Spotless Rinse System

hi

i've just ordered one of these systems; i'll let you know what i think after i use it - i've heard great things about this kit - got my fingers crossed...

ciao

john

 

i have a commercial de-ionizer and i have been tempted to try it. I will report here when i do. the units shown only produce water at 1-3 gallons per minute. that means it could take up to 5 minutes to fill a 5 gallon bucket. that's a long time. also, depending on the condition of your water, i would imagine that thing would be exhausted pretty quick. you can rent much larger units than that for about the same price at a water purification dealer like culligan. they need to be recharged anyway, so you might as well rent it. i'd be very interested to see how many washes you get before you need to change the beads. the replacements are a little pricey.

 

I have one of those, and like it a lot.
You do not get alot of volume out of the unit, but it is enough to rinse the car after a wash.
I do not dry my silver or white cars after rinsing, but did dry the black one to make sure it was spot free.

I have has the unit about a year now, and the original filters are still functioning.

 

I've also been looking into these as we use similar systems coupled with reverse osmosis in the lab. The concern has been water flow and yield as we have very hard water and the resin's capacity is inversely proportional to the hardness of the water. Interestingly, Costco has begun to sell them- and at a lower price than the company's website lists. Costco ($419 including shipping) also gives a lot more useful info regarding the system: here's the spiel on their web site

Hard water spots can destroy your vehicle’s finish. That’s why CR Spotless Water Systems created a de-ionizing system that takes out all of the minerals in your water so you can just WASH, RINSE, and WALK AWAY! That’s right! With a DIC-20 Spotless Water System™, you can let your car, RV, house windows, etc., air dry with no worries that hard water spots will appear. Say goodbye to towel drying and the scratches that towels and chamois can cause. You can even give your car a quick 5 minute rinse between washes to keep it looking great all the time.

Package Contents:

DIC-20 with Dual TDS Meter
(2) 20” Cartridges Filled with De-Ionizing Resin
4’ Inlet Hose (Attaches to Hose Bib)
Nozzle (7 Pattern Garden Sprayer)
Roll of Teflon Plumber’s Tape
Housing Wrench
Quick Start Guide/Warranty Card
Bonus: 50’ Garden Hose
Bonus: (2) Sets Quick Connects
Bonus: (2) Bags of Resin (R2-20)
Features:
A water de-ionization system, not a water softener
Removes all minerals and dissolved solids from the water
Battery operated, dual TDS meter to monitor the water quality in and out of the system
Ergonomically designed cart with a padded handle
Easy to refill resin or replace cartridges when needed
Seven pattern garden hose nozzle with FLAT setting
4’ inlet hose to attach to hose spigot and 50’ garden hose

Benefits:
Produces 100% pure, mineral-free de-ionized water
Pure water evaporates without leaving any spots behind
Know when it’s time to change or refill the cartridges before spots appear
Take it anywhere… easily rolls and maneuvers with one hand
No need to send it back for regeneration
Flat spray pattern restricts water flow and increases pressure
Everything is supplied even the hoses!

System Requirements:
Standard Garden Hose Bib
Need to Restrict Water Flow to 4 Gallons Per Minute or Less with Supplied Nozzle on FLAT Pattern or Optional Pressure Washer
Expected Yield:

Input TDS Level Expected Yield (# of Gallons)
50 ppm 1600 gallons
100 ppm 800 gallons
200 ppm 400 gallons
400 ppm 200 gallons

 

What's the shortcoming of this system, at a 1/10th the price? http://www.autogeek.net/clinhofianda.html

I bought one a few weeks ago, and it seems to work well. I am not doing hi-volume washing, only a couple cars, say once a week.
I still use a waffleweave micro-towel to mop up excess and an air blower to get water out of cracks and crevasses.

I usually finish with a spray detail, when I am not waxing afterwards.

Results are extremely good, particularly given that one of the cars is black, and we know how fun those are to detail.

 

Looks interesting but they're very different systems. The more expensive system uses an expensive resin to actually remove the particles and ions. The resin absorbs them and that's why it gets "exhausted." The water softening replaces one set of ions with others that allow more suds and cleaning action and the water has less of a tendency to spot. But the overall conductivity of the water is relatively unaffected.

Haven't used either so I can't comment on how well they work but, for the lab, a water softening would clearly cause us lots of trouble: we actually have to remove the ions to remove the components that give water its conductivity- and that wouldn't be affected by the water softening.

Whart; what do the cars look like if you do no drying at all?

 

Jeff- Dunno, since I tend to get the water off quickly, to avoid.... spotting. I can experiment, though, and let you know.
Still got that 550? I seem to remember your wanting to get rid of it a while back...

 

If you use the Mr Clean system, when the soap supply is exhausted you can use regular car wash. The benefit of it is the spot free rinse. I advise rinsing the car normally with a hose first and than follow up with the spot free rinse using liberally. It works quite well if you make sure to use the spot free rinse throughly. Part of the mistake and rants from others regarding soap streaking is that the spot free rinse does not do a good job at removing the soap.

