The Watermaker is working!

Yahoo! I woke this morning with the watermaker on my mind, running through strategies. With no way to flush it weekly, I needed to sacrifice three gallons of fresh water to preserve the membrane if I ever hoped to be able to make use of it again. So I returned to the manual to review the pickling procedure.

While my nose was in the manual, I re-read the section on bypassing the sensors. It was, I think, a misunderstanding that led me to believe that the section didn't apply to me or was not something that I could execute. When I re-read it, it clicked into place with a new clarity. It was exactly what I needed and thanks to some hardware I installed for sampling the product output, I would be able to follow the procedure easily. Best of all, I wouldn't need to spend any water to try it out. It would either make water or it wouldn't and I'd know right away whether the sensor or the pump was bad.

After disconnecting some tubes and reconfiguring the system, I flipped a switch on the control box and the pumps fired up: no water and the Clark pump wasn't cycling. That suggested to me that either the Clark pump wasn't working properly or it wasn't getting the water it needed. If the latter was the case... then I looked at the service valve. The yellow handle was in the middle position covering the label that said OFF. I turned that handle down, fired up the pumps and immediately began generating water!

It was all a procedural error on my part after pickling the system several months ago, I didn't put the handle back in the right position. Dang! But Yahoo!

I celebrated by running the watermaker for an hour, making six gallons of water and spending three to flush the membrane - just what it needed. I ran the engine for that hour so we'd be charging, rather than discharging the batteries. Tomorrow I'll run it again while we're motoring to the next anchorage.

The desalinator is back in business!

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