My New Water Filter Design

Jason,

I was unable to get the link to work!

The link worked for me.

If I were going to double treat my water (filter and chemical), I would filter first and then add the chemical.

Nice job Jason! Your video was straight to the point, easy to understand and informative. I have to Frontier Pros that I have used and never thought about taking off the bite valve and use as a gravity feed filter. Awesome. Great job!!

John, can you try it again? It's also on my blog if youtube doesn't work: http://jasonklass.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-new-water-filter-design.html

Try closing and reopening your browser.

Jason:

Great idea! Thanks for sharing. I plan to order the filter and give it a try.

Jason,
Nice clip. This shows just how easy gravity can be.
Kudos to Ben on the hacked Platy idea. I've got this setup minus the scoop (been using my 600ml mug) and the hang cord.
Chris

A couple of insights:

1. This filter has charcoal in it which means treating first, filtering second is the right way to go. Treating kills the "small stuff" or viruses, then filtering removes the "big stuff" and the charcoal removes the chemicals that have already done their job so you don't have to drink them.

2. Since the charcoal removes the chemicals, there's no point in using expensive tablets. Unscented chlorine bleach will kill viruses in about half an hour. 3 drops per liter of clear water, 5 drops per liter of cloudy water. Once it's done it's job, you run the water through the filter and the charcoal removes the bleach and you get purified, fresh tasting water.

Love the Sitar!

Another great hit Jason.

Another fine, adaptive use of ultralight products. And another well-produced, informative video, Jason. Thank you.

Great job Jason! Quick question – considering that the water in the dirty bottle is "treated," is there a chance you might use it as a clean bottle if the need arose? Being new to backpacking I am wondering whether the rules of common sense say to always treat it as dirty, regardless?

John:

That makes perfect sense from a pure treatment perspective — except for those of us who can't stand that awful swimming pool taste (subjective, of course). For us, it's better to treat with chemicals first (to kill the small stuff like viruses and bacteria) — then filter to block out the bigger, harder to kill stuff like cysts — and also to remove the offensive chemical taste.

I hear ya…sounds like a good idea.

Hi Greg,
Yes, I think you could as long as you don't mind drinking particulate matter. That's another reason I like the filter–it takes out anything that's floating around. Also, you would probably want to wait the full 4-hour time to make sure even the big stuff is dead before drinking it.

I checked out the Aquamira filter. It's only 3 microns. That doesn't compare well with say, the claimed sub-micron capability of the Miniworks.

Of course there is a dearth of actual testing that would say this matters. I sure would like to replace my heavy Miniworks with this little thing, but the doubt lingers.

Herman,
That's a choice to make in the gear you use. Filter it all, or filter out the big stuff after chemicals killed the little ones? Everyone has their own preferences.

> That's a choice to make in the gear you use. Filter it all, or filter out the big stuff after chemicals killed the little ones? Everyone has their own preferences.

Or use UV, kill ALL the bugs, and get no bad taste.

Cheers

Or to not treat at all…

That's a choice to make in the gear you use. Filter it all, or filter out the big stuff after chemicals killed the little ones? Everyone has their own preferences.

Yeah, except 3 microns isn't small enough to filter all the big ones.

What is smaller than 3 microns that the chemicals won't kill in 30 minutes?

Cryptospordium cysts (can be 1 micron size), if the water is very cold and/or dirty. And that is with the number 1 chemical treatment, chlorine dioxide. See chart for Katadyn Micropur.

Jason, until someone will make a filter that is purely a carbon element I'm interested in using this prior to my steripen. Have you timed the flow rate of it? Could you maybe just time how long it takes to hold the platypus and squeeze the water through the filter into another container rather than hanging it? I'd appreciate it, thanks.

Jason:

A pure carbon filter is good for clarifying water and improving taste — but it will NOT render water biologically safe to drink. But if you have other means of purifying/filtering away biological baddies — then you can use a pure carbon inline filter like this one.

However, having tried the above and many other filters/purifiers… for the cost, size and weight, I would choose the Frontier Pro over the Katadyn carbon filter.

Frontier Pro flow rate:

Gravity mode – 2.5 minutes per liter.
Hand rolling water from a dirty bladder through – about 2 minutes.

While you can shorten the time a bit more by rolling/pushing fast and furious — you run the risk of compromising the effectiveness of the filter by applying too much pressure and pushing water through too fast.

Benjamin; thanks for the link to the carbon element; that looks just like what I'm looking for; I am using the steripen so I wasn't planning on using the frontier pro to remove nasties; just to remove nasty tasties and say chemicals from ag. runoff; which I'm not that worried about anyways. It looks like that will nest into a largemouth container as well so it will fit my application quite well. What I've done is taken a large mouth 1-liter nalgene canteen and cut a large hole out of the top to basically make a thread ring; I put one or two coffee filters over the opening depending on turbidity and affix the ring; scoop water into the container; treat with steripen; affix carbon element; turn upside down and drain through carbon element into my drinking container.

This whole steripen thing would be much easier if they would make a prefilter and adventure sized model that are compatable with narrow opening bottles like the platypus. I'd be much happier.

I found this a few days back.

http://www.seychelle.com/Prodselect.asp?RepID=10001&CategoryID=383&BasketID=

It removes up to 99.99% of contaminants and pollutants found in fresh water supplies including Giardia, Cryprosporidum, E-Coli Bacteria; Organics such as DDT, MTBE, Benzene, Chloroforms (THM'S); and In-Organics (Heavy metals) such as Arsenic, Lead, Mercury, Copper, and Chromium 6.

100 gallon capacity. cost just as much as frontier pro. it may be possible to attach it to a nalgene cantene (but I am not completely sure of it).

A combination of this and bleach/chlorine would make a attractive, economical, UL set up.

what do you guys think?