. My ongoing research shows the Chinese tech cos are well int some serious industrial ro desal. So maybe they know a thing about it

maybe even they make the expensive brands who badge them??? ?
 
Captian P
Having a water maker as back up basically your wasting your time . Water markers like to be used if you only going to use it now and then it mean you be picking it non stop and every time you want to use it again you going to have to flash it out for some time before you can reuse it .
As how good they are you only going to find out once you brought one but you have to give it to the Chinese they coming up with stuff at a very low cost and at time very good quality
 
As Vic has said, unless you use the watermaker every day or two you will need to pickle the system. This is a pain. We only do ours once a year when we leave the boat for three months. Pickling can cause deterioration of the membranes so not a thing to do repeatedly. It sounds to me like a watermaker would not be a great asset for the cruising you do.
 
geem said:
As Vic has said, unless you use the watermaker every day or two you will need to pickle the system. This is a pain. We only do ours once a year when we leave the boat for three months. Pickling can cause deterioration of the membranes so not a thing to do repeatedly. It sounds to me like a watermaker would not be a great asset for the cruising you do.
Click to expand...

Does that mean that you don't actually want to get an enormous one, but pick the size that makes sense to run daily?
Our 400l tanks last us about a fortnight, so that's just shy of 30l per day average. No genset, we'd be aiming to run on solar/battery only. So does it make sense to get a smaller unit, e.g. 20l/hr, and run it longer each day, or a bigger one and run it for less time?
(All hypothetical to be honest, our budget is getting thin and we haven't even moved aboard yet!)
 
Kelpie said:
Does that mean that you don't actually want to get an enormous one, but pick the size that makes sense to run daily?
Our 400l tanks last us about a fortnight, so that's just shy of 30l per day average. No genset, we'd be aiming to run on solar/battery only. So does it make sense to get a smaller unit, e.g. 20l/hr, and run it longer each day, or a bigger one and run it for less time?
(All hypothetical to be honest, our budget is getting thin and we haven't even moved aboard yet!)
Click to expand...
With two of us living aboard we use 40l/day (1200l/month). This includes doing all the laundry. We are careful not to waste water but we dont ration ourselves. Our watermaker makes 200 l/hr so its a big one. We rarely go longer than three days between making water or you get bacterial growth on the membranes/filters. If we are in a marina for a few days we will flush the system periodically with tank water to keep the watermaker fresh.
My previous boat had a 12v watermaker that needed long run times to meet our usage. I found it a pain. You become a slave to the watermaker. Not going ashore whilst you are running it. By comparison we run ours for half an hour typically from the generator.
My experience with small 12v watermakers is that it is hard to look after your batteries and make water. There is a conflict between charging the domestic bank up following a night of discharge from the fridge, etc and making water. My friends who chose to go this route say its fine to make water in the afternoon when there is spare solar capacity, having charged the batteries all morning. It means you are onboard every afternoon making water.
It amazes me how many people who go the 12v route end up running their engine to charge the batteries due to too much demand on their batteries and not enough solar. A couple of overcast days and you have little choice but to run the engine. Its not a route I wish to go again. With a small watermaker you have the reality that you are running the engine to make say 20 l/hr. by contrast we run a fuel efficient generator to make 200l/hr. at the same time we can run the battery charger and make a tank of hot water if we wish.
If we didnt have a diesel generator we would go engine driven and still make 200 litres per hour. We have friends with this set up and it works well
 
We run ours every two day for an hour Which give up 90 lts, although we have 400 l tanks our tank are
never more then have full we find there no need to have any more in them ,
We are two on board and we also flush one heads with fresh water we don't have a washing machine so it's all done by hand .
We don't waste water but we don't skimp on it , there a lot of showering going on summer time.
As Geen said if at any time we need to use the Gen we too have the battery charger on and heat up hot water at the same time using the water maker.
We hoping this year with the new lithium batteries that unless there more then three very cloudy days there going to be no need to worry about batteries , on our first cruise out thus year we spend 9 days on anchor and three where mostly cloudy and we managed to get through until we had a sunny day that being early spring .
What we not tried yet is see if the lithium will run the water maker went we have excess power to waste .
If that doesn't work I also plain to experiment with a power washer motor to see how much we can get off that running that off my inverter .
 
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