Fabrication Improvements for LFOM, Inlet Manifolds, Plate Settlers, Floc Baffles

Each of these units requires creating large diameter holes in PVC pipe or in plastic sheets. The team in Honduras currently uses a hole saw to create these holes. The hole saw creates a rough hole and when the drilling operation is over the "hole" is inside the hole saw and must be removed. The entire process is time consuming. We need a better way to create these holes. The goal is to come up with improved methods of drill holes that can be tested perhaps even at the Marcala plant that is being constructed right now.
Plate settler spacing may be reduced to 1 cm or even 0.5 cm in the near future. In any case we would like to be able to build plate settler modules with reduced spacing to test their effectiveness in a full scale plant (perhaps at Cuatro Comunidades). We need a method to fabricate plate settler modules with very small spacings between plates. It may be possible to use the same fabrication technique as we are using currently or there may be an easier method.
The Inlet Manifold "centipede" design to reduce horizontal velocities in the bottom of the sed tank needs an improved construction technique. Creating a large contact surface area between the 2 inch PVC pipe and the manifold pipe is necessary for a strong bond. In Agalteca we created a large contact area by heating the 2 inch pipes over a wood fire and then while the plastic is soft molding it to the manifold pipe. This suggests that a viable construction technique would be to cut a large hold in the 2 inch pipe using a hole saw, heat the 2 inch pipe to soften it, mold the 2 inch pipe to the inlet manifold, and then glue the 2 inch pipe to the manifold. Experiment with this fabrication technique and develop improvements.