Do I need a booster pump. Pictures attached..
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kschweer
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More than likely air working its way through the system. I wouldn't be concerned. My unit makes a little sound when processing water as well
Probably easiest to use the OUT probe.
Disconnect the tee containing the probe from the DI canister and stick the longer length of tubing back in the canister. You should now have the tee containing the pribe and a short piece of tubing attached. Disconnect the tap water line at either the faucet or whatever adaption you are using or from the sediment filter canister, insert the tee in this line and reconnect it. Turn the water on, make sure the probe is rotated in the correct orientation and take a TDS reading. Write this reading down in a safe place as you will use this often, or should use it often to calculate your rejection rate or RO removal efficiency.
For me, I have two of the dual inline meters but I let the batteries go dead and never use them. I always rely on an ATC compensated handheld TDS meter since it can be used portable anywhere including my tap, RO only, RO/DI, ATO storage, LFS water, bottled water etc.
Disconnect the tee containing the probe from the DI canister and stick the longer length of tubing back in the canister. You should now have the tee containing the pribe and a short piece of tubing attached. Disconnect the tap water line at either the faucet or whatever adaption you are using or from the sediment filter canister, insert the tee in this line and reconnect it. Turn the water on, make sure the probe is rotated in the correct orientation and take a TDS reading. Write this reading down in a safe place as you will use this often, or should use it often to calculate your rejection rate or RO removal efficiency.
For me, I have two of the dual inline meters but I let the batteries go dead and never use them. I always rely on an ATC compensated handheld TDS meter since it can be used portable anywhere including my tap, RO only, RO/DI, ATO storage, LFS water, bottled water etc.
Noise is common, you are forcing water through a plastic membrane with 0.0001 micron openings under pressure.
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Busa1340
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@AZDesertRat been great at helping me thanks how much are those hand held meteres? Might just grab one. Is this uncommon for me to be getting high TDS coming in or do I just have some dirty water here in SW Florida?
The national average TDS is around 250 at the tap. In some places such as the southwest where agricultural runoff has seeped into the groundwater or where all the minerals that came out of the creation of the Grand Canyon are in the water it can vary from 500 to over 1600 or higher. Some places like the Pacific Northwest and surprisingly around Atlanta it can be as low as 50 or so. Places like New York City have pretty low TDS but high TSS or suspended solids, particulates and silt so plug sediment and carbon filters quickly.
Everywhere is different so RO or RO/DI isn't quite plug and play if you expect to get the most out of it. Water hardness is even more important than TDS since the calcium plugs or fouls a membrane. Always use soft water if you have it available. A hardness test kit can be bought anywhere that sells water softeners like Lowes or HD.
You can get a handheld TDS meter like the HM Digital TDS-3, TDS-4TM or AP-1 for $25-$30. Be careful on places like eBay and Amazon, there are copies and knock offs that look real for $8-10 but they are not the same. An added advantage of the three I mentioned is they also have a built in digital thermometer and water temperature is another piece of information that is very important. Colder is better. The gpd goes down but the membrane efficiency goes up so DI lasts longer.
Everywhere is different so RO or RO/DI isn't quite plug and play if you expect to get the most out of it. Water hardness is even more important than TDS since the calcium plugs or fouls a membrane. Always use soft water if you have it available. A hardness test kit can be bought anywhere that sells water softeners like Lowes or HD.
You can get a handheld TDS meter like the HM Digital TDS-3, TDS-4TM or AP-1 for $25-$30. Be careful on places like eBay and Amazon, there are copies and knock offs that look real for $8-10 but they are not the same. An added advantage of the three I mentioned is they also have a built in digital thermometer and water temperature is another piece of information that is very important. Colder is better. The gpd goes down but the membrane efficiency goes up so DI lasts longer.
What does the probe say when you install it on the incoming tap water line? You need a hard number to calculate the rejection rate or removal efficiency.
The formula is tap TDS minus the RO only TDS, divide that number by the tap TDS thenultiply the result by 100 to get a percent. You are shooting for 98% rejection rate or higher but it could be a little lower at first until the RO membrane is fully broken in.
The formula is tap TDS minus the RO only TDS, divide that number by the tap TDS thenultiply the result by 100 to get a percent. You are shooting for 98% rejection rate or higher but it could be a little lower at first until the RO membrane is fully broken in.
I will use mine as an example. My tap water TDS going in is 560 and my RO on or the IN probe reading is 3.
560-3=557, 557/560=.9946, .9946x100 = 99.46% rejection rate or removal efficiency indicating my RO membrane is doing fantastic. I do use softened water and I do have a booster pump running between 95 and 100 psi but on the other hand my RO membrane is 8 years old and good as new.
