Frozen Sawyer

[ALMAL]

Like a dumb pumpkin, I left my Sawyer mini squeeze out Friday night and it froze, no water would pass through.
After warming up in the sun it started flowing at the normal rate.
I have heard that it is ruined from freezing.
Even though it lets water pass through, it's not actually filtering anymore.
Is there an easy way to test it?
I guess I'll know in a few days anyway...

[joebartels]

@ALMAL
Did it pass the blow test?

Or.... http://media.cascadedesigns.com/pdf/cle ... r_test.pdf

[ALMAL]

Nope... Boiling water for the duration of my trip would have been a better idea. Probably no one else will be careless enough to let this happen on their trip, but if it does, throw it away...

[ALMAL]

So before pitching my frozen filter, I cut it in half and took a couple of pictures.
The inside is a big bundle of rubbery like strands. Similar to a rubber skirt on a fishing lure, but almost no elasticity.
Also there is some black dust mixed in. Maybe charcoal or D.E.?
Looking at the insides made me wonder how that actually filters bad stuff out. Maybe it looked different before it froze...
https://hikearizona.com/photo-E.php?ID=2&PID=44177
https://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=628653
https://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=628654

[Tough_Boots]

Looking at the insides made me wonder how that actually filters bad stuff out.

The magic of science!

[big_load]

The inside is a big bundle of rubbery like strands. Similar to a rubber skirt on a fishing lure, but almost no elasticity.

They're tiny little glass tubes, basically a hollow optical fiber.

ETA: water fits in the tubes, bad stuff doesn't get out, a whole bunch of tubes in parallel provides low flow resistance.

[hikeaz]

So before pitching my frozen filter, I cut it in half and took a couple of pictures.........
Looking at the insides made me wonder how that actually filters bad stuff out.

From: https://sawyer.com/technology/water-filtration/
"Our proprietary water filters are comprised of tiny “U” shaped micro-tubes that allow water to enter into their core through minuscule micro-pores. Contaminates get trapped in the tubes while the decontaminated water passes freely through."
.......

[hikeaz]

After reading what you wrote about the size of dye, I went 'fishing'....... https://youtu.be/fZLWlfiwBbg - sometimes a picture is worth a thousand conjectures.

First comment in that video:

Folks.....I spoke to the DESIGN team at Sawyer and this is what they say: "The sawyer filters are barrier filters. We literally filter out the pathogens (viruses, bacteria, cysts, etc.). We do NOT remove disolved (sic) solids from the water. The blue dye you are using is a disolved (sic) solid. It will pass through the pores of the membrane. As it passes through the fibers it will dye the fibers and in so doing remove some of the dye from the water. This will only occur in the first few ounces that pass through the filter. Then it will stop removing the dye. In fact if you then run clear water through the filter it will give up some of the dye back into the clear water turning it light blue. The blue dye removal is NOT an indication of if the filter is working. Our technolgy (sic) does not "wear out" like other filters where you need to test to see if it's working. With ours, it's simple - if water is passing through, it's good." I even gave them THIS VIDEO LINK and they REVIEWED it and this is what they say: "If you look closely at video it is not clear, it has a blue tint. If he kept squeezing more water through it would be the same color as the water going in. Once the void volume of the filter is dispelled there is nothing to remove the dye, other than the small amount that attach to the fibers (like dying your cloths.) And that will diminish very quickly."

Conjecture?

Maybe the FIRST, but editing can be your best friend or your worst enemy..

Apparently this guy, Tien Tran (the author of your quote-within-a-quote) sells a competitive product on eBay.

Also, editing omitted a post a coupla spots down...

"James Ritchie- 11 months ago posted:
+Tien Tran, I have no idea what the design team says, but I know for a fact that the Sawyer keeps right on removing dye for me. It will clog before it stops removing anything I've tried it on. Then you back flush it, and start over. You can talk about it to whatever length you like, but I actually DO it. The design team might want to stop talking and stat doing, as well. They may well have designed this thing better than they thought."

More posts that were omitted ...

"Bill Jamison- 9 months ago posted:
Hiram I do not comment often. I watch a lot of Youtube via my Amazon fire stick on my big TV, I have yet to figure out how to comment on it.

First let me say I love your channel. Yes I enjoy watching Hiram boil water!

Now for the reason I am here. I recently bought a pair of Sawyer "Mini" water filters.
They appear a touch smaller than yours, no threads on top, just a barb for putting a hose or straw on.
Now I did not do my test on blue water. I did mine on Iced tea.
Color came out perfectly clear, you could taste the sugar, but no tea flavor at all.
So I have no doubt that if I wanted to duplicate your test that I would get exactly the same results.

And maybe the most apt/telling..

"RockyMountainMare-3 years ago posts:
This is a great video. I own two Sawyer 0.1 micron filters, one purchased this year and one last year. I kept my old filter under my sleeping pad in zipper bag at night. After a 22 degree night I tested with blue dye. Blue dye ran thru. I don't know if that's a problem, don't know micron size of blue dye. But I bought the new Sawyer filter and sure enough, it runs clear. So I'll pack the new filter and try harder to keep it warm at night. In the bottom of sleeping bag no doubt. '


Proving (or at least strongly suggesting) that what you read on the internet is almost always conjecture - pick a position and you can find gobs of other supporters of it.

More fact/conjecture >> See: Integrity Test Procedure https://generalecology.com/images/files ... io0512.pdf and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WIKzivCEg0 and http://www.crystalclearwater.com.au/cam ... gritytest/.

[flagscott]

Maybe the FIRST, but editing can be your best friend or your worst enemy..

Really? You want to keep arguing this?

1) Anecdotes by a bunch of random youtube people do not disprove anything I wrote.

2) Accusing me of misleading editing is just BS. I didn't even read those comments--the comment I posted was useful because he talked to the experts at Sawyer. And why would that guy who supposedly has a competing product write a long post where he goes out of his way to defend Sawyer? Your attempt to cast aspersions here just doesn't hold up.

3) The First Need filter whose documentation you linked to uses different technology than the Sawyer. It filters out viruses, which the Sawyer does not. If the dye test works on the First need filter, great, but that says nothing about the Sawyer.

It says right here on the Sawyer website that their filter "does not remove dissolved solids, including chemicals and heavy metals." http://capt.sawyer.com/tech-water.html

Please don't accuse me of misleading people when you are the one peddling bad science here. Unless you have some authoritative evidence that dye tests can tell you if your Sawyer filter is working, this is just useless.