Need help with RO solenoid shut-off

[EmilyB]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

but now the really annoying thing is that the solenoid reopens about every 5 minutes for about 30 seconds or so and every time it happens it sounds like someone having really bad gas ("EeeeeeEEEEEyyyuurrrrrrRRRRp!!!!!!" That wasn't me, that was my RO unit. Honest! ) .... and you can hear it throughout the entire house.

I agree. Tony has hilarious ESCAPADES. I really can't wait to get the "anemone spawning" smell description from Linda directly tho.....

[TANGOMAN]

Tony, I've just installed an RO/DI unit in the basement and I'm running 1/4" lines to two reservoirs upstairs in addition to the one in the basement. I'm not sure of the total combined length but it's gotta' be close to 75 feet. Sticky valve sounds like a good possibility ? So too does air in the lines...?
You can always say it was the cat...

[Delphinus]

No noise? How often does it reopen to allow more water through? I can live with the noise, I'm just really surprised that I seem to get 20-30 seconds of flow every couple of minutes. No leaks, none than I can find anyways. I knew I had a lot of evaporation out of my tanks, but could it really be that much?

But like other tank-related noises, I'm starting to tune it out, so it's not really a big deal anymore (unless it's indicative of something wrong that needs attention).

What did you use for tubing, BTW. Pex? Or something else?

[TANGOMAN]

There is a "fluttering" noise, very faint though. My set-up is not continuously open though. I run lines up to reservoirs behind the tanks contolled by a float valve. That reservoir then gravity feeds to the sump through another float valve. None of the reservoirs are "pressure fed" unless I open the inlet valve to the RO unit. I still want to do that "garden hose timer thing" as sometimes I leave the inlet valve open and that has potential for bad things to happen...not that they ever happen to me.
I hear the noise only when I'm beside the unit and it has been "shut-off" for a few minutes. Balancing pressure through slow leakage was my assumption...?
But we too have cats so maybe it was him ? There is usually another sense that is stimulated shortly after hearing that sound...much like your cat demonstrated to me
With the relentless heat of the past few weeks and the fans goin' full tilt to keep 'em cool, I'm evaporating like crazy too !
Tubing ? Aaaah...flexible copper (Cu) of course ! Whaddaya think I'm stupid. (Don't answer that...). I'm not certain what it's called , I'll assume it is. I thought pex was grey and not available any smaller than 1/2" dia. Mine is "cloudy white" 1/4" flexible. I am of course still refering to the tubing... MAO...

[Delphinus]

The grey stuff that I think you're referring to is "poly-B" which isn't available anymore because of its tendency to break down when carrying hot water, and, as the story goes, is apparently a big problem for those heated basement floors that used polyB and after a class action suit or two the stuff was pulled off the market altogether. Pex is the replacement, it's kind of smoky white opaque. It is available in 1/4", it's just the standard stuff for ice makers, furnace humidifiers, etc.

I have no idea what the coloured tubing is that I see everyone else has (whenever I look at pictures of calcium reactors or whatever), I've never been able to find any of that (not that I've looked really hard ... I know that Rona, HD, and Distiller Depot doesn't have it).

What does a "fluttering sound" sound like. I am trying to imagine this sound but for the life of me I can't imagine ever describing the sound mine makes as a fluttering. More of a groan or a borborygmi (*)

The function is fine, it's just that the noise is a slight nuisance. I wish I knew what I could do to make it go away. Short of putting yet another timer-controlled valve on the whole thing, which is do-able, but a little rediculous (as in "where does this all end" which is a question to be asked while waving your hands in the air and rolling your eyes, just immediately prior to tearing up some more $100 bills and banging one's head into a brick wall and turning on a garden hose and watering your basement carpet. But I digress..)

My RO unit empties into a reservoir behind the tanks. Although it's a solid 20g in volume, the reservoir will empty in 24 hours if I leave the RO off for that long. From the reservoir I have a line which T's off and each end goes into each tank.

Where did you get your shutoff valve from, or more accurately I should ask, who made your valve. Mine is just the one you can get by Kent.

