What other DI systems have members here used? Looking to buy one for my dad's garage so do not mind investing in a more expensive version or a fixed one.

TIA

 

Ok, I used it only one time so I don't know if I did it perfectly. I did have some spots on my car after the wash and air dry. They were especially noticeable on the glass and on the front fenders. I am wondering if I let it charge long enough. Other than that it was pretty good. You are only suppose to let the water flow at 1 to 2 gpm. I may have let it flow too hard, I mean how would you know. It is a guess. I will try it a few more times and see how it goes. Also we will see how long it lasts. According to them, with city water, about 50 gallons. Who knows how much I use during the rinse. I tried to be conservative but???

It was cheap and they shipped fast. Quality is very good.

 

The slower the better. You need to put either a spray attachment with a restrictor or a ball valve on the end. You're right. It is tough to measure. They make flow restrictor for smaller systems, but I'm not sure about something this size. It is flows too fast past the resin, it can't do it's thing.

FWIW, I'm building my own. It's going to cost around $100. It will be a 10" cannister with a 4.5" cartridge, as opposed to the 2.5" cartridge that comes with this setep. Mine will be refillable at about 10 dollar per recharge. Since it has double the resin of this one, I ought to get double the washes, with my refills being quite cheap. I just need an adapter for the hose bibs and I should be good. I should be able to get these at home depot. I have on my reef setup, but I got it from a DI place. Either way, it shouldn't be hard to find.

I may even throw a TDS meter on there for $20 to measure the quality of the output. I use one on my reef tank and it works really well. This is probably the best way to know if your flow is correct and when the resin is totally spent.

 

Is yours going to have a bypass mode also? I have a spayer that really resticts the flow, but than it takes forever to rinse it down. And than there are parts on the car that don't get rinsed enough.

 

Want to make me one too? Im local haha

 

I was curious about the flow, from what I know or was told, that system cannot deionize the flow from a hose that quickly. On the up side, you only need a small amount of water to do the job so as DD suggests, taking the time to find the right nozzle/flow control to "mist" the car should help to improve the results and prolong the filter life.

 

I got one at pepboys that flows water VERY slowly in some of the settings. But you still have to rinse the car completely.

 

I was wondering how the clear rinse system would perform over time. Thanks for the excellent feedback neil. As I mentioned, I did my homeowrk before I carried CR Spotless and the bottom line was input and output. There's no magic resin out there. You need a certain amount of resin volume to produce DI water consistently and efficiently. I like how portable the clear rinse system is, but when you actually do the math and run the formula, the numbers don't jive. You don't know what's going in or coming out unless you have a TDS meter. Anything below 20 ppm is considered spot free. When the resin gets over 35 ppm you can run the risk of making the water more acidic. This can damage the finish. The 50 gallon number quoted by clear rinse is a bit misleading considering you don't know what ppm is actually going in. Aroud here we have a TDS reading of 420 ppm. I can get roughly 185 gallons of DI out of the CR Spotless. The larger unit contains .33 cubic foot of resin. I use up around 10 gallons to do the final rinse. So that's about 18 washes; that's 9 months of use if you wash your car twice a month. In contrast, the 6lb clear rinse cartridge has about .096 cubic foot. (1 cubic foot = 998.4oz; 6 lbs = 96oz; 96/998.4=.096 cubic feet) The master equation for DI output is 235,000 / TDS X Volume of resin = Gallons of “Spot-free Water” So, if you have a TDS of 400, 235000/400= 587.5*.096= 56.4 gallons of DI water. In contrast, the CR Spotless DIC-20 is 235000/400=587.5*.33=193.9 gallons of DI water. Hope the facts help make a more wise decision.

 

Moe,
Can you PM me with prices for the different sizes of the CR system? TIA

 

yes. mine will have a bypass mode too. it's called disconnecting it from the hose bib

seriosuly, i may put one on. it's pretty easy.

with regards to your flow. restrict it at the hose bib and then use whatever flow you want coming out of your sprayer. get a cheap TDS meter to measure your outflow to make sure you have it flow enough to catch everything.

that is one of the problems using a 2.5 cartridge. you really have to slow the flow way down to make it work. that's why i'm going with a 4.5" cartridge. more media and increased flow. mine will also have the "red/green" indicator letting you know if it's working (essentially flow too fast or the media is discharged). this company in the thread is also working on a 4.5 cartridge, but they're not ready for resale and it's going to be quite pricey.

