How Tough is a PET Bottle?

Tough Enough!!

Trying the Aquaguard Eliminator

I eventually managed to get my Aquaguard Eliminator and Source Convertube set up the way I wanted with the addition of the Valved Q/D insert. I took it out for a quick trial just to make sure everything worked as well in the real world as it did at home. As I expected it worked perfectly, it's so versatile I can't see me wanting to use anything else. There's no penalty as far as weight is concerned and the filter itself takes up very little space, any way here's the test.

Valved (Dry Break) Q/D Connectors

Valved and Plain Q/D connectors

I got my Q/D connectors from Tom Parker this morning. I'd ordered some Valve (Dry Break) bodies and Inserts and some spare open (non Valve) inserts. I hadn't ordered the threaded fittings, only the barbed type as I needed to keep the total value under £30 to avoid having to pay £26 for courier delivery, under £30 can be posted Royal Mail Recorded at £4.95.

The valved Q/D connectors are fantastic and do exactly what I wanted. To be honest with my set-up I only really need 1 valved fitting (bottom right above), the one that fits into the feed tube at the filter input side. The fitting is part number cAPCD 220-04. Using this means that I can disconnect the bladder from the filter and refill it without water spilling out the feed tube. I could have added a another valved connector to the filter at the input end, this would be a threaded (NPT) valved body, part number cAPCD 100-04. The one place that I definately couldn't use a valved connector is at the filter outlet end, it needs to remain open to allow you do decant from the bladder, through the filter into a pot once the bite valve side of the feed tube has been disconnected. I may order a valved, threaded body to the filter input side to prevent water draning from the filter in the rucksack when the bladder/bottle is disconnected.

The pics below illustrate the differences between the 4 different fittings, the valved ones are slightly longer. They can be mixed and matched to suit, valved insert to plain body, plain insert to valved body etc etc. You can see how well they work, even pressing on the bottle there's no leakage.



Mix 'n' Match





No Spills or Leaks


For my needs they make a fantastic product perfect.



I gave my set-up a test run today, like Springsteen I went down to the river. I'll post the video, Pt. 1 & 2 later.

Source Convertube & Aquaguard Eliminator

Is this the most versatile Hydration/Filtration system available?

I recently bought an Aquaguard Eliminator inline filter to use with my Camelbak hydration system for a variety of reasons, not least because most of my packs don't have bottle pockets that are easily accessible on the move. If the truth be told I'm not a fan of in-pack hydration preferring bottles. The main complaint I have with in pack bladders is the difficulty of re-fitting them to a fully packed rucksack after re-filling. I read about the Source Widepac on Summit and Valley and when I checked the Source website I found something that looked as if it would provide the benefits of a hydration pack but with the advantages of a bottle, the Source Convertube.

The Convertube is basically a feed tube with a screw cap and a variety of adapters that allow you to convert various bottles to a feed tube hydration system. The flexible feed tube has an inner semi rigid tube that can be pulled out to fit most bottles. The standard cap fits most PET bottles (Mineral Water/Soft Drinks etc)and the adapters allow you to use Nalgene, Sigg and I think Laken bottles. The adapters are screwed to the bottle and the Convertube then screws to the adapter. The beauty of this set up is that the bottles with adapters attached can be sealed using a standard soft drink bottle cap, either plain or bike bottle style. I also discovered that the Nalgene bottle adapter fits an Ortlieb Bladder.



Feed Tube and Bottle Adapters



Sigg Bottle and Ortlieb Bladder with Nalgene adapter. Inset Soft Drink Cap and Bike Bottle style caps fitted.

My initial concern was that as the system isn't gravity assisted but requires you to actually suck the water up the feed tube it would be too difficult once the added resistance of the Eliminator inline filter was added.

In any case I decided to go ahead and cut the feed tube, as before I cut it half way along it's length and attached the Q/D fittings. There have been some concerns about the barbed section on the Q/D connectors being too small for Source feed tubes, the Widepac feed tube in particular but I had no problems with the Convertube.

I'm pleased to be able to report that even with the filter fitted, drawing water from the bottle isn't a problem.


Another potential problem then came to mind. The Eliminator filter can be used as a gravity feed to decant water into a pot for cooking. This clearly wouldn't work when using the Convertube as the part of the feed tube that extends into the bottle would be above the water level once the bottle was turned upside down. This turned out to be a non issue. There are 3 ways around the problem.

1. Simply squeeze the bottle to force water up the feed tube and through the filter.
2. Syphon the water out of the bottle by keeping the bottle above the level of the filter and sucking water through to start it off.
3. By pushing the pick-up tube back into the feed tube (leave about 2" sticking out to make it easy to withdraw it again) the bottle can be turned upside down without the pick up tube being above the water level.

