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HRO/Sea Recovery Watermakers

Discussion in 'Watermakers' started by dev0n60, Jul 24, 2012.

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  1. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Thanks for the good advice. Unfortunately these Sea Recovery systems use what they call an "Energy Transfer Device" or ETD. There is NO separate low pressure (or feed) pump per-say like on some systems unless you think of the ETD as the high pressure pump. Our system has a Diaphragm style high pressure pump made by Shurflo. This feeds the ETD. The ETD optimizes/augments the pressure and supplies the membrane. The whole arrangement is controlled by Sea Recovery's electronics (PCB). Whatever we use in the future when we "customize", it will have to work with the controlling interface of Sea Recovery's controller PCB. OR we just dump the PCB too and re-invent a something. It can be done but we thought we would try and work with what we had first. AND let people know about Sea Recovery and their poor commitment to customers after the sale: for this single missing factor, none of this would be happening.
  2. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    I am a little confused on what kind of pump you got as a replacement now. Is it another one that you expect to break down, regardless of the transport event, or is it a better one?

    The reason I ask is that we recently delivered a boat with a HRO Seafari Escape, does yours look like this one?

    Attached Files:

  3. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Thank you very much for taking the time to post this. Yes.. the NEW pump we ordered is the same beast you have in the picture. The motor is different, but the pump head looks the same.
  4. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    I'm a little curious and confused. Hydraulic oil leaked from where? If I remember, those CAT like pumps hold maybe a pint of oil. A sight glass or fill cap would have to get smashed for it to leak, I think.
    Gravity is our friend. How much oil got into the electric motor?
    A correct waybill and international transit sheet would of told FedEx anything they needed to know in how to handle the box. You may have still had a claim with FedEx.
    After all of this, with a free pump (less shipping). You have not put your system together?
  5. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Thank you for taking the time to write.
    Your questions are sort of getting away from the purpose of our post. As we have posted previously, our intention for using the forum was to find out if someone else has made the conversion to another non-Sea Recovery pump that is compatible with the rest of the Sea Recovery system. This would truly and really get us away from depending on Sea Recovery. The other intent was to let people know so that hopefully they will not make the same mistakes when considering the purchase of a watermaker.
    I will try and answer your questions below:
    The CAT pumps have a breather. You can see it in the photo posted by AMG above. It is the red 'cap' looking thing. The breather did just that: it let all the oil out because no handling instruction were placed on the box i.e. 'this side up', 'fragile', 'oil enclosed'.... etc. The oil was not shipped in a separate sealed container. It was not listed on the packing list. There was no "international transit sheet" (as you wrote) or other document notifying the carrier that hydraulic oil was in the package.
    And: I have no idea how much oil it takes to fill it.
    There was enough oil to saturate the cheap foam packing around the pump and cause it to disintegrate into tiny, oily foam bits. The package then had essentially no padding or material to protect the pump. The 23 kg pump got shipped from California to New Zealand via Hawaii and Australia I believe. Imagine what happened. A dented, chipped oily mess. We paid for new.
    So ........ we are still trying to get the Sea Recovery people to do the right thing and send us another pump in exchange. Their head guy Henrik Wendelboe still refuses to do so. I have asked 'why' and get no response.
    Since Sea Recovery refused initially to just exchange the pump (like any normal vendor would) we asked our credit card company to intervene. Afterward we offered to send the damaged one back at our expense and Sea Recovery send us a new, warrantied one at their expense for shipping and the cost for the pump at ours (since the original charges were refunded) . Sea Recovery has refused this. If the pump is in such great shape they really have nothing at all lose with this arrangement. They won't do it.
    As far as reconditioning the damaged pump is concerned you should know that Sea Recovery has contracts with their various manufacturers preventing them from selling parts directly to customers. We have tried in the past. I have posted this above.
    Free pump.... think again....
    Need more details? Believe me, we have tried for almost 3 years now with these people. It is pushing 'it' up hill.
    Chris Rollins threatened that we should play along or else and they mean it.... extortion.
    As I have posted above- no one expects after spending a lot of money on a piece of gear to go thru the deception & dishonesty we have been subjected to from the people who sold the gear. We have dozens of written correspondence to Sea Recovery, their agents here in NZ, Shurflo..etc..
  6. K1W1

    K1W1 Senior Member

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    Hi,

    You have me thoroughly confused now.

