Hardness claims.

On the Scalewatcher web site you will not find claims about to which level our product will be effective. The reason is that in one area the unit may work up to 50 Grains/Gallon and in other areas it does nothing. Reason is that the performance depends on many unpredictable variables being beyond our control. Competitors have no problem with stating exact levels of hardness to which their product can be used. They lack basic understanding of the treatment and misinform the consumer. Their statements are used for commercial purposes only to convince public that their product is the best. Should we follow that game? I do not think so.

There are three macro parameters directly influencing the performance of the unit.

1. Hardness
2. Electrical conductivity  and TDS
3. Velocity of the water.
4. Other ions in the water different from Calcium and Mangesium like Silicates, Manganese, Iron etc…

• Hardness. The more Calcium and Magnesium ions are in the water the easier it will be to let them precipitate in the bulk of the water by the Scalewatcher treatment.
• Electrical conductivity. This parameter decreases the induction in the water. The higher the electrical conductivity the stronger the unit should be. TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) is about proportional with the electrical conductivity. Hardness contributes to the TDS but not for 100 %. There is much more dissolved matter in water than Calcium or Magnesium alone. Therefore, high TDS will have a bad effect on the treatment as it decreases the induction of the electric and magnetic fields in the water. This is the reason that it is advisable to use a heavy industrial units for cooling towers as the TDS level can be high caused by evaporation.
• Velocity of the water. The treatment time may be too short when the velocity of the water is too high. A treatment time of only 0.1 second is enough to have an effect. The longer the treatment time, the better.
• Other ions. This is beneficial for the treatment although it will increase the TDS.

From the above we may conclude that it is not possible to give upper limits of the TDS where the SW will work.

In advertisements beneficial claims of a product in order to influence the decision of the consumer should be backed up by evidence.

Most recent and interesting applications world wide of Industrial Units.

Philippines

Heavy industrial units have been installed on air coolers of hydro power plants. Savings are in the region of $200,000 annually in 2007/2008.

China

Heavy industrial units have been installed each year on oil pipe lines and the petro chemical Industry since 2004.

Recently an HIME40 has been isntalled at a cement factory producing their own energy, to protect the condenser. As two pipes are used alternatively to carry the water to the condenser, a switch box has been supplied to make it easy to connect the output of the unit to any of the two coils. .

2xHIME40 were sold to dealer in China to protect cooling tower and chiller.

Greece

HIME40 operating on solar power has been installed in the mountains of Northern Greece on a 3.5 km pipe line carrying water to rotate the turbines of a hydro power plant this year. Results sofar: Normally the blades of the turbines have to be cleaned when the load is reduced to 75%. The customer was eager to do the installation as this point was reached. Within 20 days the load was back to 100 %.

Peru

HIME40 for paper factory. Excellent results. We are waiting for a report.

Chile

HIME24 sold to copper mine. Good results. Download the report .here.

Belgium

2 x HIME24 sold to Arcelor steel factory in 2008 and again in 2014.

Thailand

SE8 sold to giant produce manufacturer to treat the feed water for three fire tube steam boilers last year.
Numerous installations of IE’s and CMN’s for protecting the cooling pads of chicken farms of the same and other companies.

South Korea

Dealer installed HIME24 on raw water supply for power plant. Results excellent. No scaling and rust disappeared.

Another unit was installed on a 10 km iron pipe which suffered of severe corrosion. Instead of having to repair the pipe ten times annually this was now reduced to only five times. A 50 % decrease in corrosion.

Spain

LE16 installed on municipal water supply. Good results, effect noticeable up to 4.5 km. All community members satisfied. We are waiting for a report from the community. Source: Roger Frontado

For signed up dealers only

Advice to customers to achieve good results

Bottle washers.

Advise the customer to acid clean the whole system before putting the Scalewatcher(s) into operation. If not done old scale will dissolve and mix with the dirt from the bottles clogging up water channels and spraying nozzles very quickly.

You better refuse the installation if the customer is not prepared to do so.

After installation and certainly when your customer did not follow your advice, customer should drain the system to flush out dirt and scale.as often as possible.

Units should be installed on the fresh water supply to the washer and a unit on each of the circulating pumps at the final rinse compartment of the washer.

Source: Samual Okoye of Scalewatcher West Africa LTD, Nigeria.

