Yes, it's water filtration time again

This thing is bugging me so much that I can't quit, it seems.  So, I am trying it again with new sand.  The good news is that the filtration is definitely faster.  But I can't claim that it is any better.  No clear water, but it isn't far from it.

I tried a real test with soapy water used to wash my hands.  The suds don't go away.  The water does get fairly clear.  A run with the charcoal shows a yellowish tint again, which is annoying.  To be honest, the charcoal is probably not properly set up for filtering.  Although my results aren't anywhere near acceptable, the apparatus really is quite crude.

I'm becoming a bit skeptical of these videos which show different results than what I'm getting.  It is a bit sobering to realize that a lot of this stuff is not going to be as easy as it is claimed to be.  That's why I continue to try to get better results.  If the results cannot get a lot better than this, I may have rethink the entire project.  There's going to be a lot of things that have to be mastered in order to make this project succeed.  If the water project can't succeed, then that leaves me wondering about how many other aspects of this project may not succeed either.  It is sobering.

Update:

Just to see what would happen, I ran the resulting yellowish water through the humidifier and got some water output from it. As expected, the water is clear, but I don't know if it is potable.  I won't be tasting any such water to see if it is.  The amount of water lost during the process was way too high.  I estimate maybe over 90% of the water is lost.  For example, I poured a little over 6 ounces of the water into the dehumidifier, and got back a little under 4 ounces.  Two ounces of water was not produced from condensation.  As a matter of fact, just enough water to fill a small part of the bottom of the jar was collected.  Less than an ounce.  Much less, in fact.

Watching the entire operation of the humidifier gave me some ideas of how to improve upon this output.  I'm thinking of a tweety bird cage and lining the outside with aluminum foil.  The apparatus goes inside the bird cage.  The water will leave the apparatus, condense around the inside of the foil, and finally drip down in a collection container.

What may make this thing work well, maybe, is the fact that the water cools its surroundings, which in turn aids the condensing process.  The foil may need to cover only the bottom half of the bird cage.