    You talked about a Shurflow Diaphragm Pump first of all now you are saying the oil leaked out of the CAT HP Pump.

    Which is it?

    The ETD Process seems to be pretty straight forward if it is as shown in this picture.

    If it is just the Low Pressure Pump that is gone stop bashing your head against the wall and just replace it with a pump suitable to do the job.

    You could also make you life a lot simpler by re using things that are still ok on your existing POS and get a machine knocked up using off the shelf parts.

    Water Makers are no great mystery, it is just the increase in automation that has made them look frightening and difficult to understand for most folks.

    Attached Files:

    • ETD.jpg
      ETD.jpg
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  7. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Thank you K1W1 for the poste and I'm sorry if it seems I have confused the issue.
    The information re the Shurlfo pump and the CAT pump are in the original poste I placed and in subsequent postes to other forum members.
    To summarize very briefly: The machine was sold by Sea Recovery with the Shurflo diaphragm style High Pressure pump. After about 250 hours this pump's performance started to drop because of deformation and degradation of the valve and diaphragm materials. Just 250 hours after spending $11,000.00. This is the problem.... Eventually and after much one sided debate from Sea Recovery we made the decision to buy a pump from them that would perform/last longer: the $2150.00. CAT/Plunger pump. At the time we did not think we had any other choice based on what Chris Rollins from Sea Recovery had disclosed. The shipment of the additional 2150.00 purchase was a disaster: the machine was packaged very poorly and arrived damaged.

    Hope that clears up any confusion a little bit.

    No one expects after spending $11,000.00 on a watermaker to only get 250 hours. 'Insult to injury' is being told you will have to spend another $2150.00 to get a more reliable pump. Sea Recovery knew before the sale that the diaphragm style pumps would not last long but did not tell prospective buyers of their systems. A BIg omission....

    Thank you very much for taking the time to supply the drawing and advise.
    I believe that based on comments from you and other forum members we have a solution that will get our machine working using NON Sea Recovery supplied parts.
  8. Danfoss

    Danfoss New Member

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    Danfoss Sea Recovery

    From all of us at Danfoss Sea Recovery, we sincerly apologize for your unpleasant experience with our watermaker. As a result of our investigation, we found that this particular customer purhased a HRO Seafari Escape model in June of 2003 which had the ShurFlo Diaphragm pump. Unfortuneately, we must point out that the warranty for our systems are valid for only one year. While we can understand your frustration, we stand 100% behind our product and provide the appropriate customer service to a resonable degree. In return, we also ask that our customers are respectful in their response to our dealers and customer service.
    As the world’s largest supplier of marine RO systems, we are continuously in the process of quality improvement and hope that we can all move forward from this incident.
  9. K1W1

    K1W1 Senior Member

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    Hi,

    Welcome to YF, I hope you will contribute to threads dealing with RO Plants other than this one .

