reverse osmosis operation question

Well, without seeing everything on the unit, I can't tell you whether or not there is a valve that you have to flip... If there isn't, then the unit should start making water once pressure runs through it.

Normally you should run a bunch of water thru the carbon filter until no more carbon fines appear then allow the water to the membrane. And run several gallons thru it before you use the water. Remember that you should have waste water coming out at 4X the RO water rate.

I should write a FAQ..

Your unit has in order..
1) sediment filter. Gets the rocks and dead algae and bug bodies and rust flakes out of your city water. Floaters.

2) loose carbon filter. To start removing organic materials like chlorine, and fluoride, and other stinky stuff dissolved in the water.

3) carbon block filter. This fore-shore-Rocky removes any other traces of chlorine and fluoride, etc., as any of the two former chemicals will gut your membrane promptly.

4) The RO membrane. The prefiltered water is passed by the membrane and some passes thru. It is called 'The product'. 4/5's of the water running thru the membrane flushes the now concentrated minerals that were blocked from leaving in the Product water out as waste. It is called "The Brine". This stuff generally goes down the drain, or to your plants, or you can drink it, as it is much cleaner than your tap water. Taste it sometime after your unit has run. Taste your tap water then taste this. You will see an improvement.

The Product is the extremely clean RO water. This is what you would drink and make coffee,(yuck!), with. Mine is plumbed under my kitchen sink and we drink and cook with about 3 gallons a day.

The RO process blanket removes 93 to 98%,(depending on your wallet), of the dissolved substances that came to it from #3 (above).

It should be noted that the membrane wears out eventually. The membrane is destroyed if allowed to dry out or if it gets moldy.

5) The DI column. The product is run next thru the Ion Exchange Column, normally just called, 'The Column' . This is to remove, thru a process called chelation, any minuscule amount of remaining Ions that made it thru the RO process,(remember those 7-2%?).

The column removes these remnants. The resulting water is pretty much just water. Angry water... Water that is so stripped of everything that it will grab anything it can. In fact really pure water is considered corrosive due to this, but that's another subject.

It should be noted that the column becomes exhausted once it has captured all the ions it can. Of course the better your RO system the longer the column lasts.

It should also be noted that the horizontal, itty bitty, column, you purchased, will likely be exhausted relatively soon. Horizontal columns also tend to let a lot of water pass thru OVER the settled media and hence NOT actually put out great DI water. Vertical columns don't generally suffer from this.

6) Carbon Polishing Filter. This last item is supposedly for taste. In reality having a really clean RO/DI output you shouldn't need a follow-on Polishing filter. If it is really after the DI cartridge it is there only for preventing any of the media from a buggered column from carrying on to the end use.

Normally as mentioned earlier you should NOT be drinking DI water only RO water. If you set up your system for drinking you must set it up so that the product goes into a bladder tank. This is to allow you to, say, pour a glass of water. Not wait forever while the small dribble of product is being produced. Well the bladder tank is rubber lined and the rubber wants to get into the pure RO water pretty bad. You could taste this if enough gets in. So! You want to put a polishing filter between the bladder/storage tank and your drinking water tap. That is it's typical function.

Now back to your original question. The carbon filters typically put out a few gallons of black filthy looking water the first time you run water thru them. This is very tiny carbon power grains from the manufacturing process. You DO NOT want this stuff going into your membrane. The membrane has zillions of tiny holes in it. These would be bad to fill with carbon power. Normally you should undo the hose coming from #3 and turn on the water supply. Run water until you can see NO carbon fines coming out of the hose from #3. Turn off your supply and then hook up this hose. Disconnect the hose going from #4 to #5 Turn the supply on and run at least 2 gallons out of this hose. If you have a TDS meter check this product water after a few gallons. It should read below 10ppm in fact hopefully with a great system it will read 0ppm. If this is the case then turn off the supply and hook this hose up. Turn the supply back on and run another gallon out of the DI /end of the system. Check the TDS here. It better dang well be 0ppm ALWAYS. OK you can now use the RO/DI water for your aquarium. Remember don't drink it.

The red tubing in the picture of your system (from the link) is the water inlet line. That connects to your sink faucet, and you'll probably need to get an adapter to hook it up if your system didn't come with one. You can get what you need at HD or Lowes. Tell the sales person you need an adapter to go from a kitchen faucet to 1/4" tubing. Or you can "hard-connect" the system using the feed water device that is included, but that will require you to hook your system up to the cold water supply line under the faucet - it's permanent (you'll puncture the waterline). The needle valve is how you would turn the system on and off.

If you hook the system up to the faucet outlet using an adapter, then when you turn on the faucet, water will start flowing through. As kcress said, you need to flush the carbon cartridges first before hooking up the RO membrane. In the picture from the link that you sent, there is a white tube on the left side coming from the last cartridge (lowest tube on the left). This is the exit line from the carbon filter. The orange line on the right side (after the ball valve) is the waste water line. I find it is easiest when flushing the carbon cartridges to disconnect the white tubing on the left side from the last carbon filter, disconnect the orange waste tubing from the valve, and hook the orange tubing directly up to where the white tubing was (the orange tubing is probably pretty long, and should go to a drain). Turn on the water - if you haven't hard-connected it to a drain with the optional saddle clamp drain valve, you can watch the water coming out. If that is the case, flush it until the water runs clear, otherwise, flush it at least 15 minutes. Then hook the tubing back up in the proper configuration.

Now when you turn the water supply on, you will have 2 water streams - a fast one coming from the orange tubing which is the waste water, and should go to a drain, and the pure RO/DI water coming from the blue tubing at the top. You should let it flush like this for at least half an hour, as there are often preservatives in the membrane solution to prevent mold from growing in it during storage.

I've attached 2 pictures of my setup. I have it in my garage. The water source is the cold water line for my washing machine. Note: this setup is backwards compared to the picture in the link you attached. I connected a garden hose "Y" valve (available at any home improvement store) so that I can keep the washing machine and water system hooked up at the same time. The water system is connected to this with a gardenhose - 1/4" tubing adapter. The waste water drains into the washing machine, so I don't waste it (it's good for washing clothes). I also have a quick-connect valve (seen in the second picture at the right - it's the blue and white thing between the red and white tubing on the water inlet line), to shut off the inlet water.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the excellent write up guys! That is my next purchase.

Dolfan - you have two auto shut off valves on your system - did it come from the vendor that way?

For those with ebay systems...

Your water is as clean as your systems can make it after it goes through your DI stage. The GAC stage after the DI is counterproductive and should be removed.

Unclip the DI cartridge and orient it vertically with bottom up flow. Assure that the cartridge is completely full with DI resin,

Russ @ BFS