4040 ro help

[Pjj]

So I'm going to try and get a refund from bailey's, but in the meantime need to get a new membrane ASAP as really need to start producing more pure.
Where is the best place to get one from and any suggestions on what one to get? Or should I stick with the spectrum??

@doug atkinson at daqua is very good reasonable price and good advice

 

[kettle]

Thanks guys, I have nothing to add here but have been suffering for months with this exact problem and been told to buy a booster pump, then new connectors, then new valves.
I think the problem is the membrane is guff.

Also if by chance this is seen by anyone, am I supposed to run the waste into a split between waste and flush to create 'backwards pressure' and if so how exactly does that work?

 

[spruce]

Thanks guys, I have nothing to add here but have been suffering for months with this exact problem and been told to buy a booster pump, then new connectors, then new valves.
I think the problem is the membrane is guff.

Also if by chance this is seen by anyone, am I supposed to run the waste into a split between waste and flush to create 'backwards pressure' and if so how exactly does that work?

The membrane housing has an inlet on one end and two outlets on the other. The side with the single inlet is for the pre-filtered tap water. The other side is the waste and pure outlets.
The pure outlet must only go off to storage. We filter the pure from the r/o through a di vessel and then store the pure water in an IBC tank ready to be transferred onto the van as needed.

The waste has a gate valve on the outlet, which then goes to the drain. The gate valve must never be completely closed, but should be closed enough to create pressure on the membrane to work properly. So it throttles or restricts the flow to waste. Depending on your tap water tds and water pressure, we recommend a 60 to 40 waste to pure ratio to start with. In other words, you need to be sending 6 litres of water to waste when making 4 litres of pure. When I checked ours years ago, it performed best at 55 waste to 45 pure.

Our water pressure is between 50psi and 55psi at the moment. Our tap water tds is between 125 and 145ppm. I have an Axeon HF5 membrane and regularly tweak my waste gate valve to get the lowest ppm of pure leaving the r/o. I use an inline tds meter to do this. My inline tds meter only has two sensors, one before di and one after di. I do not have a booster pump.
These Axeon HF5 membranes are very expensive, but mine is now 11 years old and still producing at 97% efficiency. In other words, my pure normally leaves the r/o at 3ppm (occasionally 4ppm,) which the resin then polishes off to zero. When it's at 4ppm then I check the tap water with my hand held tds meter, then tweak the waste gate valve to see if I can improve the membrane'e efficiency.

I believe my membrane's longevity is due to me replacing my pre-filters every 77,000 litres. I have 20" pre-filters and only use Fiberdyne carbon block filters.

 

[kettle]

The membrane housing has an inlet on one end and two outlets on the other. The side with the single inlet is for the pre-filtered tap water. The other side is the waste and pure outlets.
The pure outlet must only go off to storage. We filter the pure from the r/o through a di vessel and then store the pure water in an IBC tank ready to be transferred onto the van as needed.

The waste has a gate valve on the outlet, which then goes to the drain. The gate valve must never be completely closed, but should be closed enough to create pressure on the membrane to work properly. So it throttles or restricts the flow to waste. Depending on your tap water tds and water pressure, we recommend a 60 to 40 waste to pure ratio to start with. In other words, you need to be sending 6 litres of water to waste when making 4 litres of pure. When I checked ours years ago, it performed best at 55 waste to 45 pure.

Our water pressure is between 50psi and 55psi at the moment. Our tap water tds is between 125 and 145ppm. I have an Axeon HF5 membrane and regularly tweak my waste gate valve to get the lowest ppm of pure leaving the r/o. I use an inline tds meter to do this. My inline tds meter only has two sensors, one before di and one after di. I do not have a booster pump.
These Axeon HF5 membranes are very expensive, but mine is now 11 years old and still producing at 97% efficiency. In other words, my pure normally leaves the r/o at 3ppm (occasionally 4ppm,) which the resin then polishes off to zero. When it's at 4ppm then I check the tap water with my hand held tds meter, then tweak the waste gate valve to see if I can improve the membrane'e efficiency.

I believe my membrane's longevity is due to me replacing my pre-filters every 77,000 litres. I have 20" pre-filters and only use Fiberdyne carbon block filters.

Thank you so much for your help.

My tap pressure is around 40psi and I use a booster pump to bring it up to around 80psi but I have to have the waste to pure at around 55:45 to achieve this.

The booster pump is incredibly loud though and in the summer my neighbours don't want to hear it whirring all day. I have looked into ultra low pressure membranes but they all seem to operate at 80psi at the lowest.

Is it wise for me to continue to try and make this 4040 system work? It's such a headache for me

 

[spruce]

When you open your flush valve, gate valve, ball valve, whatever you want to call it, fully open you are allowing 'fresh' water to flush away any more dissolved solids that maybe still in the membrane.

I hardly ever flush my membranes, as our water isn't particularly hard. If your water is hard then flushing should be done more religiously.

By opening the flush valve @kettle you are releasing the water pressure that is used to force water through the membrane.

This video helps to explain r/o operation. He is talking about small membranes but the principals are the same.

 

[spruce]

@doug atkinson at daqua is very good reasonable price and good advice

I know this is an old post.

A few of us continually tell windies to buy from Daqua as he sells the best products available, especially for window cleaners. But when they see what quality costs, they opt for the cheaper option from Ebay or the like. So often the cheap option costs more in the end.

An HF5 Axeon membrane costs £473.00 from Daqua. Why should I spend that much when I can get one for £140? The specs say it all, but if price was the deciding factor, then Ebay has another sale.

Pardon our interruption...

Would I buy another Axeon HF5 membrane at £473? Yes.

