Home made resin ion exchange pouch?

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

Is it possible/safe to buy the ion exchange resin I find on amazon and just put some in a nylon mesh bag and throw that into my water tank to soften the water a bit?

I'm not asking if it's the best solution, but I want to know if there's a more budget friendly DIY solution than buying those Rocket pouches.

espressotime
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#2: Post by espressotime replying to CoffeeRyokou »

For 80 euros you'ii get a DVA 8 liters including the resin.

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Jeff
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#3: Post by Jeff »

Tell me about these reservoir water softeners suggests that the in-reservoir pouches are suspect as to meaningful performance.

Edit: See also updates to that in Post #10 in this thread.

Based on that, I'd suggest something like a ZeroWater (or other source of demineralized water) and managing minerals explicitly, or selecting an appropriate source of bottled water.

new2espresso
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#4: Post by new2espresso »

Distilled water with potassium bicarbonate the pavlis formula. Or distilled water with the epsom salt baking powder whole latte love formula. I use the latter and don't use any resin filters
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homeburrero
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#5: Post by homeburrero »

To do the same as the Bilt/Rocket you would need very fine resin and a mesh that contains it, and you would still be missing the benefit of the antibacterial treatment that seems like a good idea for a resin pouch that will sit for months in the reservoir. Given the $15 - $30 per year cost of the product I can't see it worth the hassle of trying to DIY your own.

If you want a very inexpensive DIY softener your best bet would be to run your water through a DVA rechargeable conventional softener like espressotime recommended. Cheap and predictable softening, and you have the option of recharging it with potassium rather than sodium if you prefer.
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Randy G.
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#6: Post by Randy G. »

The resin is VERY fine little plastic spheres that behave almost as a liquid, particularly when wet, so you would need a VERY tight mesh bag. If they leak out it can cause problems in the machine such as blocking valves or even melting on the heating element. I use to use a refillable cartridge and treat and refill my own cartridges for my inline system, but it can be a hassle.
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stefano65
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#7: Post by stefano65 »

Pouches are fairly inexpensive considering the damage that hard water could do to your machine,
will be the equivalent of a good oil or fuel filter in a car,

for example we sell the oscar 90 for 14.95 and the Oscar 150 for 17.95
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CoffeeRyokou (original poster)
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#8: Post by CoffeeRyokou (original poster) »

Thanks all. I'm waiting or my machine to arrive. I'll test it with the water kits I purchased with it.

If it looks like the water is harder than I'd want, but within reasonable limits, I'll probably just go with the water softener pouches to see how much it will help.

Stefano - do you ship to Japan? I might need to purchase some filter packs at some point.

breenmachine
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#9: Post by breenmachine »

I'm currently using 2 softener pouches to be safe but after doing hardness tests I'm not super impressed. I don't have exact numbers but on my test strips it knocks it down about 1 color level. I will probably be looking into some other solutions soon.

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homeburrero
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#10: Post by homeburrero »

CoffeeRyokou wrote:If it looks like the water is harder than I'd want, but within reasonable limits, I'll probably just go with the water softener pouches to see how much it will help.
Tokyo water, reportedly in the range of 50 - 100 mg/L total hardness as CaCO3 is soft enough that it should do well with one of those Oscar/Bilt 90 pouches (same as Rocket pouch). The resin in this softener will not reduce the alkalinity, which is a good thing where you don't have high alkalinity but do have a bit of chloride in the water.
breenmachine wrote:I'm currently using 2 softener pouches to be safe but after doing hardness tests I'm not super impressed. I don't have exact numbers but on my test strips it knocks it down about 1 color level. I will probably be looking into some other solutions soon.
Did you evaluate it over a few days of contact time? I recently did some testing that I reported here: Tell me about these reservoir water softeners where I came to a similar conclusion about effectiveness of these pouches. I've since done more rigorous calculations about contact time and will need to go back and add to that thread.* After doing the math it's more clear to me that if your water replacement in the reservoir is not high, i.e., using only 1 liter or less per day in a 3 liter reservoir, then over the long haul your average contact time between water and the softener would be high, and given enough contact time these pouches appear to do a reasonable job. That agrees with advice we have gotten from knowledgeable folks like Stefano Cremonesi and Andrew Meo who have recommended these filters.

* Edit addition: I added that, new post is here: Tell me about these reservoir water softeners
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