Automatic Regeneration Issue/Troublshooting

[Buckeye Slim]

My water softener uses a Autotrol® Brand 255 Valve / 400 Series Controls (title from the .pfd for it) along with a 460i Electronic Control System.

Over the past few months, I noticed I was going thru 40 lbs bags of salt like crazy. The brine tank will hold six bags, and that wasn't lasting a month.

So, I started paying attention to how often it would regenerate, and it seemed to be running almost every night. In a given week, it might take a night or two off, but that's it.

Since this device calculates the need for regeneration based on water flow, I'm focused on the flow indicator light on the electronics. The manual, however, doesn't address the three states I've found this light can be in.

When I have a faucet open, the flow light blinks, as expected. However, when I turn the faucet off, the flow light will alternate between one of two states - either steady on or completely off.

While testing, I would turn the faucet on, check for the blinking light, turn the faucet off, and then check to see what I had. The first time, the flow light was steady on. The second time, it was off. The third time, steady on. And so forth and so on, back and forth as I tested to confirm this.

Related to this, I discovered that if I have the flow light in a steady on condition, if I unplug the power to it and then plug it back it, the light is then off. However, if I do this again, when I plug it back in, the light comes on in the steady on state. Do it again, and it's off. Do it again, and it's back to steady on, alternating just like it does when repeatedly turning a faucet on and off.

This doesn't make any sense to me. I would expect the flow light to have only two states: blinking and whatever state is the correct one when there's no water flow. If a steady on is what's normal to indicate the meter is active and ready to measure water flow, then that's what I should always see when it's not blinking. If the flow light should be off when there's no water flow, then that's also fine. But this back-and-forth between steady on and completely off doesn't make any sense.

Can anyone shed some light on what I'm experiencing?

As an aside, I spent some time last year verifying all my settings and determining a good estimate of my water's hardness. I don't know if I still have my notes from that (they're not on my PC), but I was pretty happy with the system's performance right after doing this.

We have pretty hard water, but there's only two of us. Without looking up average water usage numbers for typical activities likes showers and dishes, I would expect regeneration to happen about once per week. So, to begin figuring out what's going on, I want to understand what the flow light is saying because that's what drives the calculation to tell the system to regenerate.

I'll also note that this system was installed 14 years ago.

Any insight and help would be most appreciated.

 

[ditttohead]

Unfortunately that valve does not have any diagnostics like more modern valves have. Current flow rate, peak, days since last regen, gallons used today, yesterday etc... It is a solid timer and valve but very rudimentary. I would recommend checking your water meter and see how many gallons you go through (assuming you have a water meter). Be 100% sure you do not have any leaks. One way to determine that is to turn off the main water line to the house, you should not lose water pressure after 30 minutes. This is just a couple of ideas of where to start looking.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Buckeye Slim]

It's a private well, but the system has a bypass circuit built into it (bypasses the carbon filter and water softener) that lets me cut input before the system. I've already tested to be sure it does this.

IIUC, the test you suggest is to close the input into the house and wait awhile to see if there's a leak that drains the water currently in the house system. If there isn't, then I'll still get some water flow when I turn on a faucet after, say, an hour. If there is, the leak will drain and kill the pressure and I'll get almost no flow when I open the faucet.

I can do this, but I believe this would be testing for the opposite condition I actually have. If I had a slow leak that was using up my conditioned water, but wasn't enough to cause the flow meter to activate, and so I was running out of conditioned water, this would tell me why. However, my problem is that the system is running almost every night, but not always. This suggests that at the end of the process, the state of the system is being reset, but it thinks I'm using a lot more water than I actually am and needs to recharge to keep up.

I'm assuming that the calculation is paired to the flow light. When it blinks, it's accounting for water usage. When it doesn't, it's not. I suppose it's possible that the meter itself is screwed up so that it's incorrectly measuring flow. What I was hoping to find out, though, is if anyone knows why this particular system is presenting three states for the flow light: blinking (a faucet is open), steady, and off. Blinking works as expected. Steady and off do not.

Thanks.

 

[Reach4]

This test idea would be an alternative. The other tests would be checking for different things and are probably worthwhile.

My idea is to record your current capacity and hardness settings. I think I would then program the unit to say my hardness was 1 and that my capacity to 99.

If the usage being recorded is remotely accurate, the softener should not regenerate on its own for a long long time. If the unit regenerates in a few days, that would seem to give some info. Phantom gallons? Failed 460? metering?

Another thing I was thinking of would be to disconnect the flow meter, but I don't know how to do that. Similar test.

If you decide the metering is not working right, you could effectively turn this into a timed regen until you decide to replace the controller or the softener.

 

[Buckeye Slim]

That's an interesting approach to seeing what difference changing the settings would make. I'll give this a spin.

I'm still hoping someone can speak to the three different flow light states, though.

Thanks.

 

[Bannerman]

IIUC, the test you suggest is to close the input into the house and wait awhile to see if there's a leak that drains the water currently in the house system. If there isn't, then I'll still get some water flow when I turn on a faucet after, say, an hour. If there is, the leak will drain and kill the pressure and I'll get almost no flow when I open the faucet.

As your water source is a private well, the water system should be equipped with at least 1 functioning pressure gauge downstream of the pressure tank. Shutting off electrical power to the pump and with no water usage, the pressure should remain consistent over 30 minutes. If the system pressure shown on the gauge becomes lower, that will indicate water is leaking somewhere. Depending on the size of the leak, the pressure will not necessarily drop to 0 psi within 30 minutes.

 

[Reach4]

That's an interesting approach to seeing what difference changing the settings would make. I'll give this a spin.

I'm still hoping someone can speak to the three different flow light states, though.

You have seen what the manual says:

Flow Indicator
The water flow indicator on the time display flashes
whenever conditioned water is flowing through the
valve. This allows an easy determination of proper
meter operation.
​

From the design, it may have only have two states: flashing and not flashing. I understand that seems like an odd design. Maybe the processor was very tight on memory, that it took a tiny bit less memory to just toggle the state of the led. I can't say there is no documentation of an added bit of info somewhere, but your tests seem to suggest there is not.