I have painted, rewired, re-bearinged, and rerigged my main mast.
This week I will try to get it back on. Does anyone know how may foot
pounds the nut on top the mast needs for proper tension on the furling
extrusion?
I am also rebuilding the worm drives and will have all the bearing
numbers and locations for other Maramu owners interested.
1985 Maramu #192 Golden Daze
Ken Coats and Judy Golden

Hello Ian and Judy,

I am happy to hear that your D60 is working well. When I purchased
my SM#266, the D60 had about 300 hours on it. What kind of service
or maintanence it had recieved before I have no idea. As part of
the survey when we bought the boat we had a watermaker company in
Ft. Lauderdale come to the boat and test it. The tech was a great
guy and "knew his stuff. He ended up taking the unit out and bench
testing it at his shop. He said the membranes has been damaged by
clorine, and they were flowing on the bench at about 20-25 LPH. We
elected to change the membranes and with the new membranes installed
the unit flowed on the bench at 37 LPH. On the boat we get about 30
LPH. We of course changed the inflow filter and all valves are open
fully. Please understand the D60 on WORLD CITIZEN works fine, we
would like to have a greater rate of product water. I have nothing
against Desalator at all, in fact we are looking into replacing it
with the larger unit in Guadalupe in a week or two.

Thanks for your input, and I am glad you are getting the production
out of yours!!!

Tony
WORLD CITIZEN
S/M266


--- In amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com, "Ian & Judy Jenkins"
<ianjudyjenkins@...> wrote:

Hi Tony, Are we the only ones with an effective D60? Our SM, 302,

is 6

years old and we didnt use the W-M for the first 4 years. Now we

have 1,300+

hours on it and it regularly delivers 45-60lph. The cold waters of

Chile

made surprisingly little difference to outflow.We have pickled it

twice in

the last three years once for 7 months, once for 5. So far we are

on course

for the 2,000 hours that these membranes apparently can deliver,

though it

does seem that each set of membranes has a behaviour of its own.

Apologies

to all those readers who find the W-M topic boring ,but speaking

as someone

who is not technical and who is far away from yottie support

services I have

to say that I find all the technical issues raised on the site to

be

absolutly invaluable.Ian and Judy Jenkins, Pen Azen, Uruguay.

Hi Tony, Are we the only ones with an effective D60? Our SM, 302, is 6 years old and we didnt use the W-M for the first 4 years. Now we have 1,300+ hours on it and it regularly delivers 45-60lph. The cold waters of Chile made surprisingly little difference to outflow.We have pickled it twice in the last three years once for 7 months, once for 5. So far we are on course for the 2,000 hours that these membranes apparently can deliver, though it does seem that each set of membranes has a behaviour of its own. Apologies to all those readers who find the W-M topic boring ,but speaking as someone who is not technical and who is far away from yottie support services I have to say that I find all the technical issues raised on the site to be absolutly invaluable.Ian and Judy Jenkins, Pen Azen, Uruguay.

Mike,

Go to your Yahoo! profile and unsubscribe from the list. Or you can
simply change to receive no email and that will allow you to remain
as a member in case you want to read any postings on the Yahoo!
group page in the future.

--- In amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com, "Mike Mattinson"
<hallelujah_mk@...> wrote:

Hi,

Could you please help me get removed from the amelyachtowners e-

mail list.

Thank you,

Kim

Hi Tony,

Your problem is familiar, but I am not certain that I have a good answer. I
had a D60 on my previous SM and suffered poor output too. I changed the
membranes and it was good for a very short time only. I never got more than
45 l/h after that. Water temperature and salinity both affect output, but as
you are in the Caribbean, that should not be a low output issue. I take it
that you have changed the primary filters as well? They may be clogged up.

My 160 l/h works much better. Even up in Greenland where the water was cold,
the output never went below 140 l/h. In the Med I see 155-165 l/h depending
on salinity.

If you are going to purchase a larger water maker, think carefully about
whether to buy a Dessalator or not. My view now is that there are better
makes out there. Being close to the USA, you have plenty of choice.