based on what i've seen offered so far, even they're too small or they go way overboard and attach them to expensive hand trucks jacking the price up. i'm going for a happy medium.

i've been toying with doing this forever. if mine works well, but i'll probably throw a bunch on ebay or here for who's ever interested.

mine will also have refillable cartridges. much cheaper. essentially your refills would be the medium in a ziplock back. then you just open up the cannister, dump the media, and pour in the new. it's way cheaper, especially if i ended up buying a bulk quantity of the DI media.

one thing you guys have to remember, this is easily the most expensive way to produce this type of water. with no sediment, carbon, or RO cartrdidges in front of the DI, the DI wears out really quickly. Hence me going with a fatter cartridge (plus the extra flow). In a perfect world you would use a RODI unit and have a resovoir in your garage. you would get way more mileage out of the DI cartridges using the other filters inline. However, we know that's not realistic for most people to be storing water so I blew that off. Not to mention it would drive the initial cost way up with the other inline filters, but would be much cheaper in the long run. Plus the fact that the water runs so much slower through a full filter system it would for sure require a resovoir as the flow would be too slow to rinse a car.

I just figured for the average guy to get maybe 30 washes out of 4.5 cartridge would reasonable (depending on your water source) and would be around $30 to reacharge it. So it would be around $1 a rinse. Not too bad considering how easy and low maintenance it is, with nothing to worry about other than not flowing too much water or over using the media when its' worn out. However, that's where my red green light come in. If you're flowing to fast, it will go off as it will think the media has stopped working, or if you your media is smoked, it will go off then too. If your cartridge is brand new, restrict the flow till you get green and maintain that flow. The next time you see red, you need a recharge.

 

OK,
What about this one instead of the $80 one. Looks like it would be worth the extra $50. Thoughts?

http://www.autogeek.net/deluxe-filter-system.html

 

you may want to throw a link in there...


FWIW, I just started construction on mine today. I picked up the cannister, DI cartridge, and fittings. I'm still debating on a TDS meter and bypass valve. THe bypass is easy. That's simple PVC. The TDS is more comlicated. I can go with an inline one that will register a green or red light depending on the output. You have to select a pre programmed range. I was considering 20ppm as the cutoff for the red to illuminate. Or just go with a regular TDS meter and let the consumer decides how far they want to take it before refilling the cartridge. The TDS meter is much less expensive than going with the red light/green light setup. Personally, I'd rather have the TDS reading.... I am using one now that gives you a before and after reading. It's not expensive but the trick is figuring out how to plumb it in with 3/4" line.

 

Deputy,
You are fast. I realized I forgot the link only a minute or two after I posted and put it in.
Are you really gonna make these and sell them??

 

just in case anyone is interested we can get these for you so please e-mail me I will have them up on my site shortly.

 

I think so. I have a local manufacturer that is interested in getting the parts and assembling them for me. I am doing this for me right now, if it's feasible and profitable, I may go for it as a side thing.

I just have to finish my prototype and come up with the final design. I am going to test my unit out today. I can't do an outdoors test on my car due to a tropical storm. However, I'll break out the old TDS meter and see what kind of water quality I am getting through it. I can easily get 0ppm out of this equipment. However, I am shooting for 20ppm to maximize the flow and the life of the resin. 20ppm and under should result in a spot free rinse.

I think there is a great niche here for the non commercial user that just wants to wash his cars and bikes once in a while.

While the one on the cart is really nice, it is total overkill for someone that washes his car once a week or so. It's really expensive and there really is no need for a cart at home. Now if you're a car dealer or a window cleaner, by all means. That would be the way to go. You need the portability and the life of large double resin beds.

Now the cheaper one that started the thread... Well, it's just cheaper

By the equipment their using, it will work for sure. However, the flow rate will be slow due the 2.5" core size and it will need to replaced fairly often for the same reason. I think they are pretty optimistic about the 15 rinses that they claim on their website. It really depends on your starting water quality out of the tap. Not to mention, there is no TDS meter of any sort on there. Now they do have color change resin, but that is not totally accurate and you can really go quite a bit further after it changes to amber. They also make you buy a whole new cartridge. Mine will be refillable. So recharging the unit will be slightly less expensive.

It will more money than the one that started this thread, but less than the mega CR sptless system If I decide to not really get commercial with them, I'd still be happy to put together kits for those that are interested and send them out at my cost. We'll have to see how mine works out so far.