User friendly sawyer gravity system

[krshome]

Hi all, I love the sawyer filters but I hate squeezing those darn bags and gravity systems seemed heavy and bulky. I wanted a system that was simple. I wanted the filter to easily disconnect for freezing conditions and I wanted the bags to have a quick connect that sealed so I didn't need extra caps. Lastly back flushing I didn't want more parts (aka syringe or even a smart water sport cap) that added extra weight and bulk. I think I have a great set up as of now! The bags I use for dirty water are a 2 liter bag with my quick connect cap for solo trips and if I have two or more people I will use a Platypus 4 liter dirty bag. The gravity hose is silicone 3/16"id x 5/16"od tubing with a male connector on one end and a Sawyer male inline adapter on the other end. For controlling the flow I use a pinch clamp on the hose. I have been using a pre filter in the sawyer inline adapter from an old Frontier filter and it fits perfect (not needed though). The filter I use for short solo trips is a Sawyer Mini, but long distance hikes and group trips I swap out to a full size Sawyer Squeeze. The set up is meant for camp but while hiking I can still unscrew the filter from the hose and attach it to a bottle for on the go filtering. The weight for the Solo set up is 5.5 oz for a 2 liter system. I filter into any type of bottle but water bottles with matching threads allow me to back flush the Mini filter but the Sawyer Squeeze still needs the sports cap . For those that have not seen my Mini filter here is a quick breakdown. It is actually 2 Mini's that made into one. I carefully removed the dirty end cap off one and put it on another on the clean end. The point of this was to back flush and connecting to a bottle when filling. The nipple on the dirty end was also removed as to add the pre filter inline adapter and to disconnect it from the gravity system.
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[squeezebox]

On mine I use the larger filter. The input on the filter screws onto the dirty water bag, so that's okay. I did buy a sweetwater prefilter. I had to put about 2" of 1/4 plastic hose on each end. Went to Rei got 1/4 hose to thread adapters, Female on top, male on the bottom. Wt of that almost 2 oz. I really don't think I'll need that on the AT, but will bring it to the Ozarks. But the output of the filter is a problem . It's male thread so is the threads on the bladder. I took a couple of water bottle caps drilled a hole through the center of both. A little silicone before I bolted them together with a rustproof bolt, then a few extra holes for water, and the filter output screws onto the bladder. No need for any more gravity height than the dirty bag, filter, clean bag. You might get a 20cc syringe with the proper end on it, just maybe a 10cc.
Anyway that's what I did.