Programming an 5600SXT for maximum effenciency

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Alcan

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Brine and rinse is as stated. The brine draw rate is determined by several factors including pressure, injector size etc. The actual brine draw should be done in approximately 15 minutes. (please no debate, every manufacturer has a different formula for efficiency etc, this is just a general comment). The brine draw occurs by the softener directing the water through a venturi injetor which creates a vacuum on the brine line, thereby drawing in the brine solution from the brine tank. This dilutes the brine depending on the system design and the injector efficiency. The water in the brine tank should be removed completely in about 15 minutes to allow for proper contact time etc inside the mineral tank. Once the brine is removed from the brine tank the system is now considered to be in "slow rinse". The water is still going theough the injector but is no longer diluting brine, it is just slowly rinsing the resin bed. This should take approximately 30-40 minutes to remove the brine from the tank, the remaining is a safety factor to allow for some variances in brine draw, injector efficiency, etc. It wastes very little water so brine draw time is not usually considered a critical setting except in areas where the waste water must be hauled off, then we will set the brine and rinse cycle a little more carefully. I have posted the common injector sizes for the 7000, the 5600 are very similar in their draw and flow rates.View attachment 17837

The programming manual that came with my unit says to set the BF minutes based on the size of the unit.
For my unit (24,000 grains), it say to set it on 7 minutes.
On the brine draw cycle, all the brine is drawn out in the first 10 minutes of the 60 minute cycle.
So, for the remaining 50 minutes of that cycle, is the brine just stationary in the resin tank soaking the resin ?
If so, then would not setting the BF to less than the 7 minutes for a 24,000 grain unit cause the upper part
of the resin not to be immersed in brine ?

If the brine draw cycle works differently than above, please explain just exactly what is going on during the
brine draw cycle. I have been advised to set my BF to a lower number, yet I am hesitant to do so.

I am trying to program my unit (Fleck 5600sxt, 24,000 grain size) for (in order of importance to me)
1) maximum interval between regenerations without compromising the life of the resin.
2) efficient salt usage

The problem seems to be that even though I have a relatively small unit, my water usage is only 1500gal/month.
After programming and the initial regeneration, with a reserve of 50 gal., I had 2350 gal. to use until the next
regen. The DO was set to 14 days. Well, on day 13, I still had 1600 gal. shown on the meter.

Then, after researching quite a bit, I was informed that when the water has any iron, the regen. interval
should not exceed 8 days. Another source said not to exceed even 4 days, otherwise it will shorten
the life of the resin. The rep where I bought the unit said at least 3 times a month or it will take years
off the life of the resin.

Additionally, one place says I can go with a longer interval if I add a resin treatment to the brine.
Others say no, just regenerate weekly, still others say resin treatment and weekly, and one source says
that if you have ANY iron, no more than a 4 day interval.

So after saying all of the above, I'm at a loss as to how to program the unit properly for my water content,
my water usage, and the size of the unit.

My water is well water, hardness of 8, iron 0.2 mg/L, manganese 0.5 mg/L

What would you recommend ?
 

Reach4

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The programming manual that came with my unit says to set the BF minutes based on the size of the unit.
For my unit (24,000 grains), it say to set it on 7 minutes.
On the brine draw cycle, all the brine is drawn out in the first 10 minutes of the 60 minute cycle.
So, for the remaining 50 minutes of that cycle, is the brine just stationary in the resin tank soaking the resin ?
No. During the BD time, the injector passes water to the resin tank, and it also produces a suction. That suction sucks brine while there is brine, so that a mix of water and saturated brine passes through the resin. That is, until the brine has all been sucked out so that the air check valve at the bottom of your brine tank. So at that point, the injector continues to pass water. This is the slow rinse part of the BD cycle which washes out the salt from the resin. That water-only phase is typically about 3/4 of the time, but that ratio is far from fixed.

Looking back at post #13, I see Ditttohead did a very nice job of explaining this. I think your eyes may have glazed over if you had read that. Consider re-studying that including the graphs. Note that the graphs show a given injector during the brining. The "draw" line shows the brine flow. The rinse line shows the flow of fresh water into the injector. The top line is the sum of the lower two lines. The reason there are 4 graphs is because the designer can choose any of those injectors to match the job at hand. You would probably have 000 or maybe 00. After the brine has all been sucked out, the draw goes to zero.

My water is well water, hardness of 8, iron 0.2 mg/L, manganese 0.5 mg/L

What would you recommend ?
My only addition would be to recommend that you consider that you have a manganese problem more than an iron problem. See the secondary MCL numbers on http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/secondarystandards.cfm

I am not suggesting how/if that should affect your DO number. It does make producing a truly accurate compensated hardness number harder.

one source says
that if you have ANY iron, no more than a 4 day interval.
Care to point out that source?
 
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Alcan

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No. During the BD time, the injector passes water to the resin tank, and it also produces a suction. That suction sucks brine while there is brine, so that a mix of water and saturated brine passes through the resin. That is, until the brine has all been sucked out so that the air check valve at the bottom of your brine tank. So at that point, the injector continues to pass water. This is the slow rinse part of the BD cycle which washes out the salt from the resin. That water-only phase is typically about 3/4 of the time, but that ratio is far from fixed.