--
* How's that for a big word? From Dictionary.com:

bor·bo·ryg·mus n. pl. bor·bo·ryg·mi: A rumbling noise produced by the movement of gas through the intestines.

[TANGOMAN]

I'll try and answer the first question first... . The "fluttering sound" sounds like, well, fluttering. I dunno' ? Unfortunately I lack your ability to put sounds into a written form. If ya' put your tongue on the roof of your mouth and exhale allowing your tongue to flutter it makes a fluttering sound... How's that ? A Rattlesnake with a hair lip ?
You described the tubing I'm using though your color description is far superior to mine. It's the humidifier stuff. The valve controlling the inlet is a 1/4" ball valve, brass. Threaded, with adaptors, and soldered to a 1/2" house line. I got it from Hose Headquarters.
20g in a day ? Wholly crap !!! I'm evaping' a gallon a day...
I got a variety of the colored tubing with this RO unit. It looks impressive but probably serves the same purpose.
Us bald guys must refrain from banging our heads against brick walls as there is little protection up there and the scars just don't look cool on the skull...

[Delphinus]

It's a ball valve? Ok, this sounds different. I beleive mine is a tiny gate valve. Hard to say, it just looks like a plastic white box with three hose threadings, one for in, one for out, and one to T off to the output line of the RO.

It seems to be working fine, other than it's a little disturbing that at any given moment I'm more likely to find my RO unit going rather than idle. It's basically like it's on all the time, flowing directly into the tanks, just throttled back ever so slightly to match the evap rate. Yeah ... well ... hmm I didn't notice the math before but I guess ... 20gallons of evap per day and a 24 gpd RO unit .... kind of adds up doesn't it.

Maybe there's part of the solution .. buy a bigger RO unit, thus the fill cycles would be much faster maybe? And a ball valve shutoff instead of a gate valve shutoff. I will have to visit this fabled Hose Headquarters you speak of.

[TANGOMAN]

Ya, the volume required will have that unit cycling frequently. I went for a 75 gpd unit but "future business plans" will reqire higher volumes.
This unit came with a needle valve that can be fastened to an existing water line and pierces it. I like "make work" projects so I did some cutting and soldering...
Regardless of the valve controlling flow into the RO unit it shouldn't be howling I wouldn't think. My experience in Construction Equipment hydraulics leads me to think that the pressurized water is howling as it passes through an orifice. I dunno', perhaps the inlet valve is "starving" the unit of required water. That would be more like a "cavitation" scenario. I suspect the problem might be downstream...?
Any luck trying to determine the whereabouts of the noise ?

[Delphinus]

In retrospect, I don't have 20 gpd of evaporation, it's more like 10gpd peak, and I'm not sure if I have a 50gpd membrance or a 24 gpd membrane. But still I guess that's almost 50% or 25% (depending on membrane) of capacity so I guess it still works as an explanation. Even on for 25% of the time makes sense, that you'd hear the unit going pretty often. Just a real eye-opener on the amount of evaporation this really is, I suppose.

I also maybe lied a little about all the downstream tubing being pex. I have the line T-d off to a 30g rubbermaid so I can have 30g of RO available at any given moment. The tubing that services this bucket is a sort of soft vinyl. It can handle the pressure OK (it used to be an indoor plant watering thing) but the hose is .. how would one describe it ... kind of soft and supple? So maybe it's stretching a bit which causes weird things to happen with the backpressure which in turn makes the solenoid weird? Maybe I should try replacing all my line with pex. I'm just out of pex at the moment.

[TANGOMAN]

It sounds like your set up similarily to me. I've got a "bank" of needle valves contoling flow to the tanks upstairs, open flow to a reservoir in the basement "laboratory". Can you block flow to certain "circuits" and do the process of elimination thing...?
That vinyl tubing may be the culprit. I kinda' think it may be in the RO unit though these things are relatively new to me .
I was goona' invite myself over for a look, and a beer, 'cause I was down that way to get stuff at Home Depot but Margo kinda' rolled her eyes so I passed. Now that would have been a night from hell for the guy in the plumbing department if two fish geeks showed up askin' questions that defy all the ethics of plumbing...