Cyclone Filter Issues

[andrewdia]

We have recently installed a "Lakos" type filter into our cooling water system and it is being incredibly temperamental. It varies from collecting virtually nothing for days, to the far more in just an hour. We are looking at getting an ultrasound flow meter to measure the internal flow, but here are our guesses at what’s wrong.

-Sludge is collecting at the bottom of the cyclone until a point when it starts to rapidly empty.

-Cooling water quality varies dramatically (not likely as make-up water is added from the local river).

-Cyclone effect is not working and dragging particles out as “clean” water.

Has anyone here experienced any similar problems? I saw that StoneCold had problems with the same type of filter in ’05 but that thread was closed (thread124-128942) – Was that problem ever resolved?

Thanks in Advance,
Andrew

 

[StoneCold]

andrewdia
We still use our lakos unit. Our unit originally came with a bag filter and we converted it to a cartridge filter unit. We suck our "concentrated solids" water off the bottom of the lakos. You can take water off the two taps in the sides of the unit we have never used this option because I did not even know about it until recently. Our makeup water is city water so I am guessing that our water quality might be better than yours. We run our unit at the maximum rated flow. I don't know if we were to slow the water flow down or speed it up if it would be better or worse. We opened ours up after about three years of service and there was a lot of slime in there. It seemed to work better after cleaning it out. I am actually contemplating getting rid of the thing and installing a sand filter because I think my operating cost for the cartridge filters is worse than the cost of back flushing a sand filter.
I don't know if that helps but that has been my experience with it.

Regards
Stonecold

 

[andrewdia]

Thanks! I've passed that on.

I'd be really interested to hear other people's experiences of the their Lakos filters.