Sawyer Mini design…so close

[Dale Wambaugh]

Somewhere in a cubicle at Sawyer is a guy from the design team saying, "I told you so." :)

[Shaun Gregory]

Somewhere in a cubicle at Sawyer is a guy from the design team saying, "I told you so." :)
now that's funny

ok my question is with the bottle cap mod it is now a closed system, are there any issues with air pressure in the clean bottle that needs to vent while filling up?

td

[Glenn S]

I'm still not sure why people don't use a SmartWater flip cap. Still way too cold for me to field test, but at home it works awesome. The nipple of the flipcap fits right over the Sawyer nipple. No muss, no fuss. I even squeezed pretty hard to backflush this way and it didn't even leak. I suppose epoxy if you wanted it permanent, but I just use this cap for my drinking bottle and when I want to flush, just stick it on the end of the sawyer. Nothing could be easier.

[M G]

ok my question is with the bottle cap mod it is now a closed system, are there any issues with air pressure in the clean bottle that needs to vent while filling up?

YES!

[Shaun Gregory]

I'm still not sure why people don't use a SmartWater flip cap.

+10 on this. I was pondering this last night with several different caps and also found that the smartwater bottle caps worked great like this. No issues with air pressure.

td

[JCH]

With my demonstrated mod of epoxying a cap to the output side, yes this is now a closed system…closed to anything going in other than clean water from the filter, and closed to air coming out.

If you use soft bottles as I do (platypus, evernew, etc) you simply start with all the air squeezed out of the clean bottle. If I want to fill the bottle to the absolute top and have not done a very good job of squeezing out all the air to start, I sometimes have to slightly loosen the cap at the very end of the fill.

The only way for this closed system approach to work if you use hard bottles (Nalgene, SmartWater, recycled PET, etc) is to leave the cap slightly loose to allow air to escape. IMO this is still a vast improvement as you only barely crack the cap open. For anything to go in from outside the system, it would need to do so past the air coming out.

[Glenn S]

I guess I'm not sure what the end goal is here. Is cross contamination and spillage the only goals? (not sure I understand either as a concern) Or is this to work as a hanging gravity filter, or something else I'm not realizing?

I keep chuckling to myself thinking if Sawyer had released this with bottle fittings on both ends, then the title of this thread would be:

"Sawyer mod to remove excess 8 grams"

While half the people contemplated different ways to cut off the end and the other half say it's just right.

[Shaun Gregory]

My end goal was to have a way to squeeze water into a clean bottle/bag without having to dick with keeping a straw inside the clean bottle/bag while rolling or squeezing the dirty bottle/bag. I like the smartwater cap.

td

[Glenn S]

Shaun, that makes sense. Do you drink right from the bag then? I find that awkward, but whatever works. It just seemed by some of the other posts that there was some greater system in play that I wasn't seeing.

[Shaun Gregory]

I use .5l pepsi bottles for drinking while hiking. I will fill a platy soft bottle for cooking and tea. I still look for different methods given my inexperience and whether I am solo or with my son.

[Delmar O’Donnell]

Where did you find a food-grade epoxy, and what's it called? Thanks.

[JCH]

Lots of options here:
http://www.atomadhesives.com/FDA-Grade-Adhesive-Food-Safe-Epoxy

I got a lot more results from googling "food grade epoxy"

[Bob Gross]

Is that for making backpacker food stick to your ribs?

–B.G.–

[Delmar O’Donnell]

Did you use one of those food grade epoxies you linked to, John? If so, which do you recommend?

[KRS]

Any of you seen one of these? If you can't figure it out it has two female end caps.

[Erik G]

Very cool!

I'd love to know how you made that. Or did you purchase it somewhere? Either way I dig it. That's how Sawyer should have made it in the first place.

[Jerry Adams]

You're teasing us : )

That looks like a mini with the input and output the same – you can screw onto a bottle or bag

Then, you could use it to backwash using a bottle/bag without anything extra

[JCH]

Delmar,

I just used some epoxy I had around the house. I spend my youth and early adulthood building fiberglass boats and bathing in Acetone. If I'm going to die of chemical poisoning it's going to be from that, not from 0.05 oz of epoxy on my water filter.

[Ken Larson]

Quote from John T Smith, SAWYER…..

"Some of the mods are clever, and some are dangerous to your health (and therefore we can not endorse).

There are no plans to add female threads to the exit, nor will there be in the future, for reasons mentioned in the thread.

Adding male threads to the exit side has been discussed, but has not gotten any traction with the marketing dept yet."

[Tom Clark]

I recently got a Mini Sawyer for my JMT hike (previously used Aqua Mira). Some questions for you experienced folks…

– How often do you need to backflush (1/week)? I realized that it will vary, but I'm thinking about daily use at Sierra streams, not muddy AT creeks.
– Have people had that many blow-outs of the bladders, and is it just caused by excessive squeezing and/or dirty filters?

I haven't played yet with the filter at all…too focused on getting Wilderness Permits. Starting at Happy Isles in the Valley on August 25th!!!!

Thanks,
Tom

[Delmar O’Donnell]

> I just used some epoxy I had around the house. I spend my youth and early adulthood building fiberglass boats and bathing in Acetone. If I'm going to die of chemical poisoning it's going to be from that, not from 0.05 oz of epoxy on my water filter.

Well good news John, acetone is one of the safer solvents out there! You're not going to die from it, unless you've been drinking it.

"Acetone is produced and disposed of in the human body through normal metabolic processes. It is normally present in blood and urine…Reproductive toxicity tests show that it has low potential to cause reproductive problems…Acetone is used in a variety of general medical and cosmetic applications and is also listed as a component in food additives and food packaging. Dermatologists use acetone with alcohol for acne treatments to peel dry skin…Acetone has been studied extensively and is generally recognized to have low acute and chronic toxicity if ingested and/or inhaled….Acetone is not currently regarded as a carcinogen, a mutagenic chemical or a concern for chronic neurotoxicity effects." (Wikipedia)

Live long and prosper.

[JCH]

"There are no plans to add female threads to the exit, nor will there be in the future, for reasons mentioned in the thread."

Luckily, there is very little chance that I will sue myself for being an idiot and running the filter in reverse…a statement that a corporation cannot make.

[KRS]

So there are plenty of filters on the market including sawyer brand that can be used backwards if connected wrong. I don't understand why they can't just make one end blue and one end grey????? Sawyer has done it on other filter they sell. Free RD right here Sawyer

[JCH]

So Kurt…c'mon man, fess up. The heck did you do…frankenstein two Minis together? :)

[KRS]

YUP! BTW the filter is a little bigger on one end than the other, so the cap needs to have the inside turned on a lathe to fit. Not saying that anyone should do this. I did this at my own expense and risk. (risk was screwing up two good filters). All it comes down to was, I just replacing the end cap. The filter was not compromised in any way what so ever.

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