Best Wishes

Ian Shepherd SM 414 'Crusader'

Hi,

Could you please help me get removed from the amelyachtowners e-mail list.

Thank you,

Kim

Gary,

I was wondering about the end caps as they are grey. Mine are white.

The ones I ordered from Amel arrived today-2 days !!!. they were stopped by
homeland security and returned to Memphis as the invoice read membranes and
they assumed this was a biological item. So I have 3 -4 days to straighten
out homeland security before I get the end caps.



I purchased the fittings at home depot. On planning out the project, I
Think I will also plumb the sensor in parallel and below the output . I can
then be assured that the probe will be immersed.



I live on long island.





Thanks for all the help.

Fair Winds,

Eric

Amel Super Maramu #376 Kimberlite





_____

From: amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of amelliahona
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 11:28 PM
To: amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Amel Yacht Owners] Re: serto end caps



Eric:

The Serto brand connectors are the gray plastic ones that Dessalator used
throughout their system. I could not find a source for them in the USA.

I forget the brand of the white connectors that I used. I purchased them
at Home Depot here in the USA. There are pipe thread to snap connector
adapters and all sorts of other adapters in that brand. If you are having
trouble finding a source let me know and I can purchase some for you
and mail them to you.

Where are you located now?

Gary

Hi Gary & John.

I have now found out why my inline TDS meter continuously gives an 'Error'
reading. It is not to do with the orientation of the probe at all. The
problem is that the water maker output is so polluted that meter is out of
range. It was a guest on board today that refused a glass of water that
aroused my suspicions. I guess I had got used to the taste, but she
convinced me that something was wrong. I thought it may have been a dirty 50
micron filter, but changing it did nothing to the taste. Another test with a
Hanna confirmed a seriously polluted output (860 with an 'E' in the top
right hand corner.

So yet another case of being fooled by the green light, which as we now know
means nothing.

I have disassembled the 160 l/h membranes which have 185 hours use. (For
Eric- if you have not yet removed your membranes, I can confirm that it is
best to remove the whole cradle first, then unscrew the rods. The only nasty
part of the job is reaching the self tapping screws that hold the blower
ducting together. You may need to do this to get to the two outboard roof
bolts, depending on your installation. My 110/220V transformer gets in the
way of the side screw).

Gary, I am concerned that the sea water side of the membranes is only
isolated from the centre output tube by a single 0-ring on the membrane
nipple. Do you really think this seal is sufficient to reliably withstand a
60 Bar or 870 PSI sideways pressure? ( have the nylon end caps). The caps
don't seem to be a very tight fit on the nipple seal, so this may be the
root of my problem rather than the membranes themselves.

I will get some new seals and jury rig the assembly for a trial. I use
silicon grease on seals. Do you think that the seal may do a better job with
sealant perhaps, at the expense of more difficulty in getting it apart
again? If so, can you recommend any particular type or brand of sealant for
this application?

I was interested to read about your flying exploits. Not so long ago Steve
Jones who was a UK aerobatic champ took me up in his Sukoi. After 19,500
hours of commercial flying, it was the most hair raising experience of my
life! I take my hat off to you for being able to stay ahead of the aircraft
whilst the world is a 270 degree per second roll rate blur and the G-meter
is swinging from +7 to -5! Currently I fly hang gliders, paragliders and
sailplanes.

Cheers

Ian Shepherd SM414 'Crusader'

Hello Fellow Sailors,

I am adding to the watermaker free for all. I have SM #266, and she has
the D60 watermaker. I replaced the membranes last January and have
about 220 hours on the system since then. My only complaint is that I
can only make 30 LPH. We live aboard and are on the hook, so we live
off the water we can make. At this time we have no way of collecting
rain water, but we plan to design and make a rain water collector.
Meanwhile, we are going to be in Guadalupe soon to have some other work
done. Question: For those of you that have the "bigger" watermaker,
what kind of out put are you experiancing? If I can expect to get over
100 LPH, I will consider purchasing the larger unit and installing it
while at Guadalupe. Anyone in the market for a D60 with "new"
membranes?

