seychelle and siltstopper inline

[Joseph Pelfrey]

I am trying to devise an in-line gravity system. Here’s the setup…

MSR water bag, shower attachment, siltstopper, seychelle and hoses and couplings inline. The idea is to fill the bag and let gravity fill my bottles while in camp.

I can’t seem to get a consistant flow rate. It almost seems like their is backpressure on the system which is keeping it from flowing through.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[paul johnson]

1. are filters hooked up properly – i.e., water is flowing into the “gozinta” end and coming out of the “gozouta” end?

2. air needs to be able to escape from the bottles. they can’t be sealed tight with the only opening having water coming in. obviously, pressure will build up in this case.

3. cap can’t be on the supply/unfiltered water bag. air must be able to enter the bag as water flows out.

4. also, hang bag high. obviously, again, it should not be near the level of the bottle that you are filling.

sorry, i know that these are the most obvious reasons (based upon my understanding of your description) and you’ve probably already thought of these.

here’s a troubleshooting tip – in one word: SIMPLIFY (the system). since you’re testing it, remove all of the filters, and any other unecessary parts of the system, leaving the fewest components possible to have water flow from the bag into the bottle. try to fill the bottle a couple of times. note flow rate & time how long it takes to fill the bottle. obviously, if flow is NG in this “simplified” system, then you’ve got a problem with you water supply bag or tubing. blow air through them and see how air flows. now add one component back into the system. repeat the test noting flow rate & time to fill the bottle. continue until you have identified the “culprit”.

hope someone else can be more help to you.

[Joseph Pelfrey]

You may have hit on something…. I have the supply bag tightly capped with the shower attachment from MSR. I bet there isn’t any air getting in when I open the spigot.

All the other ideas have been tried. I did have to drop down in hose size and then back up to get the siltstopper in line but water seems to flow through the couplings well.

[Joseph Pelfrey]

You may have hit on something…. I have the supply bag tightly capped with the shower attachment from MSR. I bet there isn’t any air getting in when I open the spigot.

All the other ideas have been tried. I did have to drop down in hose size and then back up to get the siltstopper in line but water seems to flow through the couplings well.

[Mike Storesund]

I have used the same filter configuration with a Big Zip Platypus as the reservoir. I found I too had flow issues when I placed the siltstopper and Seychelle filters close to the exit port of the Platy. I also found that if I put a longer length tube between the reservoir and the filters, the flow increased significantly. Perhaps it has to do with the force of gravity through the longer tube length increasing the psi.
For me, this requires an extra length of tube to carry because I do not want to chance contaminating my bladder drinking hose.

[John Pickron]

I have a gravity filter but it’s an open cloth basket design, not a platy bottle. I would have the tendency to believe that the plastic on the platy has a tendency to hold it’s shape thereby creating a pocket of air that is under negative pressure. As the water empties from the bag it is not strong enough to collapse the bag an equal volume, thereby creating a vacuum, which is helping to hold the water back a bit.

just guessing since I can’t see one myself…

a clear example of a material that collapses as it empties would be an IV bag–

my flow rate with ULA amigo new is about 1L/min on avg.

[Joseph Pelfrey]

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I wonder if part of my problem is the resevior. I am using an MSR Dromadary bag with their shower attachment. The exit point/fill point are the same. If I used a platy, I could have the fill point slightly open to let air in and have the water drain to the exit point.

Nothing question….how you you folks use this if you were going to integrate it directly to your drinking platy. I have the Golite speed with the it built in. The seychelle comes with fittings to adapt to that hose size but the siltstopper is smaller.

[Joseph Pelfrey]

Mike…your advice helped. I put the filter setup at the bottom of my hose (about 2 feet) and the extra pressue helped. Should have paid attention in my physics class when they talked columns….

How long of a tube do you have in between resevoir and filters? I wonder if I can cut down some tube and weight.

[paul johnson]

Joseph,

i should have added the following pts for clarification to my earlier instructions.

regarding point 2 in the org. reply to you:
you could collapse the bottles fully so that there is no air in them – this would eliminate this as an issue.

regarding point three in the org. reply to you:
if bag is collapsible, then this isn’t much of an issue. haven’t seen one of these bags/containers so don’t know anything about it.

[Mike Storesund]

John, The Platy Big Zip has an exit port on the bottom and a plastic zip, just like a ziploc bag (only stronger)as the filling point. Leaving it open does not cause a vacuum issue. I use the H2O Amigo now also, but the Platy design was my first gravity filter that I have since passed down to my son.

Joseph, I use a 40 inch section of tube between the reservoir and the first siltstopper filter, then just 2 inches between the siltstopper and the seychelle filter. Since the two filters have different diameter fittings, I fit siltstopper exit tube (1.5″) into the seychelle input tube (1.5″) so there is a half inch of the smaller tube pushed into the larger tube.

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