PowerSurvivor 35 Problem

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Trident

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I bought a PS35 second hand and found when fitted that it only output around 1/4 gallon an hour of poor quality water. As it was an unknown I bought the seal repair kit and a new membrane from Katadyn and replaced all the seals and o-rings (despite no sign of leakage) except those on the piston shaft as the recommendation is to do so only if they appear damaged; which they didn’t. The has had no effect on the output at all.

The throughput of reject water is 11 gph - and is unaltered between taking from the through hull and from a bucket of seater direct to the input hose. The output of product water is however only 1/4 gallon per hour (30cc per minute). From the troubleshooting guide it suggests that as output is below 70cc a minute whilst reject water is over 850cc (its actually 800cc but has been unchanged between the original check valves and the new ones I just installed) means I have a faulty spool valve - which I guess is no longer available as replacement part…

However, I also noticed that the pressure relief valve doesn’t have any movement on the white rod at all and wondered if there might be an issue there.

Just to eliminate things the batteries and voltage are good, no air bubbles can be seen in the reject water hose and there are no visible leaks from anywhere in the system or pump.

Any advice gratefully received...
 
Trident said:
I bought a PS35 second hand and found when fitted that it only output around 1/4 gallon an hour of poor quality water. As it was an unknown I bought the seal repair kit and a new membrane from Katadyn and replaced all the seals and o-rings (despite no sign of leakage) except those on the piston shaft as the recommendation is to do so only if they appear damaged; which they didn’t. The has had no effect on the output at all.

The throughput of reject water is 11 gph - and is unaltered between taking from the through hull and from a bucket of seater direct to the input hose. The output of product water is however only 1/4 gallon per hour (30cc per minute). From the troubleshooting guide it suggests that as output is below 70cc a minute whilst reject water is over 850cc (its actually 800cc but has been unchanged between the original check valves and the new ones I just installed) means I have a faulty spool valve - which I guess is no longer available as replacement part…

However, I also noticed that the pressure relief valve doesn’t have any movement on the white rod at all and wondered if there might be an issue there.

Just to eliminate things the batteries and voltage are good, no air bubbles can be seen in the reject water hose and there are no visible leaks from anywhere in the system or pump.

Any advice gratefully received...
Click to expand...


This guy is the guru on Power survivor watermakers http://www.katadyn.ishipaco.com/ have a look at this may be of some help...
 
Have a chat with Jim MacDonald at Mactra. He knows the PUR PowerSurvivor well and holds a good stock of spares.
I recently rebuilt mine with all new seals after an o-ring failure on the pump back and all is well. Was there any sign of wear on your piston, piston shaft or cylinder? It sounds like your pump may not be producing enough pressure.
As I'm sure you know the pressure relief valve should pop out if there is too much pressure and will drip when this happens. You should be able to push it in. Is it showing the red/orange section in its current, seized position?
How many cycles per minute is you pump doing?
 
There doesn't appear to be any wear on the shaft or in the piston or cylinder. I replaced all the seals and o-rings but the pressure relief valve is basically stuck - I cleaned it and can pull it in and out with pliers but under normal pumping it stops moving and the red part is not showing - its not dripping at all.

The pump takes about 1.5 seconds to do a full cycle in and out - so around 40 cycles a minute - does that sound right?
 
That sounds a bit fast. IIRC mine does around 30 per minute and produces the specified 4.5-5 litres per hour. This may also point to not enough pressure - less work to do so running faster?
 
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Yes its a new pre-filter and I tested from a bucket of filtered sea water direct to the intake hose on the PS35 to eliminate the pre-filter and the results were identical
 
Hopefully Jim at Mactra will be able to help. If all is as it should be with the cylinder and piston (piston seals the right way round and not damaged, and no wear on the cylinder) I can't suggest anything further, but I'm no expert. Be sure to let us know the cause when you find it.

Best of luck
 
Just spoke to Jim at Mactra as suggested - he thinks its the manifold though can't say why - but has seen the same symptoms before and swapping the manifold cures it... So I'll ship it off to him and wait for it to come back working...
 
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