I have had no trouble with the D60, other than we go through water way
faster than we can make it!!

Good sailing to you all,
Tony
WORLD CITIZEN
SM #266

Eric:


The Serto brand connectors are the gray plastic ones that Dessalator used
throughout their system. I could not find a source for them in the USA.

I forget the brand of the white connectors that I used. I purchased them
at Home Depot here in the USA. There are pipe thread to snap connector
adapters and all sorts of other adapters in that brand. If you are having
trouble finding a source let me know and I can purchase some for you
and mail them to you.

Where are you located now?

Gary

Gary,
i noticed in one of your photos you mentioned serto end caps.
where did you ger them?
thanks
eric

29 June 2006
Hi Eric:

RE: Your Question:

"... why did you mount the omega quality sensor in a loop parallel
to the water flow and not in series with the output water?'

I only had "T" connectors at the time. Sorry to report that there was
no special engineering involved. It has worked well this way so I
haven't changed it. Someone reported problems with their sensor
in turbulant flow so I have choosen to leave well enough alone.

Let me know if you install yours in series and suffer any problems.

".... did you have any trouble connecting the blue 3/8 inch plastic
hose to the Amel fitting? did you heat it to fit over the fitting?"

No and No. The 3/8 fittings quick connect press on fittings
fit perfectly and sealed without problem to the blue tubing
where I cut it. The extra 3/8 inch tubing (the clear stuff in
the photo) that I purchased at Home Depot fit well. I have had no
leaks and the rating on the fittings was something like 100 psi.
There is really virtually no pressure on this line.

Glad to hear that the end caps came off with so little effort.
Did the O-rings that you ordered fit ok?

I wired a Sonalert to the relay output of the EC sensor and
quickly discovered I needed a mute switch for when the water
maker starts up and the TDS creep causes it to alarm for the
first minute or two. I put the LEDs in just to verify that there
was 24 volt power to the Sonalert, and for a visual indication
of the alarm condition if I forgot to throw the "mute" switch
to the arm position after system start up. If others would
like a schematic of my set up I will draw one up and put it
in the files section of the site.

I appreciated Joel's post and it is nice to have him confirm that
his experiences with Dessalator have been the same as mine.
I agree completely with his analysis. Amel has been, and
continues to be, the finest company I have ever done
business with. Jean Jacques and Olivier are top notch and as
honest as the day is long. I assure the members of this site
that I do not hold a grudge against Dessalator, I have just
moved on. No hidden agendas.

Kindest regards,
Gary Silver

Amel SM 2000 Hull # 335

Dear all.
I'm looking for an Amel Santorin to buy. Does any body knows of any in
the market in Kroatia . I will be in the area in September. Please
advise me.
Thanks in advance

Is the Peter Pappas the same one who worked in Wilmington, N.C. and played football for Bear Bryant. Then moved to Birmingham to work at the University in I.D.?. Murray Seidel mseidel @ec.rr.com

Hello John,

I hope you won't think I'm picking on you but the advice you
gave is not correct.

The Heart inverter charger is a nice piece of gear. It will
also pull, in our opinion, too much out of the 24 volt bank
when used to operate the microwave or other high current
items.

Additionally, be very careful when running 110 volt
appliances on stepped down 220 volt power. The power
remains 50 cycle, not 60 cycle. This won't matter with
drills and blenders but will quickly destroy televisions and
stereo equipment as well as most bread makers and espresso
machines as the "brain" of these devices take their timing
signature off 60 cycle, not 50 cycle. 50 cycle will destroy
sophisticated 110 volt components very quickly.

Be careful.

