5800 SXT settings help

[James Herrin]

I installed this softener for just over a year ago. My wife is not happy with the softness of the water, so I was checking the settings and see it was originally programmed for low salt usage. I have not been using a lot of salt, but its not the best quality water. I was hoping one of the experts here could help me optimize my settings. I think I need to get my salt up to about 6-8 lbs/cu ft to keep my wife happy and not break the bank on salt usage. My system is a 2.5 cu. ft with 10% resin in a 13x54 tank. I had my water lab tested at 37 grain hardness, .5ppm iron and some heavy metals. I know I need to increase C to 52.5-60 but I don't know what else needs to be tweaked. Any suggestions?

Injector- 1
DLFC- 4.0
BLFC- .25
DF- Gal
VT- 5800
RF- df1b
CT- fd
C- 24
H- 40
RS- SF
SF- 15
DO- 14
RT- 2:00
BW- 10
BD- 60
RR- 10
BF- 50
FM- t0.7
RE- off
VR- off

 

[Reach4]

1. How many people?
2. With your #1 white injector, I expect BD to be bigger than 60. That is OK, but I will wait until you provide some more info in case some things change.
3. Your BF=50 and BLFC=0.25 would cause you to use a lot of salt. Is it possible that your BLFC = 0.125? Maybe the safety float is limiting the fill. The liquid level should not be high enough to activate the safety float.
4. Your C=25 is way low for 2.5 cuft of resin. With your BF and your C, your system would be regenerating a lot more than a typical softener.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[James Herrin]

1. How many people?
2. What injector do you have -- # or color?

4 people. The tag on the control valve says Injector- 1.

 

[James Herrin]

1. How many people?
2. With your #1 injector, I expect a BD to be bigger than 60. That is OK, but I will wait until you provide some more info in case some things change.
3. Your BF=50 and BLFC=0.25 would cause you to use a lot of salt. Is it possible that your BLFC = 0.125?
4. Your C=25 is way low for 2.5 cuft of resin. With your BF and your C, your system would be regenerating a lot more than a typical softener.

1. How many people?
2. With your #1 white injector, I expect BD to be bigger than 60. That is OK, but I will wait until you provide some more info in case some things change.
3. Your BF=50 and BLFC=0.25 would cause you to use a lot of salt. Is it possible that your BLFC = 0.125? Maybe the safety float is limiting the fill.
4. Your C=25 is way low for 2.5 cuft of resin. With your BF and your C, your system would be regenerating a lot more than a typical softener.

The control valve has a tag on it that lists-
Inject- 1
DLFC- 4.0
BLFC- 0.25

 

[Reach4]

I would see if the safety float is as high as it can go. If it is not limiting the fill, I would check the molded numbers on the BLFC.

How long did this soften nicely? Maybe a treatment with Iron Out would remove iron fouling. If you want a method for that, ask.

Normal settings based on data, BUT this would use less salt, and provide less softness, than your current settings"
5800SXT System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft : 8 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC : 0.25 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin : 2.5 ; Same as (nominal grains/32,000)
Raw hardness : 40.0 ; including iron etc
Estimated gal/day 240.0 ; 60 gal per person typical calc
Est days/regen 5.2 ; presuming days each use reserve capacity


Fleck 5800SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = 5800.0 ; Valve type
RF = dF2b ; Downflow, Double Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
C = 60.0 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 48 ; Hardness grains after comp factor
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 240 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 30 ; Day Override (typ 28 if no iron/Mn)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
B1 = 6 ; Backwash 1 (minutes) [3...10]
Bd = 70 ; Brine draw minutes
B2 = 4 ; Backwash 2 (minutes)[3...10]
RR = 6 ; Rapid Rinse minutes [5...10]
BF = 27 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = T0.7 ; flow meter yet

Also, tell us more about those "heavy metals". Uranium, arsenic, what?

 

[James Herrin]

1. How many people?
2. With your #1 white injector, I expect BD to be bigger than 60. That is OK, but I will wait until you provide some more info in case some things change.
3. Your BF=50 and BLFC=0.25 would cause you to use a lot of salt. Is it possible that your BLFC = 0.125? Maybe the safety float is limiting the fill. The liquid level should not be high enough to activate the safety float.
4. Your C=25 is way low for 2.5 cuft of resin. With your BF and your C, your system would be regenerating a lot more than a typical softener.

The salt usage has only been about 1 bag per month. I have not tracked regenerations closely, but I think at least once per week.

 

[Reach4]

With 50 minutes of brine fill @0.25 gpm gives 12.5 gallons. That should use 37.5 pounds of salt every regen. So almost one bag every time.

You should always have some salt above the water line. If you only have salt at the bottom of the brine tank, that would prevent you from having saturated brine.

 

[James Herrin]

With 50 minutes of brine fill @0.25 gpm gives 12.5 gallons. That should use 37.5 pounds of salt every regen. So almost one bag every time.

