Thoughts on/experience with 3M OCS System?

Water analysis, treatment, and mineral recipes for optimum taste and equipment health.
Graymatters
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#1: Post by Graymatters »

I'm still looking for a (relatively inexpensive) filtering solution to plumb in my Pro 800. In perusing various vendors, I came across this 3M product that I hadn't heard of before.

https://www.espressoparts.com/products/ ... ve-in-head

The details seem sparse to me, but there are claims of filtering, removing bad tastes, and reducing scale... Do any of you water sages have thoughts or, even better, experience with this system?
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apple2k
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#2: Post by apple2k »

I don't know that one but I'm using a 3m ESP124 with an added carbon block on the output side and it is terrific.

We have very hard water here, lasts about 2 months with coffee, drinking/cooking water and steam oven use

Cartridges are about $50 from webstaurant super store once you pop for the first one and have the valve assembly

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homeburrero
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#3: Post by homeburrero »

apple2k wrote:don't know that one but I'm using a 3m ESP124
The OCS HC351-S that the OP linked is very different from 3M's ESP 124. The latter is a conventional ion exchange softener that replaces hardness cations with sodium ions. That's a reasonable choice if you know that your water needs softening.

The HC351-2 has no softening resin. It does release a scale inhibitor into the water. They don't say what they use, but is likely a few PPM of polyphosphate. You won't see any reduction in hardness from this filter if you measure it with a test kit, but it reportedly will reduce the likelihood of hard scale deposits in the boiler.

Hard to choose one over the other without knowing more about the hardness and alkalinity of the water.
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Graymatters (original poster)
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#4: Post by Graymatters (original poster) replying to homeburrero »

Okay, I was wondering how they'd reduce the likelihood of scale without softening. As far as the water that I'm working with, this is the Nov '22 report for Minneapolis, measured at the plant -

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homeburrero
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#5: Post by homeburrero »

Looks like you could go either way. Your water has a calcium hardness of 72 ppm and alkalinity of 51 ppm (as CaCO3) - close to 'ideal' in terms of conventional recommendations. Based on the Langelier Saturation Index at those levels it should tend to deposit scale in a 1 bar steam boiler, so you may need to periodically descale if you use something like that OCS system.

If you want water in the 'never descale' zone you could go with a conventional softener like the 3M ESP 124 or the Homeland HWCS.

I would not recommend a decarbonizing filter (e.g., BWT Bestmax, Everpure Claris, Mavea Quell, etc) with this water because you want to keep your alkalinity high given that borderline high chloride. It's barely below the 30 ppm level where La Marzocco and many others recommend using RO to reduce chloride, and a little above the 15 ppm level where the most conservative manufacturer (Synesso) advises going to RO. Chloride can be a corrosion concern, especially in water with low alkalinity.

You have chloramine disinfectant, which is a little harder to remove than simple chlorine. That might argue in favor of the added carbon block filter like apple2k uses with their ESP 124.
Pat
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