Method 1 obviously won't work with rigid bottles such as Sigg but methods 2 and 3 work perfectly well.



Squeezing the Bottle to force water through system.



Syphon Feed.



Gravity Feed.



Pick-up tube shortened by pushing it into the feed tube.


That sorts the issue of hydration using bottles, I can carry a few PET bottles in the pockets on my pack and simply swap them over as they're used up. On the Gregory Z55 I run the feed tube in through the L/H port and back out the R/H port, the filter sits inside the pack.



Feed Tube running Left to Right, filter protected inside pack.



Feed from PET Bottle, 3 Spare bottles ready to be swapped over.


I also have 2 collapsible plastic water bottles/bladders, branded as Outdoor Essentials I bought them from Mountain Warehouse. They have a standard PET bottle screw thread and come with a sports bottle style cap but basic PET bottle caps can be used. The Convertube/Eliminator can again be fitted and the bladder placed in the pack like any other bladder. These bladders have a pleated base which means they stand upright when removed from the pack, mine hold 1.5L. Folded up they take up very little space, and can be filled, capped and carried almost anywhere.





I think I'll probably use 1 x 500ml PET bottle and 1 x Plastic bladder, the bladder needn't be filled until required or at least as late in the day as possible.

The whole set-up including Convertube, Eliminator Filter, PET bottle and Bladder weighs in at less than 250g.

Drink-Safe Systems Aquaguard Eliminator

I've been using an Aquagear bottle from Drink-Safe Systems since last year and while it works well I found the capacity a little small for camping. I carried an Ortleib flexible water bag for camp use and usually filled it from the Aquagear bottle as late in the day as I dared but found it a bit troublesome trying to keep the Ortleib bag open and operate the Aquagear bottle. The other problem I had was that none of my rucksacks have bottle pockets that are accessible without removing the pack so that had me looking at flexible bladders/in pack hydration systems.

I'd seen the inline filters before so went to have another look and found the Eliminator Inline filter. What attracted me to it was the Q/D fitting for the filter which allows you to remove the filter from the system. The RRP is £46.95 but is currently available at a Launch offer price of £36.95.












After a few e-mails to Giles (Butler) of Drink-Safe Systems I placed my order and received the kit next day. I can recommend the service 100%, prompt replies to questions and prompt delivery.

The kit comes with 2 x Q/D fittings which are screwed into the filter housing, 4 x Screw in non Q/D fittings (2 different sizes) the Filter unit, instructions and an adapter which screws into the filter to allow you to;

a. Back Flush the Filter to maintain it
b. Attach the filter to a standard water tap to directly filter water.

Setting up the system is simplicity itself, it's fairly obvious and you could hardly go wrong but it does come with detailed instructions.



The first thing I did was to decide where to fit the filter on the feed tube, I decided to place mine mid way so that the filter was close to the feed tube port on the rucksack, this means you don't need to try to push both the bladder and filter down into a fully loaded rucksack, also if you want to use the filter as a gravity feed to fill a mug or pot you can unclip the feed tube at the outlet end of the filter thereby removing the bite valve and still have enough length left on the feed tube to allow it to hang outside the rucksack.



The next step was to flush the filter before fitting. To do this you attach one of the non-Q/D connectors to the Tap Adapter, screw the adapter to the filter taking care to screw it into the input end (there's a direction of flow arrow on the filter housing) attach it to a tap and flush it through, the instruction suggest flushing for 1 minute.



With the filter flushed it's time to fit the Q/D fittings, simply push the barbed section into the feed tube, unscrew the tap adapter and screw the Q/D fittings into the filter, (if you separate the 2 parts of the Q/D fittings prior to fitting to the feed tube/filter make sure that you match them properly so that the filter when connected is correctly orientated to the direction of flow. Once you've done that you're ready to roll.

The filter can be removed from the feed tube if not required, as the fittings are matched the feed tube can be joined clipped back together.


A couple of things I want to mention though:

a. The Q/D connectors aren't valved (sometimes known as 'Dry Break') which means that water can flow out of the feed tube if the filter is disconnected, with care this isn't too much of a problem.

b. The barbed end of the Q/D connector measures approx 7.5mm, I've tried them on a Camelbak Feed Tube and a Source Convertube feed tube and they fitted fine, some systems may have a feed tube with in ID greater than those mentioned so it's worth checking. In the event that your feed tube isn't a tight fit on the Q/D connectors a bit of PTFE (Plumbers) tape should sort it, if not you can always use the non Q/D fittings but with a little loss of usability.

All in all a nice system that's a bit easier to use IMO if you're going out for more than a 1 nighter. I'll probably still use the Aquagear bottle for day walks.

The Filter and Q/D connectors add about 100g to your existing Hydration system.

Full details of the various tests performed on the Drink-Safe Filtration Systems can be viewed Here