All the best,
Joel F. Potter
AMEL 54, Hull # 14 - HOLLIS

Hello, If anyone is buying a new 54, I would sugest he have Amel install a European model of the Heart inverter/charger in addition to the standard 35 amp charger. I have one on my Amel and without turning on the generator, I can use the micro wave. Also it is wired to the 220 volt circuit so I can use any 220 applience without using the generator. It puts out the reqiuired 50hq. so its safe for the european products. The real advantage is I can run any american applience, drills, my new 1 hour bread machine, etc. by pluging in the norm
al travel adapters you carry when you go over seas.
John "Moondog" SM248

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

Gary,
the watermaker membrane assembly is apart. Just a Sears rubber strap
wrench on the end caps and it came apart in 10 minutes.
----thanks for all the help and pix. i ordered the membranes from
your source and the "o"rings from maryland metrics. they had them in
stock--ps they also have the amel metric lips seals for the bow
thruster. I ordered new end caps and connecting bobbin from amel.
mine looked a little too worn.

my question de jour is why did you mount the omega quality sensor in
a loop parallel to the water flow and not in series with the output
water?

also did you have any trouble connecting the blue 3/8 inch plastic
hose to the Amel fitting? did you heat it to fit over the fitting?

Fair winds,
eric



--- In amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com, eric <kimberlite@...> wrote:

Gary,

Thanks for the reference-

Oddly enough, I had purchased an r/o unit for my house from them

on eBay a

year ago.

Much easier than lugging bottled water.

Works great.



Just in case, I purchased the calibration liquid from Omega.

However, I believe that the membranes are a goner. VERY

DISSAPOINING!!

If they are dead-This weekend the membranes come out.



I had planned to head into the Pacific from St Martin last month

but headed

home to New York for some additional work before heading off.

What a disaster that would have been -imagine trying to get the

unit fixed

in the Galapagos.



Thanks for all your help.

Fair Winds,

Eric

Amel Super Maramu #376 Kimberlite







_____

From: amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of amelliahona
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 4:47 PM
To: amelyachtowners@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Amel Yacht Owners] Re: watermaker



Eric:

See message # 2290, The vendor for the membranes is
in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA

Gary--- In amelyachtowners@ <mailto:amelyachtowners%

40yahoogroups.com>

yahoogroups.com, eric <kimberlite@>
wrote:

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the clarification.

I could not find the post that stated where you purchased your

new

membranes.

Could you give me the name and contact info?

Thanks

Eric

Greetings everyone,

O.K.! Alright already!! I can't believe how many of you
have asked me to weigh in on the watermaker issue. I really
don't want to become a defacto referee. Please remember,
although my opinions may be tempered by my nearly 25 year
long relationship with AMEL as their marketing man in the
Americas, my comments come from Joel the AMEL 54 owner and
not from AMEL. That is important.

I have never received a satisfactory, straight up, cut and
dried answer from Dessalator on the issue of the salt
sensor. Always polite, always gentle, but no answer. I
have accepted the obvious, they just don't want to say
anything.

I think that guys like Gary Silver and Eric Freedman are a
true benefit to us all. I know both of these gents as I
sold them their boats. They are both extremely
knowledgeable and capable, and without ego problems. Their
desire is for a common body of knowledge and experience
which will benefit us all. They'll get mad at me for
telling you this but Gary built, with his own two hands, a
two place aerobatic bi-plane that he tumbles around in. If
you ask him real nice he'll take you up in it and make you
hurl so hard you'll wish you were never born. Eric has an
electrical engineering degree from MIT and he has forgotten
more about electricity than most of us will ever know. They
are not trouble makers. They are valuable. They never
incite. The vast majority of you are the same, just wishing
to promote the common good. No agendas. Nothing to prove.
Good folks.

On the other hand, I have always noticed, with AMEL folks
and otherwise that it's 10% of the people who have 90% of
the problems. This 10% crew are always looking for
retribution because NOTHING is without blame. NOTHING is
ever their fault. The world isn't a fair place and this
group feels particularly persecuted.

Boats are machines. Machines wear with use. Shit happens.
It comes from my experience and not loyalty that our AMEL
boats have far less problems than ANY other boat from ANY
manufacturer. I have spent over 30 years
sailing/building/fixing/selling all kinds of cruising
sailboat until in the last ten years going more or less
exclusively with AMEL with the odd brokerage boat the
exception. Our AMEL boats are not trouble prone. I am sure
of this.

