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alicehasleftthebuilding

love2byke softener settings

Posted by love2byke (My Page) on Wed, Apr 10, 13 at 0:06

I could use some help too. I bought a fleck 5600sxt 24k and am trying to decipher all the info I'm reading on the internet to set it up. I have city water rated at 8 for hardness and there's 2 people in our home. No hot tub, etc. The site that sold me the softner calculated this model for me. How can I calc the settings?
Greatly appreciate any direction.

First, a few questions you need to answer and then I can walk you through setup step by step.

  1. pH and TDS of your water (this will affect required salt dosage)

  2. Do you have any iron or manganese in your water. If so, how much?

  3. Well or city water?

  4. What is the specific resin you have, by brand and name? If you don't know, I can you "typical" specs, but better to know.>

Comments (4)

  • love2byke
    10 years ago

    Here are the spec's I could find:
    Hardness: 158-170mg/L or 10 grains per gallon.
    TDS: 204 mg/L
    Resin: Standard 7% (Dow)
    Fleck 5600SXT electronic metered
    24,000 grains capacity (0.75 cubic feet) 7" x 44" resin tank.
    Rated flow rate is 12 gpm at 15 psi drop.
    City water from 2 city wells.

    The official 'water report' from West Jordan Utah, where I live does not list the PH level, nor does it list iron/manganese content: http://www.sjc.utah.gov/pdf/waterqualityreport2011.pdf

    I have the manual to set up the Fleck, but not sure how to calculate the parameters to optimize.

    Thanks for any direction/recommendations.

  • AliceHasLeftTheBuilding
    Original Author
    10 years ago

    I'm familiar with the water in West Jordan, did some work there before I retired.

    When setting up a softener, we want to maintain soft water throughout each cycle while using the least amount of salt and wasting the least amount of water. The sweet spot where those items come together is at 6 lb salt per cubic ft of resin, regenerating about once weekly.

    You have a 0.75 cubic ft softener, with a theoretical maximum capacity of 24,000 grains. We could maintain that capacity, but it would require regenerating with 24 lb salt per cubic ft, resulting in you lugging a lot more salt than necessary. If we use 6 lb salt per cubic ft, you use way less salt, but the usable capacity of your softener drops to 15,750 grains. In order to obtain 6 lb salt per cubic ft of resin, regen with 4.5 lb of salt. At 3 lb salt per gallon of water, that's 1.5 gallons.

    Since you have city water, there will be some chlorine in your water. Over time, the chlorine will damage the softener resin. You have a resin which is 7% crosslinked, where normally I would recommend 10% crosslined resin for city water for greater resistance to the chlorine. This does not mean your softener will not work. It will work fine. It does mean that your resin will wear out a bit faster - just something to be aware of about 7 years down the road.

    Under different circumstances, we would want the softener to regen weekly. However, since the other characteristics of your water are great, we will allow a bit longer between regens to limit the stress on your softener resin.

    So, on to valve programming.

    Enter Master Programming Mode

    1. DF=Gal

    2. VT = St1b

    3. CT=Fd

    4. NT=1

    5. TS doesnâÂÂt matter because you only have one tank

    6. C=15.7

    7. H=10

    8. RS=FS

    9. SF=15

    10. RC=0 (You are using a % reserve rather than a fixed reserve)

    11. DO=14

    12. RT=2:00 (or another convenient time when you wonâÂÂt be using water for a couple of hours)

    13. Regeneration cycle step times
      BW=10
      BD=60
      RR=10
      BF=Here, you need to find your BLFC sticker. There is a picture below showing you where to look. If the sticker is 0.125 gpm set BD=12, 0.25 gpm set BD =6, if 0.5 gpm set BD=3, 1.0 gpm set BD=2

    14. Ensure all days are set to ON, unless you have a specific day of the week when you do not want the softener to regen.

    15. CD doesnâÂÂt matter unless you set a day to OFF in step 14.

    16. FM t0.7

    17. doesnâÂÂt matter

    Exit Master Programming Mode.

    Enjoy your soft water.

    This post was edited by aliceinwonderland_id on Tue, Apr 16, 13 at 16:05

  • love2byke
    10 years ago

    @aliceinwonderland_id - You are a water genius! Thanks for all your help! Awesome...

  • love2byke
    10 years ago

    First off, thanks again for you advice on configuring my Fleck system. It's worked great for almost 2 months...until now. Over the past couple weeks I've noticed the water is no longer soft, low suds, sticky, etc. I checked the system and confirmed settings are intact, but noticed no salt usage since last fill up. I manually cycled, and it seems to be working. Suggestions on what to check next?