On Board Water?

LOL - dick! HAHAhahahahaa

 

I have been watching this thread for some time now , to keep my creative juices flowing on building my own system using many good ideas posted here , Thanks
I've been a Steamfitter and play with pipes , tubing, heat exchangers, 3 way valves , pumps , mixing valves , adapters , bushing's , couplers , quick disconnects , winterization problems , drain & fill options , vents , check valves , back-flow preventers , etc. etc.

THEN .... Along comes this idea !

And Blows all that equipment , calculations , and Co$t Out the Window !

BRILLIANT !!!

 

Pics to follow- but filtration is MANDATORY.
I just spent ten days out on a hunting trip with my dad and each used the on board shower almost every day. quickly learned my stupid pump does NOT self prime and had to learn the " squeeze a water bottle underwater" trick.
after that got worked out, I realized it's awesome to come back from the trail every day with the cooler of melted ice from the morning run and drop the intake hose there- stretched our dedicated wash water a few more days by making use of it.

worked great even when I was pulling cooler water through that still had ice floating in it!
until the fourth day when little bits of crap accumulated in the screens installed on the mixing valve and I was ass nekkid in 40 degree weather with a slow trickle of ice water pouring on my head...
on my setup, the cold intake side of the valve is a much shorter run from the pump, and with the same resistance on both hot and cold sides, the path of least resistance is only cold water through the valve.

Another tip- when installing your system, use LocTite pipe thread sealant or some paste type- rather than Teflon tape- I only used teflon on two connection points and little bits of it ended up on the screens- a bunch of the paste did too, but that wont create big blockages in the heat exchange, and enough hot water through will eventually push it out.

 

don't judge my dirty bum hands I clearly needed the shower ha
The screens were totally clogged with bits of crap from the cooler, the fresh water line connections.


The shower tent from bass pro shops was an awesome investment. Kept the heat in and the cold wind out.

Using my on board air hose & hung the shower. I've got an overland hotel on wheels now

 

Use your OBA and blow that screen out!.

 

For that reason, I already have this sitting in my "to do" box. Just need to find the plate exchanger in the config I want at a deal. Reverse osmosis (ro) system with 3 chambers/ filters ahead of the ro unit.



Will be adding a UV sterilizer/ filter in there too.

 

Haha okay where the heck are you gonna fit all that?!
I haven't stalked your build thread yet do you have on board air etc? Very curious how you're gonna fit all that on board safely mounted and still have room to remain functional

 

Yep. If it's in my sig, I got it. Or will in the very near future. Bed sides, that is the secret. We have tons of room we never think about using. The reason we don't is, we are too busy looking at what everyone else has done and taking that as the 'law' of how we need to mod. I step back and think foreword/ outside the box.

My oba will have my sliders as air tanks eventually, effectively freeing up another couple cubic feet under the truck and serving dual purpose as not to waste space.

Beauty of a filtration system is that as long as it is under pressure, doesn't matter how it is mounted. Since it works of pressure and not gravity. Also, looking at it, could be deceptive too. I will be devoricing the filters and mounting them in a different manner.

Already 'dry fit' them, it'll work. The key is protecting anything I put in the bedside. That protection will come from the integration of body railing. Eventually the front bumper will be tied into the sliders with a bar following the body lines of the wheel wells. Then the same with the rear bumper.

Money is the only thing stifling my creativity.


*watch, learn, step back and ask "how could that be improved" --> innovate*

Check the oba thread, you'll see how the dual compressors are mounted in a completely out side the box manner.

 

Are you planning on using this as your filter for the pump/shower? Or does it have some other purpose like making drinking water?

 

Yes. That is going to be for all the water. My hope was to have 2 tanks. Drinking water and shower water. Then decided to just make one tank and use the water all the same. I can fill up at the start of a trip. OR still have 2 tanks, use one tank to fill/ filter the other through the RO setup as I'm driving around. I have a High Output system.