    Has the Original Poster laid out his case in an honest manner or should we read into your statement -some parts of the story are missing?
  10. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    Dear 'Danfoss'
    Thank you for responding to the private message I have sent to you.... Publicly.... I do think you are only going to make it worse for your selves....
    Let me first say: you are the 1st and only person from Sea Recovery to apologize.....
    Let me also point out that I believe you are intentionally (?) being misleading in your poste: the system was 1st put into use (commissioned) in 2007. You should know: the unit will not work without a membrane and we did not order the membrane until we commissioned in 2007.
    Regardless of the age, the hours on the machine are indicative of how used the machine is. We have a approximately 500 hours on the machine/membrane and have gone through two of the Shurflo Diaphragm pumps. You should know these pumps will not work more than 250 hours with out performance issues. 250 hours is just not enough and you all know it. AND, your company sold systems to customers knowing this. Is there any other way to look at this? Deceptive and dishonest is exactly what it is.
    How is standing 100% behind your product (as you have written) a true or accurate statement based on the documented/written exchange we have had with Chris Rollins, Mary Day and Mike Harris? In written correspondence we have always, in each and every correspondence thanked the recipient for attending to our concerns. In return we have it in writing that it is a "privilege" for us to deal with Chris and Mary. We have it writing the abusive language used by your agent Mike Harris in referring to us. We have it in writing the extortion from Chris Rollins that we must accept the damaged pump sent to us or be cut off from any future factory support......
    Your comment about asking customers to be 'respectful' in their dealings with your company's representatives is really something you all should learn to do when dealing with your customers.
    SO... LETS PUT IT TO A TEST : will Danfoss Sea Recovery exchange the damaged pump for what we ordered (a new undamaged pump) per the emails I have sent to your boss, Henrik Wendelboe and to Chris Rollins? You know... the whole.. 'we stand 100% behind our product'.. thing that you wrote in your poste.
    As I have pointed out already with you people, in exchanging the pumps you stand to lose nothing. I really do not understand why Chris and Mary refused. This entire matter has escalated to where it is now because of this refusal.
    So lets see if you will stand behind your products 100% or not.
    By the way, none of this addresses the deception perpetrated on customers who purchased these systems with the Diaphragm pumps. You people all knew they would not last. Chris Rollins and your agent Mike Harris confirmed this. You sold them anyway.
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 27, 2012
  11. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    As we have written in our message to you:
    1. We have all the written documentation supporting what has been posted regarding our experiences with Sea Recovery.
    2. Danfoss Sea Recovery is a big company: that they have taken notice of the postings is a good thing. Perhaps this forum will act as a catalyst and get them to do what they should have been doing all along.
    By the way... kind of a coincidence we think: our post regarding our experiences and what can be done to get away from depending on Sea Recovery to maintain our system.... and then, all of the sudden, Sea Recovery becoming a member of Yacht Forums ....
    If one googles Sea Recovery Watermakers, our Yacht Forums discussion is on the first page. Not good advertising for them. Sea Recovery is concerned that the truth is coming out and their malfeasance has been exposed; that and the lost revenue are the only reasons behind the very first apology we have ever received from these people.
    In a July 3, 2012 email to Danfoss Sea Recovery's Henrik Wendelboe (the company CEO) we wrote: "It is really truly remarkable that we still have no apology from any of you ...this should have been the most easy: it costs absolutely nothing...."
    This was part of our final email to Sea Recovery trying to get them to sort out our system. There failure to even respond is what finally prompted us to expose them.
  12. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    So let´s see now. The Watermaker is now almost ten years old and you started to use it in 2007. Then the feed pump was not feeding as it should any longer after 250 hours of duty. You now say it was replaced by a new one that lasted as long as the first one. Who paid for the second pump?

    More recently you bought an updated and better type of pump that was damaged during transport and therefore you will not accept it. Have you ever tried if it is working? How can you say the hydraulic oil is inside the electric motor if you have not opened it up?
  13. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    Honestly, If I paid $2150 for a pump and it arrived bathed in oil and looked like someone played basketball with it, I surely wouldn't accept it, let alone install it in one of my customers yachts, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't either.
  14. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    I have not seen the pump or any pictures of it.
  15. Marmot

    Marmot Senior Member

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    Malfeasance?