 

[Iron Giant]

When you open your flush valve, gate valve, ball valve, whatever you want to call it, fully open you are allowing 'fresh' water to flush away any more dissolved solids that maybe still in the membrane.

I hardly ever flush my membranes, as our water isn't particularly hard. If your water is hard then flushing should be done more religiously.

By opening the flush valve @kettle you are releasing the water pressure that is used to force water through the membrane.

This video helps to explain r/o operation. He is talking about small membranes but the principals are the same.

I'm with you on flushing, I only do it once a week because my tap water TDS is only around 75ppm but I check the sediment filter every day after production because of high sediment, I am currently only still getting 2 days before I need to change my sediment filter unless for some reason it has spiked and only lasts 1 day

 

[Pjj]

I know this is an old post.

A few of us continually tell windies to buy from Daqua as he sells the best products available, especially for window cleaners. But when they see what quality costs, they opt for the cheaper option from Ebay or the like. So often the cheap option costs more in the end.

An HF5 Axeon membrane costs £473.00 from Daqua. Why should I spend that much when I can get one for £140? The specs say it all, but if price was the deciding factor, then Ebay has another sale.

Pardon our interruption...

Would I buy another Axeon HF5 membrane at £473? Yes.

The old saying buy cheap buy twice comes to mind

 

[Pjj]

I'm with you on flushing, I only do it once a week because my tap water TDS is only around 75ppm but I check the sediment filter every day after production because of high sediment, I am currently only still getting 2 days before I need to change my sediment filter unless for some reason it has spiked and only lasts 1 day

Sediment filter every couple of days !,,,, lol mine last around 8-12 months we don’t get much sediment.

 

[Iron Giant]

Sediment filter every couple of days !,,,, lol mine last around 8-12 months we don’t get much sediment.

Mine used to last 6 months, but I'd say since the summer of 2019 I've had to change them more often throughout summer usually the rest of the year nowhere near as often

 

[spruce]

I'm with you on flushing, I only do it once a week because my tap water TDS is only around 75ppm but I check the sediment filter every day after production because of high sediment, I am currently only still getting 2 days before I need to change my sediment filter unless for some reason it has spiked and only lasts 1 day

Ours has never been as bad as that. These past couple of years our sediment filter is due for change when the carbon block needs replacing. It's rather red now, and should last the next 10,000 litres when the C/B is due for replacement.

Had to change the di resin last Wednesday. I hate that job.

 

[spruce]

Thank you so much for your help.

My tap pressure is around 40psi and I use a booster pump to bring it up to around 80psi but I have to have the waste to pure at around 55:45 to achieve this.

The booster pump is incredibly loud though and in the summer my neighbours don't want to hear it whirring all day. I have looked into ultra low pressure membranes but they all seem to operate at 80psi at the lowest.

Is it wise for me to continue to try and make this 4040 system work? It's such a headache for me

This is a problem I was also concerned about when I upgraded to a 4040. You are in a difficult position.

My HF5 membrane works fine for me at 50psi water pressure. It will also work at 40psi, but it's slightly less efficient.
My rejection rate was down to 95 to 96%.

I was also worried about the continual noise of a booster pump and annoying the neighbours.

My old 450gpd with Filmtec membranes worked fine at 40psi without a booster. It also produced enough waste for me processing into my 1000 litre IBC tank, but it was too small when my son and later my son in law joined us.

What about Spotless?

 

[Iron Giant]

Ours has never been as bad as that. These past couple of years our sediment filter is due for change when the carbon block needs replacing. It's rather red now, and should last the next 10,000 litres when the C/B is due for replacement.

Had to change the di resin last Wednesday. I hate that job.

As soon as mine has turned orange to the core I change it, it might last longer but I've no idea so I'd rather preserve the membrane.

 

[spruce]

As soon as mine has turned orange to the core I change it, it might last longer but I've no idea so I'd rather preserve the membrane.

I have fitted a pressure gauge on each side of the prefilters. When both prefilters have just been replaced, both gauges read exactly the same as each other.
As the sediment filter gets blocked it progressively restricts the flow of tap water through the prefilters. When that second pressure gauge drops to 40psi from 50psi, I change the sediment filter.

The sediment filter blocks sediment larger than 5 microns from passing through. Anything less than 5 microns is too small to be filtered out and passes through the sediment filter. As my Fiberdyne carbon block filter allows particles up to 10 microns through it, it shouldn't get blocked at all. (I haven't seen the carbon filter turn reddish brown from sediment ever.) So any restriction of water will have to be at the sediment filter. I don't rely on the colour much at all, but a visual glance through both clear filter housings is just another reminder to pay attention to the gauges.

 

[Iron Giant]

I have fitted a pressure gauge on each side of the prefilters. When both prefilters have just been replaced, both gauges read exactly the same as each other.
As the sediment filter gets blocked it progressively restricts the flow of tap water through the prefilters. When that second pressure gauge drops to 40psi from 50psi, I change the sediment filter.

The sediment filter blocks sediment larger than 5 microns from passing through. Anything less than 5 microns is too small to be filtered out and passes through the sediment filter. As my Fiberdyne carbon block filter allows particles up to 10 microns through it, it shouldn't get blocked at all. (I haven't seen the carbon filter turn reddish brown from sediment ever.) So any restriction of water will have to be at the sediment filter. I don't rely on the colour much at all, but a visual glance through both clear filter housings is just another reminder to pay attention to the gauges.

Thanks for this Bruce, it might be an idea for me to purchase the necessary bits to keep an eye on my in-flow pressure, my pressure doesn't drop at all on my outflow pressure gauge after the pre-filters,

I do have some 1/2" JG push fittings all see what I've got and what I need to order, this could save me quite a bit of money in sediment filters.