Fire tube steam boilers

Inform your customer that it will not be possible to keep the boiler clean with Scalewatcher as the only means of treatment. However the use of scale inhibitors can be reduced, scale will be less and softer. Install the Scalewatcher as far away as possible from the boiler. Advise the customer to extend piping for optimum result. Distance between coil and boiler should be in the region of 15 m, although beneficial results will be seen when the distance is shorter. In case the boiler is not used for longer periods of time, do not discharge the water but advise your customer to make a system where the water is circulated from the blow down line to the water supply of the boiler and install a coil on this line if he wants to have his boiler really clean.
Advise your customer to blow down more the first two weeks to prevent the TDS becoming too high. Everyday monitoring of pH and TDS is necessary to keep the boiler in the recommended operation parameters of the manufacturer.
Never tell your customer he can stop using his present water treatment (if any) the moment Scalewatcher is installed.

Cooling towers.

If the customer is afraid that flakes will fall of the walls of the cooling tower (which can happen), advise to clean the tower first.

Filters.

If the customer is afraid that filters will clog up because flakes of scale comes off the pipe wall and it will cost a lot of money to repair the damage, do not install until the customer agrees to clean their water system first.

This page is accessible for all signed up agents and dealers only. Here you can find installation tips, successful and unsuccessful applications and the latest developments in the design of Scalewatcher units. Please take the time to review it, and make sure to study and print the parts that are relevant to your business. If you have any concerns or questions click the pencil symbol.

Urgent notifications

As the contents of our instruction manuals stems from years of experience and are a valuable asset to our global operation, do not give them away without selling a unit, nor put them on your site or part of it. Competition is eager to know.

In order to streamline the global operation as to warranties and performance guarantees it is helpful when the form at www.scalewatcher.com/form.html is filled in.

Power supply, 110/230V, solar power

All Scalewatcher units can be connected to either 110 VAC or 230 VAC.  This includes residential, commercial and Industrial units. On request a solar system can be supplied to meet circumstances where no electrical power is present. Three phase systems are optional for Industrial units.

General instructions where to install the coil of Scalewatcher

To understand the reasoning one has to understand what is happening in the liquid. The treatment changes the way crystals are grown as soon as the water with dissolved mineral ions comes under the influence of the electric and magnetic fields. These growing crystals are vulnerable and should not be disturbed in growing by turbulence.This may cancel out or reduce the effect. It takes some time before the crystal is formed and therefore never install the coil right before the equipment to protect. If possible take a distance of at least 39 ft. If the distance is shorter it does not mean that the SW will not work. It depends on the application and the liquid. In view of this it is advisable to install the coil after a pump on a distance of more than six feet to avoid turbulence and disturbing magnetic fields. Use our tester to be sure.there is no disturbance.

However if the pump is used to create an extreme high pressure, for instance for RO systems or for high buildings where the water has to be pumped up to the roof, it will be better to install the Scalewatcher before the pump where the pressure will be lower. Of course at least 12 m / 39 ft before the pump if possible.

Indoors/Outdoors

The residential Scalewatcher is designed to be installed indoors. If the location makes the Scalewatcher susceptible to get wet, we recommend that you sell the 5 Star. Always install a 5 Star for outdoor applications.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE COIL GETS WET?

When the coil gets wet, the induction power is diminished. For that reason, waterproof units like CMN2 (with waterproof enclosures) have more power than CM2 units.

Disturbing electric and magnetic fields.

Avoid installing the coil near cables carrying a high current or close to machines generating strong magnetic fields. The SW signal can be buried in these fields and the treatment may not be effective. Use the tester to be sure.

Hot water systems.

When the hot water systems has a hot water circulation pipe then install the coil on the output of the boiler on the circulation line and also a coil on the incoming cold water. (Two units or when the pipes are close together wrap one double layer coil around both pipes using one unit.) This procedure is also valid for cooling towers.

Plate heat exchangers.

Difficult to treat because of the quick heat transfer rate. If there is no effect the advice to the customer would be to install 50 % more plates or use a second heat exchanger in series in order to achieve that the heat transfer rate is decreased. Of course only if process allows. As the flow velocity between the plates is rather low it will be difficult to remove old scale layers.  We have a 100 % success rate on shell and tube heat exchangers.

Evaporators in a sugar cane factory

Install a unit before each evaporator and also before the pre-heaters. The effect of the treatment will be that there is less scaling and what is left is soft. For the sugar cane industry a special unit was developed for up pipe diameters up to 12”

Water softeners

Install the Scalewatcher before the softener. Let the softener and Scalewatcher work together for one or two months to clean up the water system. Then gradually reduce the amount of salt. Do not dismantle the water softener completely unless the customer is beyond the one year performance guarantee. 