To suggest that Olivier Beaute or Jean Jacques Lemonnier are
less than 100% forthright is just plain wrong. Jean Jacques
is the fairest person I know with the wisdom of Solomon.
That said, don't try to bully him into anything. You will
go backwards gently. Olivier could not be involved in a
conspiracy if his life depended on it. He is just not
capable of being dishonest. To suggest they know that there
is a defect in our watermakers is ridiculous. I'm not waving
the company flag here. This is just simply the truth.

Consider this.I pay for my boats that I use as demonstrators
here in America. I don't pay for my spare parts assortment
that comes with the boat. Every boat I have received from
AMEL has a spare salt sensor in the inventory. Why would
they incur the expense of sending me something that has no
value or use if they indeed knew that were the case?

I will ask Jean Jacques to address our issue personally with
Dessalator and then I'll step back. No promises.

The comments from most owners about maintenance are correct.
Use your watermakers, change your thinking if need be.wash
your masts, booms, rigging, decks, dinghy's, dive gear. Use
water abundantly. It's good for you. If you run your
watermakers three times a week, it will last a long, long
time.

Unless you will not use it for more than 7 months, DON'T
PICKLE IT. Just flush it with it's own product water.
Seriously I have years of experience with boats that stay
dormant while for sale. The ones that are pickled have 95%
of the failures. If you do pickle it, FOLLOW THE
INSTRUCTIONS. Like most things, if enough is plenty, more
isn't better. Mix the solution carefully.

Let's see now, who haven't' I pissed off yet.

My intention here is to be helpful. As an AMEL marketing
man, I can say that our boats retain value better than any
others I can think of. This is mainly because of all of
you. You are our best salespeople. I am happy to direct
potential buyers to our site with only a brief admonition
about bad apples.

Look at other boat manufacturers independent owner groups.
Yikes! These people are angry!! Let's not bite the hand
that feeds us. If you have a problem, gently and carefully
address the source. If that doesn't work, seek more
aggressive means in gradual steps. You can privately address
your concerns to a number of sources, me included if need
be, for a point in the right direction to solve your issues,
but not on the site. But please, it's best not to belabor
things on the site and don't fly your dirty laundry here.

I'll stop now.

All the best,
Joel F. Potter,
AMEL 54 # 14, HOLLIS

Hello John,
Congratulations on getting a 54.I should be happy to hear your views on the plusses and minuses over your 53, my address is annejohnat melita.net.
As you keep your boat in the south of France and do not do extended cruises and clearly use mains water most of the time there seems little reason to have a watermaker. I took Olivier's advice and have never pickled my 160 ltr machine. I use it as my sole source of fresh water and thus can flush it with product water before and after use. Mains water,especially in marinas, often contains relatively high levels of chlorine presumably because the long runs of piping on the pontoons is conducive of bacterial pollution. Since chlorine is damaging to the membranes you would be ill advised to use it to flush your system and ,I suppose, would be better advised to find out from the manufacturers what to use to pickle and preserve the membranes against the day when you may have to depend on it. This is what PUR do with those emergency hand operated watermakers which have to be serviced once a year by an agent.
There is clearly a fault in the version of the watermaker which is adapted to Amels specification because the machine claims to have an alarm and salt sensor when it does not. I have had three different water makers over the twelve years that we cruised as far as Australia and all relied on tasting a sample before putting product into the tank. That the Amel version gives no warning is an extremely dangerous fact of life for unwary long distance liveaboards and it is not surprising that the subject has suffered such an airing on the site.
At the end of the day all equipment is likely to fail at some time or another and the taste test is so simple and reliable that all the other suggestions are high tech complications. I have fitted a TDS meter only because it was easier than sourcing and fitting a two way junction and faucet in Malta so that product went to waste until approved by the PTT (Pink Tongue Test) and then manually diverted to the tanks
Whilst I sympathise with the latest postings complaining about the flood of stuff on this subject the fact remains that if one were to rely on sensors etc. one would be running a big risk crossing big oceans.
Enjoy your new boat.
Best wishes from Anne and John, SM 319