    I didn't know Sea Recovery was a government agency.
  16. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    People on land sometimes take for granted how easy the internet is. In transit on a 40 foot sailboat bandwidth is very expensive and not always available at speeds that support large file uploads.
    When we get somewhere where we can upload some pictures we will.
    You should know AMG that Sea Recovery knows exactly who we are in this forum. They have not come after us for slander because they know what we have posted is all true. We have all the documentation supporting everything we have posted.
    Senior member Capt J has it exactly: who wants to pay this kind of money to get these hassles? And do not forget everyone, what started the whole thing in the first place is Sea Recovery selling systems with pumps that would not last more than 250 hours before performance issues arose. And they did so knowing the pumps would fail. NO ONE would be happy with this after spending $11,000.00. Some of the questions I have read to the original poste seem to get a little off the track (i.e. the last poste by Marmot regarding the word 'malfeasance'....next time I will use the synonym 'wrongdoing' if that makes it better???)
    As we have posted previously:
    1. our intent in joining the forum was to find out if someone knew of a work around that we could employ to use a NON Sea Recovery Pump with our Sea Recovery PCB. The system is somewhat automated and relies on Sea Recovery stuff to keep it going.
    2. the 2nd intention was to let people know about Sea Recovery

    I would like to write and thank all of you on this Forum for taking the time and offering some good advise/suggestions. We have done what we set out to do. We have received the advise we need to convert our system to a more manual system bypassing the Sea Recovery PCB and using a non Sea Recovery supplied pump. And... We have let people know about Sea Recovery.
    I want to add that the process we have endured with Sea Recovery has occurred over years: since 2009 when we had the first pump failure after about 250 hours. It is difficult to share completely in this forum all of the story: there is just too much data.... 3 years of written correspondence (over 200 emails), dozens of telephone conversations, photographs, written statements by our freight forwarder most recently, quotations from Henrik Wendelboe at the Miami International boat show regarding Sea Recovery that directly contradict what we have experienced....
    It is a lot of data..... 3 years worth
    We stand by our previous posting: no one who spends a lot of time and money buying a watermaker system expects to mount a campaign in order to keep it going. This is what it feels like to us. Maybe a lot of people would have just paid someone to fix it. Maybe they would have said "life is too short" and turned the thing into an anchor. I don't know... we tried our best the past 3 years before resorting to this forum. Maybe we should have tried the forum sooner!
    Anyway... thanks again
    We will get some photos posted just as soon as we get someplace to do it.
  17. Capt Ralph

    Capt Ralph Senior Member

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    Still confused

    Let me get this straight;
    A 2007 unit, Fist pump was replaced (didn't hear about that). Second pump failed 5 years after the system was first commissioned, the "world cruiser" will not utilize what he has in hand because it might have some oil in it...
    I have never been a fan of Sea-Recovery equipment, But I'm a realist; Fix it and move on.
    Or, Whine some more, show you don't have any world cruiser backbone and don't have any water.
    Tired of reading this dribble.

    Good day ladies
  18. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    And on that note, you just became a senior member.
  19. Old Phart

    Old Phart Senior Member

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    I dunno
    I found this thread of interest and would like to read of a positive conclusion.

    K1W1 is doing his best; Capt J is being real; AMG sounds a bit pro HRO; and

    this thread seems to have an anchor secured to you.

    Perhaps, if this thread is allowed to run its course, a solution (customized work around) will be shared that will keep the flow flowing, despite the system's flaws (pumps and touch screens).
  20. dev0n60

    dev0n60 Guest

    rcrapps… thank you for taking the time to share your viewpoint.
    It is your viewpoint. Maybe other forum members want the information…. after-all, the 'dribble' you have been reading are responses to questions from the forum we are taking the time to address. 'Whining' as you wrote does not come into it. If you are tired of reading it….don't. Problem solved.
    As the adage goes: " you can please some people some of the time....."
    I have uploaded some photos of the install and the damaged packaged since some may question the veracity of what we have shared.
    BY the way rcrapps: do you even own a watermaker? Do you realize just how few hours 250 is when making water with a 200gpd system? Would you be happy spending $11,000 and having the same outcome? have you spent 22 years keeping a boat going whilst sailing around the world?
    As we have posted just recently : we have received the answers we need from the forum and we thank everyone again (including you rcrapps) for helping us get this sorted.
    We will be modifying our system to make it less automated and with a Non Sea Recovery supplied pump.
    Happy sailing everyone.
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 28, 2012
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