Watermakers, has anyone actually built/made a watermaker

BigJoe

BigJoe

Well-Known Member
Joined
18 Mar 2009
Messages
541
Location
South, Costa Blanca, Spain
Visit site
We have been full time liveaboards for a couple of years, and expend 3 to 4 months on the hook, in the Med.
We get tired of having to go in for water every 10 to 14 days, less if we have guests.
We want to spend more time away from marinas and I’m considering attempting to build a watermaker from scratch, to run of our generator, and would appreciate any info
 
We built ours. Its really not that hard but you need to make the first decision about how you want to operate the system. If you have a catamaran with lots of space for solar then 12v systems make sense. In my opinion you need to have a minimum of 600w of solar. We have friends with 1200/1500w of solar with successful 12v systems. The difficulty with small solar arrays is the conflict between recharging the batteries and making water without battery damage. Its hard to fully charge batteries and make water.
For smaller boats without a generator, engine driven Cat pumps are a good solution. With a generator, 220v electric motor driven pumps make sense.
We run three membranes and a 220v motor on a cat 247 pump. We make 200litres per hour.
Engine driven or 220v motor driven pumps can make large quantities of water in a short time. 12v systems tend to be far lower output with far longer run time
 
Rainman, in Oz, had a business based on a Honda motor and off the shelf desal components. They have since enlarged the portfolio of equipment.

Their units are very neat and some do not involve the Honda unit.

They merit a look if you are investigating options to build yourself - as they cover many of the different ways, but not all, to power the system.

Jonathan
 
geem said:
We built ours. Its really not that hard but you need to make the first decision about how you want to operate the system. If you have a catamaran with lots of space for solar then 12v systems make sense. In my opinion you need to have a minimum of 600w of solar. We have friends with 1200/1500w of solar with successful 12v systems. The difficulty with small solar arrays is the conflict between recharging the batteries and making water without battery damage. Its hard to fully charge batteries and make water.
For smaller boats without a generator, engine driven Cat pumps are a good solution. With a generator, 220v electric motor driven pumps make sense.
We run three membranes and a 220v motor on a cat 247 pump. We make 200litres per hour.
Engine driven or 220v motor driven pumps can make large quantities of water in a short time. 12v systems tend to be far lower output with far longer run time
Click to expand...

We have a mono with a gantry/A-frame and 750 watts of solar, however, as you say we use the solar for charging our batteries, as we consume a lot of amps.

I think we will probably go down the cat pump route and utilize our genset and go with probably 2 membranes.

Thanks for the advice.
 
BigJoe said:
We have been full time liveaboards for a couple of years, and expend 3 to 4 months on the hook, in the Med.
We get tired of having to go in for water every 10 to 14 days, less if we have guests.
We want to spend more time away from marinas and I’m considering attempting to build a watermaker from scratch, to run of our generator, and would appreciate any info
Click to expand...

I have just finished off the project and am about to move into testing. It is a reverse engineered version of another system. Took a lot longer to get things sorted than I imagined and I would have taken different paths for some items. Send me a pm.

Ps deleted message was accidental during editing from my phone.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top