SteriPen Classic 3 UV Water Purifier and 40 micron Pre-Filter bundle,White

To decide which water purification system will work for you, you need to match capabilities with requirements—horses for courses, as they say. For example, if viruses are a concern then a typical .1-micron backpacking filter wouldn't be a good choice. Say, if you were an international traveler or you worry about norovirus. Viruses are the most common cause of water-born intestinal illness and filters won't remove them and don't claim to. There are two modern ways to kill all pathogens, including viruses. The SteriPens are one. The other is the Aquamira Water Treatment Drops. The Aquamira drops work by reacting to produce an oxygenated chemical that does the work. The reacting and treatment can easily be done in the backcountry. The whole process takes at least 20 minutes but you can keep hiking for most of that. The SteriPens work by producing sterilizing UV light and take only a few minutes. The Classic 3 can use any type of AA battery, including rechargeables or, in an emergency, readily available alkalines. You get about 150 liters from a set of lithiums. The SteriPen weighs 141 g with batteries. The 1 oz Aquamira kit weighs about 75 g and treats 115 liters; you can adjust the mix for different volumes, such as 20 oz instead of a liter. Another option would be to use Aquatab tablets. These create the same oxygenated chemical as Aquamira drops and also take about a half hour to work. They cost about ten cents per quart of treated water whereas Aquamira costs about a penny. The SteriPen pre-filter is a nice addition, even though it's relatively heavy. It connects to the nifty Nalgene On-The-Fly 22-oz water bottle, but imperfectly. The 40-micron filter won't remove cloudiness and certainly not pathogens. You could also use a coffee filter or even a bandanna. If you don't need to filter out pine needles and chipmunks you can jam the SteriPen directly into the filled bottle's drinking tube. If you use repurposed 590 ml energy drink bottles to hold your water, as many thru-hikers do, you can drill a 7/8” hole in a spare cap and wedge the SteriPen into it during treatment—a perfect solution, except you'll have to decide whether to use the half liter or full liter treatment options depending on clarity and source of the water. You have to be aware that no system works on water that's in the threads of containers, and both are less effective at treating the bacterial biofilms that form on tiny particles in cloudy water. You have to take care not contaminate your purified drinking water with even a drop of untreated water in your apparatus, as some pathogens need only a few organisms to cause an infection. Be sure to dry out those threads, and don't brush your teeth with untreated water. Aquamira treated water kills pathogens that it comes into contact with during the time it is working, so you can use that to your advantage, but SteriPen treated water is always inert. One worry about the SteriPens used to be the life of the UV discharge tube. SteriPen has addressed that with their Premium Lamp Life Pledge. When the number of treatments with your registered unit approaches 8,000 SteriPen will send you a brand new unit. That's one reason I have decided to use a SteriPen when appropriate: not because I think that I will ever use it up, but because I admire a company that stands behind its products. You should understand some things about acquired intestinal distress. Water-born illness doesn't come on immediately; most infections take about a week or so to manifest. If illness comes on more quickly, the most likely cause is food poisoning. If illness appears on an outing, you probably were infected beforehand. The most common mode of acquiring intestinal distress is, ahem, fecal-oral transmission. Avoiding that transmission process requires diligent hand washing when preparing food in the back country, something that is seldom assiduously practiced. I suspect that nearly all clear back country water is OK to drink without treatment except that downstream from persistent human habitation, but even if you become infected, you'll be home before it hits you.

I used this model Steripen along with an older Traveler model for a 1-week backpacking high adventure for our group of 10 scouts and leaders this summer. Both this model and the older model worked fine. This newer model has a more efficient bulb, allowing about 50% more doses than the older model (using ultra lithium batteries). So this was worthwhile for saving the weight and space of added steripens and batteries. One week after our trip, no issues with the water we drank from mountain streams for a week. In contrast, the scout group next to us used chlorine tablets to treat their water all week. Our scouts had a taste of their water at the end of the week and they said it did not taste good because of the chlorine. We always have backups, so I had Aqua Mira drops and Aqua Tabs in case of issues. We also filtered water before the Steripen, using the 10 liter Katadyn filter bag. Also a great product. Highly recommend.

Nice item but not the best with battery usage and it can be pretty picky. Would be better if it just had a switch for on and off and make it float so you don't need to hold it the entire time. USB chargeable would be better. But this thing is awesome when the battery is good and you get the hang of useing it. No more dealing with filter systems.

This is the second one of these I've owned. My wife and I have used ours in Africa, Jordan, the 5 Stans, Ethiopia, etc. Never had an issue with our water being safe after using the "pen". SO much nicer than hunting up bottled water and wondering if it is actually pure, plus you don't leave all those empty plastic bottles behind. Excellent battery life, one set generally lasts us more than 3-4 weeks of doing drinking water for 4 people.

We love our steripen!! This pen was recommended during a preparedness seminar we went to this winter. A member of the US navy said that he always took this over seas with him and would use it daily. When deciding whether to get this one or the earlier version, we went with this one as it indicates when the UV light isn't working anymore which is REALLY IMPORTANT!! We keep this in our "get home bag" in our car trunk. It's nice when we go into a restaurant or fast food place and just pull this out and put in in our water cup and stir it around for 30 seconds to have the peace of mind of knowing we won't get sick. We have also used it while hiking. There was a river that had clear water (THIS DOES NOT WORK IN CLOUDED WATER!!!), and we filled up our water bottles, swirled this around for the time needed and had fresh water with the peace of mind that it won't get us sick. We bought 2 and I would definitely be interested in buying more!! This is a must! Whether you are going out of the country, going hiking, or just want to make sure that water at the local restaurant is clean lol.

No viene el prefiltro ni la funda de neopreno

Après un mois d’utilisation le steripen décharge les piles beaucoup trop vite: nous sommes en voyage autour du monde et malheureusement nous devons changer les piles toutes les semaines. À ce rythme nous aurons payé plus cher de piles que de steripen… sans compter l’impact environnemental. Nous sommes très déçus par ce produit et accessoirement en difficulté pour la fin de notre voyage.

Ich verwende den Steripen in meine Datsche um dort das Wasser nochmal sicher keimfrei zu bekommen (Bachwasser aus der nahen Quelle). 1 Liter in 90 Sekunden mit ein bisschen Rühren in der Kanne - perfekt. Die Batterien halten gefühlt nicht sehr lange - allerdings habe ich nicht gezählt, wie oft ich den Steripen mit einem Batteriesatz benutzen kann. Ist also rein subjektives Empfinden. Ich verwende Marken-Akkus.

Viaggio molto per lavoro i paesi a basse risorse e non potrei vivere senza questo strumento! Fondamentale per purificare l'acqua e renderla potabile, abbastanza facile da usare e veloce (basta avere una bottiglia da 1l o mezzo litro) .

I cannot help but feel if this product failed anyone they would be too ill or dead to review it poorly. All I can say it is I am still alive and well after using it for a week to purify water from rivers and lakes in the alps. It eats through batteries so if you're going for an extended trek I would advise getting some rechargeable batteries and a method of charging them.