Re: [Amel Yacht Owners] Watermakers
Walter Lundstrom <WalterL@...>
I'm under the impression that the 2 minutes wait has to with the water (with
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the water maker in the engine room)being to warm and the 2 minutes circulation would cool it down. Maybe I'm wrong... Walter Prior owner "Linna"
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From: John and Anne on Bali Hai [mailto:hollamby@compuserve.com] Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 5:09 PM To: amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com Subject: [Amel Yacht Owners] Watermakers Some time ago I commented on what appeared to be strange features of the watermakers fitted to Super Maramus. Our boat is fitted with a 160 ltr per hr unit and has performed perfectly over the past three seasons. The standard installation is a 60 ltr ph unit, I think. It seems that both units have one thing in common, namely that the so called salinity monitor is nonexistent. Instead it is a timer which assumes the sea water has been desalinated after two minutes and then sends the product to the water tank. This is fine so long as the machine is working properly. However if the product is not totally purified it will have a salt content which can and will have a devastating effect on equipment which is designed to only work with purified water. In other words the alloy castings used to make the washing machine and others will corrode/erode/be electrolised and fail and leak just before falling apart with dangerous and expensive consequenses. I have an Email from Yves on Blue Marine who sends me pictures of destroyed castings from his washing machine and a report,by someone who claims to be an expert in this field which has, I believe, been sent to our alter ego, namely the French version of this web site. What this report says, in French, which if I understand it right, is that Amel/Dessalaters have devised a version of the standard 60 ltr ph machine which is fundamentally flawed as it does not provide enough sea water to satisfy the desalinator and that this results in the early failure of the membranes with potentially catastrophic results. Whether this is true or not I have no idea but we need to know ! It could be that Yves on Blue Marine has,umwittingly, flushed the membranes with shore water containing chlorine which would immediately damage the membranes beyond repair. I have the bigger version because I know, from transpac experience that it is better to have a machine which will produce a lot of water quickly whilst the genset is running, or with my last boat, with a high pressure pump working the desalinator staight off the end of the main engine drive pulleys. I also know that one of the greatest gifts that one can give to Pacific Islanders on remote atolls or even in larger groups such as Fiji in times of drought, is fresh water. The failure of a watermaker on a long voyage would not be catastrophic assuming that one keeps ones tanks full. However a watermaker without an effective salinity monitor is potentially life threatening. A simple alternative would be to to have an easy way of tasting the product coupled with a manually operated valve to send the pure product to the tanks. Blue Marine clearly did not notice the failure in the purification process perhaps, because they, surprisingly to me, drink only bottled water, whereas we only drink product and would thus be aware fairly soon if the product was salty. Blue Marines installation was. I suppose, not passing pure sea water as they would, I imagine would have noticed the salinity whilst showering. Be that as it may, there is a very worrying issue here and I call upon our Guru, Joel Potter, to give us a definitive reply and advice as soon as possible. It would also be interesting to have comments from other water making folk. Happy New Year from Anne and John ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/A1TolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links
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