DIY Reverse Osmosis - For Scale Grower - Cheap, Portable, & Effective

[Guest]

Great job Pipedream.
I could see many uses for this. I would look into taking it a step further. A small length (3Ft maybe) piece of garden hose and maybe a small siphoning pump ( like the ones used for kerosene heaters). Could filter say creek water for drinking in emergency, you get my point. Would make a great survivalist tool. Would fit nice and neat in a backpack. Who knows you might be the next millionaire inventor? Very cool indeed!

 

[Pipedream]

No way I'm drinking anything coming out of something I built. I'd never trust myself. Especially when you can buy a survival water bottle with a built it membrane filter for under 25 bucks in any camping store.

 

[bounty29]

Anybody want to take it apart and see how the insides compare to a true RO unit?

 

[SEEDYNONO]

i wanna real diy pipedream.. with the parts u used like the exact little metal bracket.. and where u cut or any other mods u did.. so i don't have to fiddle with it meself..

where can i get that metal clamp or whatever isn't included? home depot?

i got the mr. clean.. i guess i'll just try to pump some h2o through as is for now..

 

[Pipedream]

SEEDYNONO - Bro' every single piece is inside the Mr Clean. That small piece of metal I cut with a pair of tin-snips from a piece of metal shelf I pulled out of my neighbor's garbage. You really don't need it if you glue or silicone that connection. If you want to make one, just flatten out a metal can or any other piece of garbage you can find. You'll need two small screws and nuts to connect it. The only other cut I made was the green hose fitting. I just hacked an inch off the end to make it a bit shorter.

Do me a favor, even if you use it exactly as it came. If you have a TDS or EC meter, take a before and after reading of your water and post the results here for everyone to see. A little third party validation is always a good thing.

If you (or anyone else) needs better pictures or a specific area, just let me know and I'll post some.

Regards, PD

 

[NiteTiger]

Great info Pipe!

Gotta try this one on.

I'll second the Link'o'Rama nomination, pending verification.

 

[blynx]

Verified

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=56222

This unit is a de-ionizer

 

[Pipedream]

Hey blynx - THANKS !

If anyone else would care to also post their findings here or add any modding pic's to the thread it can only help.

 

[spiralsmurf]

have you tried taking it apart to see what's inside? if it is resin then you can accomplish the same thing with lower cost by using this:

di add-on

i'm going to order one and see how it works. DI is usually part of R/O setup, but the R/O part is more about pathogens and flavor and less about dissolved ions. apparently you need to put pre-filtered water into the DI chamber, so i'll just stick an inline carbon filter before it.

 

[vavwl]

After reading this thread I decided to pick one up at Walmart. I took it apart and made something similar to pipedreams except I didn't cut anything, I just super glued it all together.

It takes my tap water from ~500ppm to 15ppm. Its going to replace my portable RO unit because of how fast it filters the water.

Does any one know how much water you can get out of it before you need to change the filter? On the box it says after 3 washes, but how much water is used in a car wash?

 

[spiralsmurf]

the best way to check is by using your ppm meter...if you had a carbon pre-filter it would probably last longer.

 

[Pipedream]

vavwl - The 3-Wash limit is only for the starter filter thats included in the kit. When you buy the replacement filters, they are rated at 10 washes, not the initial three. I'm guessing that it will last well beyond its stated life. Especially if your tap water isn't total crap when going in. However, only actual TDS readings will give us the true story.

 

[sleepyrz]

we have a member over at GC.com that is doing testing of this also

he went from 225 ppm prefilter to 4 ppm after

"My first filter that came with the Mr clean did 60 gallons and then the ppm was 150; so only filtering 100 ppm. I put in one of the replacement filters, we'll see how long those last."

"So the replacement filter was crap. It only did like 20 gallons before the ppm jumped up. I swear they have something inside the filter that makes them magically go to crap all at once. One minute is 1 ppm the next minute its 150+."

heres the thread
http://www.gardenscure.com/420/hydroponics/102026-mr-clean-jet-dry-water-filter.html

 

[Guest]

Cheers again pipedream been using mine now for a couple of weeks and everything seems just fine. For you guy's in the U.K our version is made by flash and the cheepest place i'v found to sell them is poundstrecher for £6.99 and the ten use filter is only £1.99 Unlike halfords where there's is £19.99. :jawdrop: and i had to find them in halfords first eh.

 

[SEEDYNONO]

we have a member over at GC.com that is doing testing of this also

he went from 225 ppm prefilter to 4 ppm after

"My first filter that came with the Mr clean did 60 gallons and then the ppm was 150; so only filtering 100 ppm. I put in one of the replacement filters, we'll see how long those last."

"So the replacement filter was crap. It only did like 20 gallons before the ppm jumped up. I swear they have something inside the filter that makes them magically go to crap all at once. One minute is 1 ppm the next minute its 150+."

heres the thread
http://www.gardenscure.com/420/hydroponics/102026-mr-clean-jet-dry-water-filter.html

that's disturbing.. the replacement filters didn't last as long?? when they are supposed to last 3x as long?

 

[bounty29]

I checked out that thread and it seems like the filters can only filter a certain amount of ppm before they're just done. If you have tap water that's 300ppm, it'll filter 1/3 as much water effectively as 100ppm tap water, in theory. Still though, it seems like it's worth the money. 60 gallons off of the original piece (assuming $20 for the thing, which is the price near me) comes out to $0.33 per gallon. Distilled water around here is $0.70 minimum, so buying this would save me a good bit of money. 60 gallons would last me probably two full grows anyways, so it's still good.

At the price of $18~ for three refills, if they each give 20 gallons of water that's still around the same price per gallon. But this all depends on how hard your water is to begin with. My tap water is 95ppm (I know that's low, but I'd like to start with <10ppm) so it would probably last me about twice as long as the guy at GC. $0.15/gallon seems like a good deal to me...

 

[Guest]

i dont know if i should get this or not my ppm is already low @ 71

 

[SEEDYNONO]

lol if its not bad water then you may be well to leave some minerals in.. other wise you'll have to get cal/mag or some product to put them back in anyway lol.

but for those of use with really bad quality water its better to go to some sort of cleaner baseline and build back up with what we need.. instead of having the solution all muddied up with other stuff already some of which we may not want at all.. that way we can use cal/mag and nutes and just have good ratios of what the plant needs.

 

[bounty29]

My ppm is around 90-100, but I prefer using Distilled water with PBP and Cal/Mag, because who knows what that 100ppm is? I like to have control over what I'm feeding my plants.

 

[Pipedream]

I'll second that.