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scuglass
09-05-2008, 09:06 PM
Im getting sick and tired of having to drag 5 gallon pails of water through my basement and spilling all over the hardwood so i think its finally time for an automated system.

The thing is there are about 1000 different options available to me.

These are some of the things I have to think about.
1. Acurate and no chance of snails crabs saltcreep ect clogging it.
2. Something I can run with a Kalk reactor.
3. My R/O resivoir will be in the furnace room behind the tank. It will be elevated and about 5 feet away from the tank.


As of now I think I will be making a DIY kalk reactor with the numerous plans available online.

Is the tunze kalk addon for the osmolator a reactor? or just a storage container for premixed kalk?

Will the pumps supplied with the osmolator or ATO unit be strong enough to pump this far?

Will the cheap Aqualifter vacum pumps be strong enough? I could run this with a Tsunami ATI or somethign....

Anyones thoughts ideas or suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks Scott.

Stones
09-05-2008, 10:25 PM
I tried using one of those aqualifter pumps with my JBJ auto top off system and it did not work well at all. The float switch would trigger the aqualifter to come on, but the flow rate was so slow that the signal from the JBJ top off unit would somehow "time out" so that electricity to the aqualifter would cut out, but the unit would still show that the float switch was too low and the pump outlet was still energized. After this, it wouldn't matter how low the sump got as the unit would not reset and try pumping again unless you manually flipped the floatswitch up and then down again. I ended up swapping the aqualifter out for a mini-jet pump but this does not work perfectly either as when the JBJ unit enegizes the pump outlet, the pump remains on for a few seconds too long and more fresh water than is needed gets pumped into my sump. Not too sure if anyone else out there has had this problem but I'm assuming it is just a flaw in the JBJ unit. Might be worth going with a different auto top off unit like the tunze or tsunami.

Marlin65
09-05-2008, 10:45 PM
I just have mine hooked up to a float switch in my sump with my Kalk reactor in line works great.

scuglass
09-08-2008, 09:42 PM
I think I will be setting it up so there is a resivoir (brute) fed by my ro/di unit with a float valve (humidifier type) in it. Then i will be getting an auto top off unit (not sure which one yet) for my sump which will draw from this brute. I will also be mixing salt in this container.

Currently my Ro unit just has the faucet attachment which I fill the buckets and my drinking water up with. I plan on adding a tee to the line which is currently going to the faucet and taking the extra end to this brute.

-Will I be contaminating my drinking water in anyway by doing this (anything gonna creep past the float valve? If so is there another way? Is there another way?

While typing this I realized setting it up this way my auto top off will draw from brute throughout the day lowering the water level small amounts at a time. This will basically cause the unit to run numerous times for short periods which is said to kill the membrane.... Hmmm I need to plan more lol.

spikehs
09-08-2008, 09:56 PM
I had mine hooked up to a dual float switch (incase one gets stuck) also had the PH setting on my RK2 set to turn off the topoff water should the PH get to high (had it hooked up to a kalk reactor) so it had some redundancy in it.

globaldesigns
09-09-2008, 04:03 AM
I use the Tunze auto top up, it is great and has never failed.

fkshiu
09-09-2008, 08:05 PM
I run an Osmolator with a modified phosban reactor as a kalk reactor. Works great and the multiple built-in safe guards a great for peace of mind.

One thing you have to be aware of if your resevoir is going to be elevated is that you will probably get a siphon going each time the ATO kicks in. The easiest way to prevent this is either lowering the resevoir or raising the point at which the ATO water exits into your system (e.g. into the display rather than the sump).

scuglass
09-09-2008, 09:29 PM
After much thinking and planning I believe a DIY is probably the best way to go...(being a student sucks!) So this may need to be moved into the DIY area.

I believe I have solved most of the issues I was worried about with this current setup.

Last night I tee'd off the output of my RO unit so I now have one running to a brute can with a john guest "quick connect" valve on the end of it. The other end going straight to the faucet for drinking water. While messing around with it last night I noticed that when the valve was open it pulled water from the tube going to the brute. This could possibly contaminate my drinking water with salt ect. For this reason I do not want this end to even touch the brute. This means the cheap float valves are out of the question here.

Heres what I have planned for the top up brute sitting by my ro unit.

I plan on using these floats http://www.aquahub.com/store/ifloatfloatswitch.html along with solenoids http://autotopoff.com/products/solenoid/index.htm like this (without the cord attatched in this way)

One float switch sitting in the brute. One end to the solenoid and the other end to an extension cord. The solenoids other end will go to the other side of the extension cord completing the circuit.

When the float falls the circuit will be completed opening the solinoid and water from the ro unit will come out.

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Here is a diagram of the potential designs. (for the sump top off)
-The pink boxes are the floats (enclosed in some sort of contraption i will build so snails dont mess with them)
-The green box is a solenoid coming from my brute container to m sum
http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/4407/emergencyex5.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4665/evenhm7.png (http://imageshack.us)

So the water level will drop causing the floats to drop (Turning them on) this will complete the circuit and activate the solenoid (open). This will let the water come from my brute container to the sump raising the water pusing the floats to the top(off) and closing the solenoid.

The only difference in these two is the placement of the floats in the sump. One has them on the same level and one has them at the same level.

With the first design the top float will be down(ON) and if the first switch fails and stays down the water lvl will rise and push this float up turning it off.

With the second design the floats will be at the same level and they will both have to drop for the pumps to turn on.

Both of these are desinged to avoid an over flow... is one better than the other or does it matter?

In design one, since the top float will not touch the water unless the bottom float fails will this get covered in salt creep over time and get stuck making it useless if the bottom float fails.

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Basically it will be the same design for both but only one float switch on the brute because I dont really care if it overflows in my furnace room and down the drain. plus there will be little salt creep (from mixing water change water in the brute) and no snails ect.

Ne 1 know where I can get 1/4 solenoids locally? Ill prolly just ebay the float valves unless someone knows where to get them locally.

Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?