I have a 90GPD setup- 90 gallons per day / 24 hours = 3.75 gallons per hour.

SO if I had 2 x 15 gallon tanks under there. Or a 10 and a 15, or 5 and a 15 - etc. Would just need to hook up to water for a couple hours before hand.

Whenever we are on the road. I normally only stop for fuel anyways, then we stretch for an hour or two. Could put her up to a hose then or similar.

Not 100% on what I want to do for the tank setup yet. All I know is filtration is a must for my setup.

- Could always just sell that one in place for a 1000GPD / 42GPH system -

$828 HydroLogic EvolutionRO1000 High-Flow Reverse Osmosis System

Hydrologic 1000 GPD Evolution high output RO reverse osmosis system


At that point, I would just put the 90 back in the house on a different sink or sell it online. They still hold their value.

 

HAHAHAAHAHAHAA - =-

Is this a 1st gen taco?

 

RO system seems way overkill for U.S. domestic trips in a Tacoma. Also, You could probably pump water through the RO system fine, however I seriously doubt that a normal RV pump could suction water through reliably. I don't think the membrane will allow it. If you ditch the membrane and just use carbon block filter it might work...

I'm going with the $15 blue RV 100 micron carbon filter with garden hose threads for my filtration. Just using ours for shower only. Our drinking water is packed in 7 gallon aquatainer, and (4) x 1 gallon jugs.

Way back somewhere in this thread you mentioned possibly using the heat exchanger as a way to preheat water for cooking. Don't know if you're still thinking of that... I hope not, coolant is a poison to humans and if the heat exchanger developed a crack/leak, and ingestion occurred it could be fatal. Duda Diesel makes double walled exchangers for drinking water, even so I would never knowingly use it that way with engine coolant. The risk is too great IMO. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone had similar thoughts...

 

My project is still in the works. I have until late October to finish. I have the right mixing valve now, hose, clamps and pump. I'm going to build a manifold very similar to Tweeks. I may still add a tank but not entirely sure yet. My pump has been busy. I use it twice a week to pump kids bath water to water the lawn. Estimated 160 gallons a month, turned sprinklers off, saves me money! Lol

 

sub'd

 

I really admire all the ingenuity here , and I'm getting my own ideas (borrowed here) and then added or subtracted .... But now RO and UV ?
This project is getting out of hand ! Lol !
I'm certainly not intending any disrespect , far from it .... But we're not building a Space Station shower here nor a small Nuclear Reactor ... It's just to wash some dirt off or some sweat !
Granted , those filters work for drinking water , or a small reef aquarium in the dash , but this is getting really interesting !
W.O.W. .... Water on Wheels !
Or .... G.W.O.W. ... Good Water on Wheels !

 

Agreed there's way too much ingenuity here. SkyGear is going for water we could perform surgery with...
while I am totally comfortable just filtering the grit out of it before I run it past the engine coolant and drink right out of the shower head.

I'm gonna put a screen or a cheap inline RV filter on mine, if anything and admire everyone else's work.
if you look at both ends of the spectrum here, SkyGear might one day be able to pump out water cleaner than you can buy in a bottle, whereas I think I'm the only dude on this thread that has actually put their shower to use for the last two weeks haha come on dudes get yours together!

 

Here's a good footwell water tank. I'm buying one of these for our expedition setup.



http://www.frontrunneroutfitters.com/front-runner-40l-water-tank-footwell.html#.U_wzpmK9KSMqa

 

My kids are in the back, looked at one of those before.

As for my RO setup. Why should I have to sacrifice my drinking water? I use RO at the house, and normally bottle it for the road.

Lots of RV's use RO setups.


Use of the Heat exchanger to water tank / cooking- decided against thAT. I always have a Multi Fuel stove in the truck. White gas or similar on hand.

 

In between the front and back seats. The only problem I see with that tank is how to do you get water from one side to the other when the level gets low?

Is there an outlet on the other side?

 

Just lift the other end up and dump it across would be my guess. Shouldn't be too heavy.