ready for DI?

it went out in the trash today ill start looking for anythign i have left.

 

yep its all in a garbage yard somewhere right now. damn. ill hope for the best but now im nervous...

 

Finding the old membrane isn't really important.
Using a measuring cup and clock or watch time the flow from both the RO treated line and from the waste line and compare the amount of water you get. The waste flow should be almost exactly 4 times the treated flow in the same given amount of time. If its less than 4:1 your membrane will foul and fail prematurely. If its more than 4:1 you are wasting unnecessarily and reducing the membranes GPD and rejection rate since pressure is going down the drain.

As long as its 4:1 it does not matter what membrane you have as long as its not the 100 GPD Dow Filmtec nano filter which really bites.

 

ok. its at about one gallon right now. all its doing is dripping, is that ok? its been going for an hour now...

 

RO is slow but you do need to flush 3 to 5 gallons before installing the DI. RO membranes are treated with an antimicrobial treatment that will eat DI resin if it is not flushed properly.

My best advice is sllllooowww down, take your time. Nothing good happens quickly in this hobby. Only bad thing happen quickly, All good things take time, even making good RO/DI water.

A 75 GPD RO membrane under the best of conditions makes about 6 oz of water per minute so it is a slow process. A 25 or 50 GPD membrane is much slower than that.

 

ok ill let it flush 5 gallons out. thanks.

 

Also, on a side note, don't think that since your RO/DI is at a drip pace, that you can leave and do your weekly marathon at Wal-Mart...it may drip, but it fills up quicker than you think! I'd suggest investing in an Auto Shut-Off kit, if you don't already have one.

 

An autoshutoff with either a float valve or better yet a solenoid valve and float switches is great to have one day.

In the meantime get yourself a small electronic digital kitchen timer. i picked one up at Wally World for like $8 and you can set the time then wear it like a pager or sell phone or set it somewhere where you can see or hear it go off. In the early days that timer saved my bacon more than once, of course that was after flooding the kitchen a time or two...or three. Now the RO/DI is in the garage over the laundy sink so I can place buckets in the sink if I want to make water manually so it would overflow to the drain and not on the floor. I rarely make water manually though as I have a liquid level system and 23 gallon ATO container now.