While my MSR Sweetwater has been an excellent filter over the years, it is a bit on the bulky side, so I am thinking of getting one of the new purifiers, like the MIOX pen or the Steripen Adventurer. Anyone have experience with these? Opinions? Recommendations?

Thanks,

C. Rowe

I use the MIOX pen. It's a little tricky to use IMO compared to a steripen but it works very well.

I use the steripen and I love it, the draw back on the pen is the water has to be reasonably clear, so you would have to prefilter murky water with a bandanna or t-shirt. Also you can't leave the batteries in the unit for storage or they will be dead over time. It has a small internal drain if left in there. I use the thing, then tale the batteries out until the next time I need it. There is some more info if you search for it on the site.

http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.ph...=true#Post92710
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post104842

The MIOX treatment process is well regarded. At least it is when tested in a lab, controlled field use and, I suppose, when everything goes well in real life use.

I'm playing devil's advocate here but in effect making your own chemical tre

The MIOX treatment process is well regarded. At least it is when tested in a lab, controlled field use and, I suppose, when everything goes well in real life use.

I'm playing devil's advocate here but in effect making your own chemical treatment in the field seems to me to be potentially risky.

As I understand it once you have produced the treatment you have to take it on faith that it is indeed what the process is supposed to be producing and the god stuff that is going to convert biologically hazardous water into safe water. If the process fails for some unknown reason how would you know before you drink the water?

I could see someone religiously following procedures, treating a groups water and the entire group ending doubled up with giardia or dysentery.

If I use a chlorine based chemical treatment I can taste and smell the chemical in the water. If I use iodine based chemicals I can see and taste the iodine. It isn't a great taste but I pretty much know that if I follow a standard dosage rate and a temperature-treatment time table I'm pretty much covered.

Likewise boiling is a treatment that I can observe some visibly obvious clues, the water boiling, and a time-altitude table to get reliable results.

As I understand, reading about it and seeing it done a few times I don't see any similar clues to tell me the treatment was prepared properly and is likely to be as protective as I like. You do your thing, drink and then see if you get sick.

But even even if that could be overcome, perhaps I got it wrong, I still have trouble relying on a battery powered electronic device to keep me upright and functioning.

There is no entirely failsafe water treatment. I currently use some combination of gross filtration, i

Clipped again.
FWIW. The rest of the post:

There is no entirely failsafe water treatment. I currently use some combination of gross filtration, iodine or chlorine based treatment, boiling and fine filtration to keep me safe. What particular combination I use depends on how much weight I'm willing to carry, the terrain and availability of fuel, and both the relative and known contamination in the area.

I had good luck hiking the southern forests using a very fine stainless filter or cloth to remove sediment and boiling the water using the readily available twigs and pinecones burned in a Sierra stove. I kept a small ceramic filter and a tiny bottle of iodine tablets as reserve.

I have also used a Sweetwater filter with good results. It saved me time and some weight over the Sierra stove option. I kept chlorine tablets handy for water that may have had human contact. And kept a pour-through filter and iodine tablets as a reserve.

The MIOX pen comes with test strips for testing water post treatment. The pen itself will alert you if something goes wrong with the MIOX process (not enough salt, not enough water, etc)



This could be true of ANY water treatment if the wrong type is used or the type which is used is used incorrectly.



The Mixed Oxidant solution does make the water taste a bit funky...the longer you let it sit, the less funky it tastes. MSR recommends putting drink mix in treated water to mask the flavor if it's an issue. The solution itself smells funky too...sorta like a mix between Chlorine and Ozone.



I agree 100%. I don't trust it to always be there. I carry extra salt, extra batteries AND a straw filter AND treatment tablets.

I do like the fact that it can use any salt from rock salt to table salt...it will even run on Half Salt (tm). The Steripen beats it there however.

They both have good reputations, but I'm not sure either replaces a filter. They replace historical chemical-base purification methods, but that is about it.

No filter makes sense unless it also removes viruses, because you still have to chemically treat it, or boil it to kill them. So why not just do that in the first place?
The Sock

Just boil it. Effective, technologically simple, and light weight. The "need" for water treatment is classic marketing hype, at least for water sources in wilderness areas. I have never contracted anything from drinking "wild" water and I have sipped from definitely polluted sources, boiling beforehand.

Don't rely on anything that requires batteries.