The Head
Defiant has a land-style toilet with pushbutton flush, and a self-contained sanitation system all built into the bathroom.
Defiant has a Raritan Electroscan self-contained USCG Type I poop zapper - it is a tiny, self-contained sewage sanitation system. With the Electroscan every flush triggers a ~3 min cycle that super-macerates the effluent, then injects brine to electrolyte-prime the effluent, then shocks the shit (literally) with up to 60Amps at 12v, and then finally purges the sanitized goop overboard.
The entire treatment tank (including macerator and mixer motors), as well as the salt pump in the salt tank now brand new as of July 2026. The control boards were brand new in February 2026. This is after many rounds with Raritan troubleshooting the used-new unit I bought off of eBay in the fall that has worked on-and-off until now; the system is essentially all brand new at this point with factory warranties for these new parts.
The unit is wired to a stand-alone 100AH LifePO4 battery (watt cycle, same as the house bank) that lives next to the treatment tank behind the toilet bulkhead. There is a stand-alone breaker for this battery on the cabinet door. A Victron DC-DC charger trickles the battery off the house bank, so the Electroscan is not pulling 60+ amps directly from the house wiring system.
Both the control unit and DC->DC charger live behind the drawers in the sink counter; pull out the 2 drawers and you will find them both bulkhead-mounted below.
The salt tank is required to make the freshwater system work. The tank itself is located between the fuel tanks in the bilge, it is a blue cylinder with a black top about 1.5' tall and 1' in diameter. There is a brine line running from this tank to the treatment tank; when the unit starts up it triggers the salt pump which injects brine into the effluent, making the water saline enough to electrify. This tank needs to be refilled with solar salt every few months. I keep a spare 10lb bag of solar salt in the bilge, and the left-over (only about 7lb will fit in the tank at once) under the sink.
Talk to Greg in service and Mac in tech support - they coordinated with me each time I've had issues and have gone way above and beyond. I sent in the old system and when Greg told me it was DOA (the tank was actually heat-warped somehow?!?) he stripped all the good parts off that dead box, bubble wrapped and labeled them, and sent them back to me as spares for my new box. It is that kind of company.
When I first installed the Electroscan last fall I permanently plumbed in the box with PVC cemented joints. My thought at the time was that the unit would not need to be serviced for a long time, and I would be into a bathroom renovation before then. These were stupid thoughts.
When the unit failed in June, I had to cut it out of the hold - and I learned my lesson. The system now has 3 removable fittings
- one at the base of the toilet
- one at the bulkhead passing into the treatment tank
- one at the overflow hose that leads to the through-hull
All 3 may be unscrewed if the unit needs to be serviced or any part fails and needs replacement.
The toilet is a freshwater Dometic MasterFlush. It is a ceramic bowl and looks/feels just like a normal house toilet. The macerator and freshwater relays are wired to a standard house circuit, and have an oversize relay that triggers the cycle on the Electroscan when flushed.
When servicing the Electroscan, the female threaded output port has weakened and somewhat cross-threaded; it is really thin ABS and the and the angle is begging for trouble. As a result it leaked, no matter what I did. I tried teflon tape and pipe dope, different fittings, different tensions - everything had slow drip-leaks of what would be liquid poop once I recommissioned the system... no bueno. My brother said "that's why we never have female threads on working parts if we can avoid them" - so I decided to give the housing assembly a sex change. I added a threaded schedule 80 PVC close nipple to the toilet, and packed the threads with 3M 5200. If you are not familiar with 3M X200 marine sealants, they are the go-to waterproofing glue for things on boats. 3M 4200, the semi-permanent variant, is what is used almost everywhere and is extremely effective for sealing screw holes in the hull and deck, water-exposed hardware, underwater fittings etc. In this case, I used 3M 5200; 5200 is so permanent that, well... if you were to meet God during your voyage, 5200 will glue him.
The toilet seat was replaced with this super-compact bidet seat. It is one of the best features on the boat. The bidet is plumbed into the freshwater supply directly off the toilet tee (the pex valves behind the toilet seat). it is a round seat, 16.5"L x 14"W, and fits perfectly on the Dometic bowl.
