My wife and are planning to do some camping this year with some friends of ours.  They have a pontoon boat and we want to take it and go find some secluded placed in LBL (Land Between the Lakes) here in Western KY to camp for the weekend.

I want to build a water filtration system that will keep us with clean, tasty water for the weekend right out of the lake.  The idea I have in my head is to use my Sawyer mini in-line between something like a Platypus bag and a large plastic container like the ones you can buy at Wal-Mart with a spigot on the bottom of them.  I'd like to build a charcoal filter to put in-line after the Sawyer mini to help with taste.  

Ideas?  Where do I find the rubber line?  Is it just line you'd buy at a hardware store or is it some type of "food grade" line?  I've spent a lot of time this afternoon searching for idea's, but can't find quite what I'm looking to do.

I think that I just bought a roll of clear, flexible 1/4", or 3/16" I.D. tubing from Home Depot for my Sawyer Squeeze One and gravity bucket set up.  I guess if you can find flexible tubing for use with water filters for fridges, that would work, as well.

Chris

for four of you, it might be a better idea to go with one of the Sawyer 5 gal bucket systems...a .01 micron filter if there is not a virus threat, or their .02 micron if there is ... a section of 2" PVC  and some activated charcoal from an aquarium supply should get you by... my .01 filter has a pretty good gravity flow rate... the .02 will take considerably more... pic of the .01 kit with 5 gal bucket... no spigot, the unit fits into the hole, and on/off is just raising the filter above the level in the bucket

http://www.monolithicmarketplace.com/collections/water-filters-collection/products/just-water-ceramic-drip-filter

i'd go with this setup

Woot! has the EarthEasy LifeStraw Family 1.0 Water Purification System on sale
for $47.99  47% off List Price



Pour 2 liters of water into the upper blue chamber and clean water comes out the filter at the bottom.
It has a course filter in the top to filter out sediment and the lower filter removes bacteria and viruses.

http://sport.woot.com/offers/eartheasy-lifestraw-family-1-0-purifier-4?ref=cnt_wp_1_2

LifeStraw® Family 1.0 is a powerful, high-volume water purifier for use in homes without access to clean water from municipal sources. It helps prevent often deadly waterborne diseases for families in developing countries and is effective in emergency settings following natural disasters which can contaminate water.

Converts microbiologically contaminated water into clean, safe drinking water
Filters up to 18,000 litres of EPA-quality water, enough to supply a family of five with clean drinking water for three years
Removes virtually all bacteria (99.9999 percent), protozoan parasites (99.99 percent) and viruses (99.999 percent) that can contaminate water
Reduces turbidity (muddiness) by filtering particulate matter larger than 0.02 microns
Made of durable plastic
Doesn’t require electrical power, batteries or replacement parts  
Uses hollow fibre technology which meets the standard for the “highly protective” category of safe water interventions by the World Health Organization

http://www.vestergaard.com/lifestraw-family-1-0

Thanks for the replies.

I feel like I have a good filter that will work.  I am concerned about the flow rate and keeping up, but I have several minis and can use multiples if I had to.  I will certainly practice this before we go.

I'm mostly concerned with making a charcoal filter and finding the parts to hook it all up.  Has anyone put ANYTHING together similar to this?  where did you resource parts?  I imagine it will be difficult to make all of the fitting the same size.

Some applicable info here

Oh wow!  I haven't read the entire thread, but that is a neat little device that just might work for what I'm wanting to do a lot better than what I had planned.

Any questions, ask...  

A few folks here have gone this way.

A lot of the links have expired.

you can't go wrong with sawyer. proven technology and field tested. gravity is the way to go, let time be your friend.

This guy built one that I thought was pretty good for his cabin in AK;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QexpxxIdsgo&feature=player_detailpage[/youtube]

Doc

tagged for interest

I can't make the link work

Get rid of the "s" after the "http".

Thanks Klutz

Looks like I am the klutz in this situation

Doc

I need to add an important part to this story.  Wife and I plan to have jet skis this summer and I'd like it to be something compact enough to carry on them.

Ran by the hardware store this afternoon to see what I could put together.  The result was a 1 1/4" coupler reduced down on either end to a nipple the same size as what's on a Sawyer mini.  I have the pipe you see in the pic if I feel it needs to be longer to spend more time in the charcoal.  I'm hoping just the coupler works though.

If that doesn't work out Platypus makes an inline carbon filter; $13 at Amazon:

Amazon Platypus Carbon Filter

And Amazon has silicone tubing; usually 10' lengths and various inside diameters.

I just drank my pond water!  My nasy, murkey, filthy, pond water and it tasted fantastic.

My setup is exactly what I'm looking for with one downside, speed.  It's slow, but not so slow that it's unusable.  For four people, I believe two of these will work fine.  

Here is a pic of what I built.  The black clip looking things are holding a coffee filter that is acting as a prefilter.  I'd like to come up with a better way to hold that coffee filter on, but it works.