 

The annoying thing about the Mr. Clean system is how long it can take to rinse a car...I might as well dry it the "normal" way...

 

So how small a particle size are these systems removing? To maintain the life of the filter and flow/pressure, it would be important to have a good pre-filter or two, in front of the final "absolute" filter to keep it from clogging prematurely. Generally the very small particle filters are very expensive (can be in the hundreds of dollars for a "absolute" rated filter) versus the larger (1 to 25 micron size) "nominal" rated filters which can cost $10 to $50 each.

 

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11201522&whse=BC&topnav=&browse=

How I would want that set up plumbed to my hose bib, is with a bypass around the system too. That way I am only using it for the final rinse of the car, and saving on filter costs, as I don't need filtered water for my pre-rinse and wash.

So I would put a Y connector at the front and back of that system, with a hose to bypass it.

 

You would absolutely want a Y connector with a bypass so that you could do the initial rinse and the hosing wash with unfiltered water. You'd only use the filtering system for the final rinse. And I agree, a prefilter that gets out all the crud is the way to go; that way, you won't clog the expensive resin.

Hmm...is this more trouble than it's worth???

 

If it weren't for DI water, it's quite possible I would like my job less. All I do is wash and rinse the car in sections, because if the soap dries on the car, you have to do it again. Then I blow the water off with a reversed 16 gallon 6.5 hp shop-vac. Towels never have to touch the paint. Technically, you could wash the car and just put it in the garage overnight, and there would be no spots. DI water works that well. However, dust and dirt that's floating in the air, will stick to the water drops. When the water evaporates, you'll have little spots of dirt stuck to the paint.

I bought the DIC-20 ( http://crspotless.com/index.php?category_id=6 ) a year ago, and used it until the cartridges ran out. It worked very well, however the water pressure was greatly reduced. Also, at 300 gallons of DI water per refill, I'd go through 2 refills a month. If anyone's interested in my DIC-20, let me know. It's been sitting in my garage for a year.

Instead, I went with http://www.puretecinc.com/ . Same concept as the little filters, but on a larger scale and delivered to my house. The filter tank is about 5ft tall and 12 inches wide and good for about 800 gallons. I pay ~$25 a month to rent the tank and about $70 for them to come out and switch it for a fresh one. On top of that, everything is billed to my credit card, and when I call them swap it for a fresh one, it comes the next day. Very simple for me.

For those of you in other states, call your water softening company that you use for your home. They may also provide DI tanks, or be able to tell you who does.

 

that's a really good price and sounds like the best alternative if you have one near you.

 

I have been using a 4000 gallon a day ro system that I have in my basement for supplying very low tds water to my fish tank , It is also ran through a di system befor i use it for the fish . I just have it piped up to my gararge and it comes out a regular garden house . Ive been doing it this way for about 5 years and would never go back to teh old way . If you buy one of teh systems with teh refilliable cartrages you can buy teh di resien in bulk like i do and save a ton of money .
I get 50lb bags for about 100 bucks which is enough to fill 4x20 inch cartrage 25 times . If I were you guys I would invest in a small ro system with a large holding tank say 150 gallons , it might take a few days to fill this up with ro water from a small 50 gallon aday unit but its a much better way to go , then all you need is a small pump to pump it trough your garden hose , If you guy are interested i can post some pics and where to get the parts at to build this set up .

 

My dad has something similar to this for our boat, its a huge tube that sits on the dock filled with a salt of some sort, but it works and saves time from wiping the whole boat down, saves a few hours of work!

 

to make it spotless for washing cars? hehe thats easy instead of spraying the car down take the nosel off and rinse the car down open hosed. I do this on the black 360 i detailed and the black Db7 in the sun when no shade was present. You dont "need" that system. Basicaly its a rush of rolling water that rinses the car and it pools so much it runs off the car vs a spraying shower head. If you spray it down with a shower headed hose, it will spray lightly and not in the heavy pools of flowing water, so water has time to disperse and make water droplets instead of runing off in unison

hope this helps

 

I think it also has to do with the quality of the water, Hardwater is the reason it leaves marks.

 

I dry my car after washing by driving fast (60 mph+) until it is dry.

This is the fun way to dry a Ferrari.

I used to own a power washer. It lasted about 2 years. Now I just go to the car wash and wash it myself (high pressure by hand). I rinse with the "spot free" setting, and dry it using the method described above. Yes, there are a few areas that have to be wiped with a towel...takes about 2 minutes for that.

Just haven't been able to justify buying a washing system. Now, if I lived too far from the car wash (more than 10 miles), that would be different.

 

never heard of such a large ro system. do you have a link? also, can you tell us where to buy the di beads in bulk? i go through alot of them myself. by the way, i like the fish tank. i think i've seen it on another site. who did the install, very nice job.

 

^true, we are on city water not well.. so that makes a diffrence in iron content.

Start using Dasani water LOL

 

san pellegrino for me hahahaha