560-3=557, 557/560=.9946, .9946x100 = 99.46% rejection rate or removal efficiency indicating my RO membrane is doing fantastic. I do use softened water and I do have a booster pump running between 95 and 100 psi but on the other hand my RO membrane is 8 years old and good as new.
So your RO membrane is operating pretty efficiently at 97.7%
314-7=307, 307/314=.9777
.9777x100 = 97.77% rejection rate so very near Dow Filmtec's advertised rejection rate of 98%. Pretty good.
Now use a measuring cup and check your waste ratio to make sure it is around 4:1 waste to treated if you are not using softened water and no lower than 3:1 if you do have soft water.
You will want to check the three TDS readings frequently as this tells you your RO membrane and DI resin conditions. With your RO/DI system hooked up and operating either crimp both the treated water and waste water lines complete closed or if you have a couple ball valves stick them on the ends to stop the outlets and write down the pressure gauge reading. This will be your Baseline pressure to refer back to to determine if your sediment and carbon block filters are plugging or fouling before their normal 6 month replacements. Watch the gauge as you are making RO/DI water and when it starts dropping noticeably change the filters since these are what protects the expensive RO membrane. As pressure drops so does the rejection rate meaning your DI replacements will go up and your cost of ownership goes up.
314-7=307, 307/314=.9777
.9777x100 = 97.77% rejection rate so very near Dow Filmtec's advertised rejection rate of 98%. Pretty good.
Now use a measuring cup and check your waste ratio to make sure it is around 4:1 waste to treated if you are not using softened water and no lower than 3:1 if you do have soft water.
You will want to check the three TDS readings frequently as this tells you your RO membrane and DI resin conditions. With your RO/DI system hooked up and operating either crimp both the treated water and waste water lines complete closed or if you have a couple ball valves stick them on the ends to stop the outlets and write down the pressure gauge reading. This will be your Baseline pressure to refer back to to determine if your sediment and carbon block filters are plugging or fouling before their normal 6 month replacements. Watch the gauge as you are making RO/DI water and when it starts dropping noticeably change the filters since these are what protects the expensive RO membrane. As pressure drops so does the rejection rate meaning your DI replacements will go up and your cost of ownership goes up.
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Busa1340
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Sweet good news I have to admit you know ur stuff! Ty now just let me back up a tad sorry if I'm not processing ur info fast enough. So this means my reading of 009 coming out I really don't need to worry to much about that?
You were right the first time. It is 9 coming out of the RO membrane. You said earlier it was down to 7 so I used that in the calculation. 314 going in and 9 coming out gives you 97.1% rejection rate so slightly lower. Not a huge concern but you want to keep track of it. For every 2% you drop from 98% you cut your DI resin life in half. At 97% your DI will last only 75% as long as it would if your rejection rate was 98% etc. At 99.4% my DI would last over twice as long as your at 97.1%.
I suggest to people with high TDS and hard water they start looking at replacing the RO membrane when it gets down to the 95-96% range as the cost of more frequent DI replacements exceeds the cost of a high rejection rate RO membrane in very short order. Yours is new and may improve a little more, this us why RO/DI really isn't plug and play if you expect 5 cents per gallon RO/DI water which is possible. If you have to replace DI more often that cost can double so keep an eye on your parameters and compare them to you Baseline numbers as a reference. I keep a log book on TDS readings, water temperature, rejection rate, pressures in and out and filter replacements.
I suggest to people with high TDS and hard water they start looking at replacing the RO membrane when it gets down to the 95-96% range as the cost of more frequent DI replacements exceeds the cost of a high rejection rate RO membrane in very short order. Yours is new and may improve a little more, this us why RO/DI really isn't plug and play if you expect 5 cents per gallon RO/DI water which is possible. If you have to replace DI more often that cost can double so keep an eye on your parameters and compare them to you Baseline numbers as a reference. I keep a log book on TDS readings, water temperature, rejection rate, pressures in and out and filter replacements.
To calculate the waste ratio, use a measuring cup for exactly one minute from the waste line. Write down the ounces or m/L it held. Dump it then do the same from the treated line for that exact same 1 minute. You might need a larger measuring cup, my wife has lots for cooking or you can get one at the 99 cent store, you will find other uses for it in this hobby I am sure.
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Busa1340
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Awesome man you been a huge help I really do thank you I'm going to invest in a hand help meter but for now should I always test like we just did or just keep an eye on my TDS coming into the unit hooked up regularly
