
When they talk aboutmain countries of centrifugal filter buyers, a stereotyped opinion immediately emerges that demand comes only from regions with water shortages. In fact, over the past three years, I have seen German agricultural holdings purchase our filters for drip irrigation systems in vineyards - not because of a lack of water, but because of the high content of suspended matter in local sources. Many people miss this nuance: a centrifugal filter is needed not where there is “little water”, but where its quality is unstable.
Let's take Turkey. There is a boom in greenhouse farming there, and local engineers have long tried to adapt vortex filters for water with a high content of carbonate particles. But the centrifugal principle of separation turned out to be more effective - especially for water from artesian wells, where sand comes in inconsistent “portions”. We're just throughShandong Linyao Intelligent Agriculture Technology Co.,LtdWe delivered a batch of LYO-CF-200 filters to Antalya, and an interesting detail emerged there: during installation, it turned out that the inlet pipe needed to be shifted 15 degrees from the standard - due to the peculiarities of local piping.
By the way, about the pipes. In Spain, for example, they prefer 316L stainless steel, and in Egypt - regular galvanized steel. And this is not a question of price, but of the difference in the chemical composition of water. Nile water has less chlorides, but there is sulfur - and it “eats up” zinc for two seasons. We had to develop custom versions with a polymer coating for Egyptian customers.
But in Uzbekistan the story is different. Therecentrifugal water filteroften combined with sand - first, rough cleaning with centrifugal, then fine sand. But there is a pitfall: if you place the filters too close, cavitation occurs at the junction. In 2022, at a project in the Fergana Valley, we almost ruined the entire system because of this - we had to redo the arrangement scheme and add damper tanks.
The most painful issue is adjusting the rotor speed. Many manufacturers set fixed speeds, but this does not work in field conditions. We are inShandong Lingyao Co.,Ltdbegan to equip filters with frequency converters - and the number of complaints from customers from Italy immediately dropped, where water in spring and autumn has different densities of impurities.
Another point - bearings. Catalogs say “protected”, but in practice dust from fields in Kazakhstan or Tunisia penetrates into any seals. It was necessary to develop a double system: a labyrinth seal plus an air curtain from the fan. Yes, it is 12% more expensive, but the service life has increased from 2 to 7 years.
And yes, about “automatic washing?”. In theory, everything is beautiful - the differential pressure sensor starts the cycle. But in Saudi Arabia, for example, the sand is so fine that the difference is almost not recorded - the filter becomes dirty, but the automation does not work. We had to install additional optical turbidity sensors. Expensive? Yes. But otherwise you lose the market.
We had a project in Morocco - the supply of 50 centrifugal filters for an irrigation system for olive groves. We calculated everything and took into account the high content of limestone suspensions. But they didn’t take into account that local farmers would wash tractors in the ditch - and not only dirt, but also branches got into the filters. The result is seized rotors and ruptured seals. We had to urgently modify the design, install pre-filters-?traps? for large debris.
In Greece, on the contrary, the filters worked perfectly, but local engineers complained about noise. It turned out that the resonant frequency of the rotor coincided with the vibration frequency of the Grundfos pumps. I had to balance the rotors in place and add damper pads. Trifle? Maybe. But it is precisely because of such little things that contracts are lost.
The most annoying thing was in Algeria - the filters passed all the tests, but the customer refused the batch because of... the color. Green RAL 6010, which we considered the standard for agricultural technology, turned out to be “unsuitable for Feng Shui”. Now we are making color maps for each country.
Nowadays everyone is chasing the “smart” ones. filters with IoT. But in practice, in the same UAE or Oman, farmers prefer simple mechanical solutions - because the remote control breaks down due to sandstorms. We tried installing touch panels - after a month they stopped responding to touch due to static electricity.
But the monitoring system via SMS alerts has taken root - without any “clouds”. Especially in countries where there is no stable Internet. Sometimes progress is a step back to proven technologies.
An interesting trend is hybrid systems. In the sameShandong Linyao Intelligent Agriculture Technology Co.,LtdThey are currently testing a combination of a centrifugal filter with an ultrasonic module for water with a high algae content. It’s still a little damp, but there are already prospects in projects for Malaysia.
The main lesson in recent years: there is no universalcentrifugal water filter. Each region is a separate story with water, installers and even superstitions. You can make a product that is ideal from an engineering point of view, but it will not take root if you do not take into account the “human factor”.
And one more thing: despite all the hype around “smart agriculture”, 80% of buyers choose filters based on three criteria: how long they will last without breakdowns, how difficult it is to clean and whether there are spare parts within a 100 km radius. Everything else is marketing.
By the way, about spare parts. We are inhttps://www.lyzhihuinongye.ruWe specially created a network of micro-warehouses in Turkey, Egypt and Uzbekistan - not so much for sales, but for operational support. It paid off faster than advertising on Google - because word of mouth in the agricultural sector works better than any marketing.