Rum Posted July 9, 2013 Share Posted July 9, 2013 Just put some new cartridges in the enolmaster. Opened the bypass valve. Tried to filter r/o water through to rinse them. The vacuum ran up to 55 or so. Hose from filter housing unit to filler was partially collapsing due to not being able to pull the water through the filters. Turn on bypass or take the filters out and it pumps through fine. These are brand new filter cartridges. This is the second time this has happened. Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Or can these cartridges be defective? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Morgan Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 What is the filter size (um)? What are you filtering? Do you get proper flow when there are no filters in the line? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Posted July 11, 2013 Author Share Posted July 11, 2013 Two different micron sizes. .2 and .5. Flow is fine without the filters in place. They are extremely slow flowing before anything other than r/o water has touched them. Other filters from the same source work fine. Not sure if these are defective or what. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedd Haas Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 Are the filters rated for liquid? The results you're describing in the first post remind me of what happens when you try to run liquid through a filter that's rated for gases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Posted July 11, 2013 Author Share Posted July 11, 2013 They are made for the Enolmaster so they should be made for liquid. Is it possible to damage them with too much vacuum before they are fully submersed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Morgan Posted July 13, 2013 Share Posted July 13, 2013 Two different micron sizes. .2 and .5. Flow is fine without the filters in place. They are extremely slow flowing before anything other than r/o water has touched them. Other filters from the same source work fine. Not sure if these are defective or what. Check the head o-ring on each filter element is in place, check they are seated properly. No you cant damage them with too much vacuum in the Enolmaster, they are very robust. A damaged filter opens up, you'd get full flow with no resistance. What is the flow rate with just water? Or without the filter in line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteB Posted July 15, 2013 Share Posted July 15, 2013 Surface tension can make it appear as if a very fine filter is blocked. If your filter medium is slightly wet but there is air on both sides of the filter, the surface tension between the water and the fine filter material can "block" the filter. If it is an in-line filter, see if you can pour some liquid into the inlet side and displace the air and I am reasonably confident it will start working. Please let me know if this solves the problem Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Posted July 15, 2013 Author Share Posted July 15, 2013 What is the flow rate with just water? Or without the filter in line. Without the filter it flows very fast. Put the filters in and it gets very slow. It will only flow through two heads at once and extremely slow at that. This is true of the .2s and the .5s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Posted July 15, 2013 Author Share Posted July 15, 2013 Surface tension can make it appear as if a very fine filter is blocked. If your filter medium is slightly wet but there is air on both sides of the filter, the surface tension between the water and the fine filter material can "block" the filter. If it is an in-line filter, see if you can pour some liquid into the inlet side and displace the air and I am reasonably confident it will start working. Please let me know if this solves the problem Pete Thanks Pete. I will experiment with that. So far though it seems to be dependent on the specific filters that I use. The same setup process works fine with one set of filters but fails with another set. Repeatedly. So I suspect that either the filters are defective or I somehow damaged them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluestar Posted July 15, 2013 Share Posted July 15, 2013 You might want to talk directly with whomever is your local PALL distributor representative, or other manufacturer. There are a lot of fine differences between the different filter types. The Enolmatic and Enolmaster use the same filter type (10" flat closed end cartridge), but then there can be a wide range of specific variations on pore size, type, material, reinforcement, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteB Posted August 23, 2013 Share Posted August 23, 2013 RUM, A nearby distillery tried to flush out enolmatic filters with warm RO water and they became blocked. Did you flush with hot water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Posted November 27, 2013 Author Share Posted November 27, 2013 RUM, A nearby distillery tried to flush out enolmatic filters with warm RO water and they became blocked. Did you flush with hot water? We use room temperature RO water. It can be pretty warm in the summer here. Are you suggesting hot water? Or not hot water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteB Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 They believed the hot water(don't know the exact temperature) caused the filter to block. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rum Posted November 27, 2013 Author Share Posted November 27, 2013 Interesting. Our water is not what us Floridians would call hot, but it can be pretty warm in the summer (maybe 90 or 95 F). That is when we had the problem. I'll cool the water first in the future and see if we still run into the problem. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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