Effect on bacteria

Latest findings in bacteria growth after installation of SW. A test has been done on the total bacterial count in Australia on a cooling tower. There is no evidence that the treatment kills bacteria. As stated in our literature, slime produced by bacteria will be eliminated. As 99 % of bacteria live in slime, up to 99% will disappear. (Indirect killing.). Source: Graham Rowley of AEWC, Australia.

This year a test on a new 300 tons cooling tower and chiller have been completed. The test lasted a year. No chemicals at all have been used. A consistent Legionella bacteria count of zero and an extreme low count of other bacteria were measured each month during that year. It is safe to say that a new cooling tower/chiller does not need any chemical treatment when treated with Scalewatcher. The approach temperature was around 1 throughout the year. This means there was no significant scaling or fouling. Of note is also that there was no algae growth, which normally occurs.

Competitors (non invasive)

They come and go and some stay and do well. Advice: Never say bad things about competition.

• Magnets: Require a minimum flow velocity to be effective as a magnet generates only a static magnetic field.The effect of a magnet is proportional with the flow velocity AND the magnetic field strength.

• Open ended coils: Operating principle is charging and discharging the capacitance between coil and pipe. This causes a current to flow during a short period of time. By applying an alternating voltage to the coils the peak current will have alternating flow directions. To increase the pulse shaped current, the driving voltage will have to be increased. Open ended coil systems require not much energy as the current flows during a short time. These systems are often referred to as systems with open aerial. As an aerial is used to propogate signals, one may expect more disturbance in nearby electrical equipment.

• Alloys: Two different metals in contact will generate a contact potential (voltage) and this voltage will generate a static electric field of which the strength depends on the materials used. This electric field will have an effect on the dissolved minerals in the water.

• High frequency systems using a ferrite coil: The ferrite coil will magnify the magnetic field so low power is needed. By using a high frequency the electric and magnetic fields will be noticeable far away from the installation position. This in itself will give rise to disturbance in sensitive equipment. If not shielded correctly the signal will travel miles away from the installation position.

Did you know that:

• A bacterium has an opening in its cell wall through which nutrition is sucked in. This opening will close when Chlorine is present so the bacterium will go into sleep mode. When the Chlorine is removed it opens again. Calcium is not an hostile element for a bacterium so when the crystals are small enough they pass through the opening and the bacterium will die.

• Water tastes better when treated by Scalewatcher? The reason must be that the chlorine ions bind with the mineral ions, forming crystals, causing less free chlorine ions to be in the water, hence less smell. Same for Sulphate.(H2S)

• The Scalewatcher treatment speeds up germination? A green house using Scalewatcher will have its product sooner in the market place than a green house not using Scalewatcher.

• Golf courses can save a tremendous amount of sprinkling water by installing Scalewatcher? Simply because the scale layer 4 " beneath the grass service is dissolved so the water can penetrate quicker in the soil and has no time to evaporate. Of course the lower surface tension of the water will help.the water to penetrate into the soil. Read our irrigation leaflet.

• When trees or bushes are irrigated with saline water (coastal areas) that grow is restricted and appear to be burnt. Orange trees irrigated with Scalewatcher treated water continue to grow and give more quality fruit and appears to be healty. The Scalewatcher causes the calcium and magnesium in the water to lose their adhesive qualities and to stop the calcium from causing the sodium chloride in the sea water from sticking with the calcium to tree roots. It also appears to cause the excess calcium and sodium chloride in the water to sink below the level of the roots of trees and crops before returning to its natural state. (Source: Peter Close, Greece.)

History of winding the coil: 1988 10 windings, treatment time may be too short when flow velocity is too high. Changed to two coils of 10 windings each, spaced 4" and made with the same length cable in 1993. In order to get more induction in the water the coiling was changed to a double layer coil each layer having 20 windings in 2005. This applies only to residential, commercial and light Industrial units.

Important notice

We added the following to all our Warranties.

"This guarantee shall only remain valid provided that the product is used for the precise purpose that it was designed and manufactured and provided that it is installed and in strict accordance with the appropriate instructions."

It simply means that a residential unit with 10 years guarantee should not be used in a commercial or Industrial environment or be used in the open.