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Let's talk water makers. Who has experience? Belt driven seems to be the way to go. I've been thinking about them lately and wondered if anyone here has used the same thru hull as the engine is. ie "T" ing off to the watermaker. The one I looked at produces 80lph which is way more than enough but for some funny reason requires 13l per minute to run. Whatever the reason the yanmar probably needs another couple only. Pity to drill an extra hole in the boat if we can get away without doing it.

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There are so many different ways of running a water maker - its really down to what best suits your situation. Belt drive can be tricky to set up in a confined space, and of course, means belts that should have guards over them etc. It also means bearings which need greasing and a clutch. But belt drive has probably the most potential for production other than large 240V or even 3phase units.

 

Electrically powered - either 240v or LVDC are much more flexible in the placement and probably a lot easier to install, however, they either require a pretty substantial alternator and the engine running ), a large battery bank and charging system, or a genset. I have seen makers which produce about 20L/hour which draw 15 amps off the house bank ( 12V ) and that to me is the most ideal setup. In good sunny weather a good solar system can produce plenty of water and still give plenty of charge to the house bank. If the weather is average, an hour or twos idling will give you plenty of water - say you have a 100a alternator @ idle - which is a fairly large one - your going to get about 200L of water made as long as your house bank is of reasonable capacity. 240v operated ones tend to produce large quantities, and again, either you have a largish alternator/house bank and a large enough inverter, or you run a stand alone genset.

 

What fits in best with your boats existing systems, and, is a watermaker the best option or would installing larger capacity tanks be more suitable and far cheaper?

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The need for a watermaker is a very personal decision and I've talked to long term cruisers who for years were against the idea of a watermaker (unnecessary luxury) who once they got their hands on one have changed their tune big time. Planning your cruising around being able to get water is no longer an issue and the quality of the water on the boat becomes one less thing to worry about.

 

There are some pretty flash watermakers about, but the complex ones tend to have more that can go wrong. There are one or two brands that are regarded as pretty robust - a Kiwi brand being amongst them.

 

Engine driven units generally have greater production capacity than the 12V ones and the 240V units pretty much require a genset. If you're taking water from the engine's cooling water supply to feed the watermaker you need to make sure that there's plenty left to allow the engine to cool. 80 litres of fresh water per hour will require significantly more seawater to feed the watermaker than that ..... can your strainer system supply enough to keep your watermaker and your engine happy?

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How would you know? There's 13 litres a minute needed for the watermaker with a fraction of that actually being converted to fresh. If I stuck a bucket over my exhaust I'm pretty sure I wouldn't collect much more than a couple of litres a minute. So, can 15 a minute go through that hole. I'd say easy peasy. I look at the electric ones and think that the only way you'll do it is with a big battery bank and a wind generator or a separate little generator. All seems a bit overkill, lots more weight/space taken up etc. While I'm on it, are wind generators the way to go now? The latest ones are very quiet and they're less obtrusive than banks of solar panels. If you're running an autohelm you either need to start the motor regularly or have one of these things ticking over. Don't want to re invent the wheel, I'm sure it's all been done before.

 

Or maybe a wind generator and an electric watermaker? But if I'm restricted to say 260 ah total capacity, would we be working them all a bit hard? And would the motor required to run the pump make it all that much more expensive?

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I have seen several boats which have 12 volt units happily running without needing anything special in the way of electrical systems. A reasonable house bank - say 300ah up - will produce a lot of water without any charge to offset the draw before you need to worry about running the engine to charge the bank. If you have a solar or wind system supplying say 8 amps - realistically, you can easily get 100L of fresh water/day and still have tonnes of juice left for the other requirements unless you have heavy drawing items. Even with an autohelm running, your still going to get a lot of water without needing any charging. The 12 volt systems also tend to be the most compact ( in part, because they are the lowest volume production units )

 

Village Marine make a 20LPH unit which draws 13 amps - a little better than 16 amps.

 

It may well be that your boats 12 volt system is not suited to a 12 volt water maker - but they are the easiest to install if your systems will cope with that kind of load.

 

As for charging systems, yes, modern wind systems are good, but the combi wind turbine and trailed generators appear to be pretty good all rounders. I know of someone who has one set up on his boat somehow where its on a swing mooring in a reasonable current and its quite suitable for keeping the batteries fully charged.

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Spectra seem to be pretty highly regarded amongst the ICA folk, as do the Open Ocean watermakers.

 

Katadyn watermakers appear to be amongst the more efficient 12V units.

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The Spectra water makers seem to be the best, most energy efficient around. Speaking of which I can do you a deal on one....

 

Tell me more

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Let's talk water makers. Who has experience? Belt driven seems to be the way to go. I've been thinking about them lately and wondered if anyone here has used the same thru hull as the engine is. ie "T" ing off to the watermaker. The one I looked at produces 80lph which is way more than enough but for some funny reason requires 13l per minute to run. Whatever the reason the yanmar probably needs another couple only. Pity to drill an extra hole in the boat if we can get away without doing it.

 

never tee anything into/ onto engine water intake, it is always dedicated to engine only, do remember that setup Chris Packer had on starlight that worked bloody well........engine on to charge batteries as well as refrig as well as make water......total use of otherwise wasted energy

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I just did a rummage online and the Katadyn 12v, 4 amp, 6 litres an hour unit is $4,500 + gst and freight thereabouts, plus about $700 for a maintanence kit.

 

Certainly on the 'nice to have' list, but still up there on price.

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I am selling my Katadyn unit.

 

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=393394842

 

It has been a good unit and I have the service kit, lots of filters and chemicals needed to run it. I am asking $2750. I think it is about 50% of the value of a new unit. The unit is in Auckland and I have been in NZ for almost two years allready and don't really need it anymore. I have run it every 6 months here and replaced the "parking" chemicals inside.

 

We used to run it few hours a day during good sunlight on the solar panels. If we needed more water, we just ran it for longer time. It is really quiet compared to some other systems. It is very compact and easy to install in to a smaller boat. You don't need to think about belts, pumps and big power consumption. Also there is no hoses between the pump and membrane, which have a common problem of leaking the pressure at some point. I installed it with t-connectors to the kitchen sink and salt water tab. About 95% of the intake water is dumped and with this unit the hoses can be very small, I think 10mm is recommemded. I kept records of our water usage and on the passage we spent 6 L/person a day. That includes a small shover every 2-3 days. With the watermaker we always arrived to the anchorages with full water tanks.

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Safety at Sea are the Katadyn agents in NZ. We supplied Camper, and then also the repair parts for Virbac whenthey did their stop in the Barcelona race.

Katadyn are great because they are low profile, light, simple to maintain and have a low power draw.

They are the #1 choice for the European short handed fleet.

All this does come at a $ cost. As much as it pains me, parallel importing can be done for less than I can sell you one. I have to buy in CHF, while the US pricing hasn't been adjusted yet.

My RRP is 6,900 plus GST, although discounts may apply.

We do stock all seal kits and biocides.

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How about one of these, they say it can do pure distilled water and even better you can distill your own alcohol, it takes two hours and produces enough alcohol each time to make a 1 litre bottle at 38-40% ABVor. It probably wouldn't keep up. And for days when there is nothing to do it can also do Bio Fuel and also be used to extract essential oils (whatever that is??)

http://stillspirits.com/au/filters/stil ... still.html

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