You should always have some salt above the water line. If you only have salt at the bottom of the brine tank, that would prevent you from having saturated brine.

Looking in the brine tank it is a little over half full of salt. The water level in the flow tube is a couple inches above the salt. The float is probably 2 inches above the water level in the tube, so it does not appear the float is limiting the fill. The brine tank does have a drip Res Cleaner in it which I keep full. I do have some sand/sediment from my well. I have a 200 micron spin down sediment filter and a 5 micron big blue filter before the softener. When it was new we were getting a red clay sediment which has mostly cleared up now, but I still have sand which the spin down filter seems to control.

 

[James Herrin]

I would see if the safety float is as high as it can go. If it is not limiting the fill, I would check the molded numbers on the BLFC.

How long did this soften nicely? Maybe a treatment with Iron Out would remove iron fouling. If you want a method for that, ask.

Normal settings based on data, BUT this would use less salt, and provide less softness, than your current settings"
5800SXT System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft : 8 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC : 0.25 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin : 2.5 ; Same as (nominal grains/32,000)
Raw hardness : 40.0 ; including iron etc
Estimated gal/day 240.0 ; 60 gal per person typical calc
Est days/regen 5.2 ; presuming days each use reserve capacity


Fleck 5800SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = 5800.0 ; Valve type
RF = dF2b ; Downflow, Double Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
C = 60.0 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 48 ; Hardness grains after comp factor
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 240 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 30 ; Day Override (typ 28 if no iron/Mn)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
B1 = 6 ; Backwash 1 (minutes) [3...10]
Bd = 70 ; Brine draw minutes
B2 = 4 ; Backwash 2 (minutes)[3...10]
RR = 6 ; Rapid Rinse minutes [5...10]
BF = 27 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = T0.7 ; flow meter yet

Also, tell us more about those "heavy metals". Uranium, arsenic, what?

 

[James Herrin]

I did not pull the BLFC yet, but I double checked the part number on the control valve and the manual lists the part number as .25 BLFC.

Item No. QTY Part No. Description 1 ................... 1 ......... 580006-001 ........... Turbine Meter, Downflow Softener, U.S. Power Supply, #1 Injector, 0.25 GPM BLFC

 

[Reach4]

The presence of uranium would tend to suggest radon. You might consider getting a radon test, and mitigation if warranted.

Many backwashing iron filters also cut down on arsenic. I would drink bottled water or RO water while the arsenic is at that level.

Lithium is a light metal. It is given as a treatment, and I think calms/mellows people.

 

[James Herrin]

The presence of uranium would tend to suggest radon. You might consider getting a radon test, and mitigation if warranted.

Many backwashing iron filters also cut down on arsenic. I would drink bottled water or RO water while the arsenic is at that level.

Lithium is a light metal. It is given as a treatment, and I think calms/mellows people.

We do have RO for drinking, cooking, etc. I will check for Radon. I have already programmed your suggested settings into my softener. I will see how that works. Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it.

 

[James Herrin]

The presence of uranium would tend to suggest radon. You might consider getting a radon test, and mitigation if warranted.

Many backwashing iron filters also cut down on arsenic. I would drink bottled water or RO water while the arsenic is at that level.

Lithium is a light metal. It is given as a treatment, and I think calms/mellows people.

What about a Katalox filter? Would that be a good choice?

 

[Reach4]

What about a Katalox filter? Would that be a good choice?

That question is more complex than it sounds.

KL needs enough backwash. People often get bit by that, with their KL media getting stuck together.

KL often works better with an oxidizer. This can be air, as with AIO. This can be air+ozone, as in AIO3. This can be H2O2 injected before, and ideally that would have a settling/contact tank. Or forget the KL and use the H2O2 with a settling/contact tank. A carbon tank (GAC) can be used to remove any excess residual.

H2O2 injection can be done at a fixed rate before the pressure tank, whenever the pump runs. More sophisticated is the injection is at a variable rate after the pressure tank, but that requires a sensor to tell the variable pump how much to dose.

Chlorine bleach solution can be used instead of H2O2. It is also more effective at also killing bacteria, but it is more important to minimize the residual.

Note that the search box above will ignore terms shorter than 4 characters. So AIO and KL would be ignored, but AIO3, H2O2, peroxide, and katalox would not be.

 

[James Herrin]

I am wondering if I have other problems. I have been using these settings for a couple of weeks. It did not make a big difference in the feel of the water. I did notice the water level in my brine tank is much lower than before. Now the water feels very hard and my salt level in the tank has not changed lately even though there were a couple of regens. I wonder if I have other issues. I have ordered a Hach 5-B test kit to test my hardness. What is the best way to clean the resin with Iron Out?

I decided to check for a salt block and removed most of the salt from the brine tank. I have a support grid in the bottom of the tank. It is about 11" tall. My water level is below the top of the grid so the water is not in contact with the salt. That does not sound right. Any ideas on what might be going on?