Platypus Clean Stream Gravity Filter

3 Comments

1. Eric T. Johnson says:

   May 31, 2009 at 12:43 pm

   Rating

   I really think hand pump filters are on the way out. This gravity filter is amazing. We’ve been using a hand pump for years, and I had no complaints until I saw how well this new type of filter works. It filters water faster than I ever could by hand, and once the bag is filled, the work is done. You literally just hang both bags up, one above the other, and gravity does the rest of the work in minutes. It’s also lighter than most pump filters, and takes up less space. Once the bags are empty, the whole thing can be rolled up and placed into a pretty small bag that fits almost anywhere or hangs on your pack. On our first trip out with it, it saved us in a pinch. We were struggling to find easy access to the river, but with this setup, I just disonnected the filler bag, tied it to some camp line, and dropped it from a cliff into the water. With a little effort, I filled the bag almost to the top and pulled it back up. On the trek back to base camp, I hung one bag from the top of my pack and the other from the bottom, so I had clean water by the time we got back. Try doing that with a hand pump filter!

   The bags are also very handy for carrying water. When water’s far from camp, you can filter dirty water into the clean bag, and then fill the dirty water bag back up to be filtered at your campsite later, and the tubes and shutoff clamp make it very easy to hang the clean water bag and use it as a water source, as a camp sink, or even as a “camelback” reservoir. It’s not cheap (by my meager standards), but for the money, you’re basically getting a great filter system, 2 water bags with handles, a camp sink, and a spare drinking reservoir and tube It’s a good value, I think.

   Just one note of caution: Platypus recommends leaving the system assembled on trips to avoid contamination of the clean water tubes and reservoir tubes. I obviously broke this rule, which I think is ok with some caution, but be careful.

   All in all, Great product! If you can afford it, buy one for your next serious camping/hiking/canoe trip. If not, use a hand pump. I have for years, and it hasn’t made me enjoy the outdoors any less. Clean water is the most important thing.
2. Scott A. Blake says:

   August 31, 2009 at 5:46 am

   Rating

   Anyone who has used pump-type filters knows the effort required to produce even modest quantities of filtered water. The Platypus gravity-fed unit puts an end to this in elegant fashion! You can effortlessly filter 4 liters of contaminated water in just a couple of minutes.

   I recently used this unit on a 9-day backpacking trip with my son’s Scout Troop. It worked extremely well – so well the boys were begging to use it instead of the Troop pump filters. An added bonus is that it is lighter than the pump-style units. I highly recommend the product, and truly believe this is the next generation of filter

   To use it, you simply hang the “Dirty” bag, and let the water filter into the “Clean” bag on the ground or other lower location. There are a couple of down-sides, but they all have solutions:

   * Filling the “Dirty” reservoir isn’t easy from standing water, such as a lake. You either need to use a butterfly-net approach, or (as we did) use a plastic container as a scoop.

   * When air gets into the inline filter, flow rate goes way down (it reduces the effective surface area of the filter). To solve this issue, simply close the clean-side valve and shake the filter to let the bubbles rise. Once the filter is air free, you may need to pull the dirty-side feed from the filter and squirt the air out of the feed line. All this may sound complected, but it’s not bad.

   * You will need to back-flow the unit regularly. We got in the habit of reversing the bags after the filter process was done, and letting a quarter-cup of clean water to run back through the filter onto the ground. Since the unit filters so quickly and easily, you don’t feel bad about wasting a little water.

   * You will want to set up a filter station for the unit. You can filter on the go, but if you will be in one place for a while you will want to set a hanger up for the unit. We used a strap and clip to hang the dirty bag while filtering, and clean bag when dispensing.

   All said, a great unit that was worth its (very light) weight in gold!
   
3. dcn8v says:

   September 14, 2010 at 11:34 am

   Rating

   This water purification system was so easy to set up and use- the people at neighboring campsites were all jealous. The only water source in the area was an old well that hadn’t been pumped in quite some time, and the water was brown with lots of weird floaters. The water that came out of the filter was clean, clear, with no weird taste, and I didn’t get sick from drinking it. The tricky thing is that it needs to hang with one bag higher than the other, so if you’re in the desert or above the tree line, you’ll just have to hold it up and it will be tougher to use it as a camp sink. I ended up either finding a couple of notches on a tree to hang the bags on, or just tossing some rope over a tree limb if I needed to. The water is filtered fast- you’ll have drinking water in no time. Maybe a 30 seconds for the entire bag to be filtered? The system is also easy to clean, though it takes quite some time for all the parts to dry so that I can put it into storage. It rolls down into a mesh carry case that’s a little smaller than a Nalgene bottle. Like the reviewer above, I also disassembled the unit against their advice for cleaning and drying; I just marked the ends of the “dirty water” tube with a Sharpie so I wouldn’t accidentally get the tubes confused. I have already recommended this product to friends- it’s expensive, but well worth the investment. FWIW, I got it at REI after a sales representative helped me sort through all the brands they had for sale. This was the standout.