Looking back at post #13, I see Ditttohead did a very nice job of explaining this. I think your eyes glazed over as you were reading that. Consider re-studying that including the graphs. Note that the graphs show a given injector during the brining. The "draw" line shows the brine flow. The rinse line shows the flow of fresh water into the injector. The top line is the sum of the lower two lines. The reason there are 4 graphs is because the designer can choose any of those injectors to match the job at hand. You would probably have 000 or maybe 00. After the brine has all been sucked out, the draw goes to zero.


My only addition would be to recommend that you consider that you have a manganese problem more than an iron problem. See the secondary MCL numbers on http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/secondarystandards.cfm

I am not suggesting how/if that should affect your DO number. It does make producing a truly accurate compensated hardness number harder.


Care to point out that source?


This guy recommends a DO of 4, does his settings make sense:

aliceinwonderland_id
Those are all terrible settings. You purchased from someone that hasn't clue one how softeners work or how to set them up.

First capacity depends upon salt dosage. Brand new your resin might have 24000 capacity, but to keep it that way would take obscene amounts of salt. You want a salt dosage of 9 lb/cu ft. The way you set that is with the brine fill. Set that to 6. That places capacity at 19,000 grains. You have a tiny softener, so you can reduce brine draw to 45 minutes. Day override needs to be at 4. Hardness setting is also too low.

To recap:

C = 19000

H=14

DO = 4

BD = 45

BF = 6

Additionally, iron and manganese require some special treatment. The problem with iron-laden water in a softener is that softener resin has a great affinity for iron and does not release it easily. Iron will slowly foul the softener resin from the inside out. Extra measures need to be taken to remove the iron. For this you have several options.

  1. The easiest option may be to simply use Iron-Remover salt.
  2. Alternatively, you can use Super Iron Out. You may choose to layer this in with your salt. If you choose this option, use 1/4 C per 40 lb bag of salt.
  3. Super Iron Out is more effective if used monthly with the following procedure: Ensure you have a strong brine in your brine tank - at least 24 hours since the last regen. Dissolve 1 C Iron Out in cool water and pour it into the brine well inside your brine tank. If you don't have a brine well, for some reason, pour it down the side of the tank rather than through the salt. Place your softener into manual regen and stay right there. When backwash is complete, the softener will move to the brine/slow rinse mode. Pay attention to the way it sounds. After 10 minutes or so the sound will change when there is no more brine to draw. At this point, we want the Iron Out to sit in the softener for an hour. To do that, push the button to advance to the next regen step, then the next until your softener is back in service mode. Do this as quickly as you can. Switch your valves so your softener is bypassed and wait one hour minimum. Place your valves back in service mode and manually start a softener regen. Once the regen is complete you're good to go for another month.
  4. A liquid iron removal system such as Res Up can be installed in your brine tank to feed citric acid to the brine to aid with iron removal.
My preferred methods are 1 or 4 because they employ phosphoric acid, which is a much safer chemical than those in Super Iron Out (sodium hydrosulfite and sodium metabisulfite). The choice is yours - pick a method and follow it religiously and your softener will give you many years of reliable service.
 

Reach4

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Alcon, "iron-laden water" or 1.5 ppm of iron is a higher standard than "if you have ANY iron". Still, that fellow may be overcautious. Maybe he has a point. I don't know. But you have 0.02 ppm (mg/l) of iron. That is pretty mild as iron goes for wells. I have said a million times, don't exaggerate. :D

If you don't regen often enough, you treat the resin and then do two regens with 15 pounds of salt per cubic ft. That is said to restore the resin pretty well. Can I guarantee that? Nope. I only know what I read. I have not read a formula for coming up with a suggestion for your water.
 
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Alcan

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Alcon, "iron-laden water" or 1.5 ppm of iron is a higher standard than "if you have ANY iron". Still, that fellow may be overcautious. Maybe he has a point. I don't know. But you have 0.02 ppm (mg/l) of iron. That is pretty mild as iron goes for wells. I have said a million times, don't exaggerate. :D

If you don't regen often enough, you treat the resin and then do two regens with 15 pounds of salt per cubic ft. That is said to restore the resin pretty well. Can I guarantee that? Nope. I only know what I read. I have not read a formula for coming up with a suggestion for your water.

Well, my iron is 0.2 ppm which is 0.1 less than the Gov. secondary standards.
I think the main problem with my water is the manganese which is 0.5 ppm.
That is 10 times more than the Gov. secondary standards.

Is the manganese just as bad for the resin as the iron ?
And does the iron remover salt or the Res Up cleaner do anything to remove the manganese ?
If I didn't have any iron, how often should I regenerate based on the manganese ?

Thanks,
Alcan
 

Bannerman

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Iron will foul resin whereas Manganese will not. As stated in your other thread, each 1ppm of Iron is equivalent to 4 grains of hardness whereas each 1ppm of Manganese is equivalent to 2 grains of hardness.

The equivalent hardness grains for the Iron and Manganese are added to the actual hardness grains to become a 'compensated' hardness amount which is programmed in the control valve as 'H'ardness. As a higher hardness level will utilize capacity faster than a lower amount, then regeneration will occur more often. The issue in your case is that you have a small amount of Iron to remove and as there is only a single occupant in the house, water consumption is low enough to require only 1X /month regeneration frequency which should not be an issue if iron was not present.

As you can see, removal of Iron and manganese with a softener is not the most efficient removal method, especially when high levels of iron are involved. An option would be to install an iron filter before the softener to remove the iron and manganese so that the softener is not exposed to either element. With the small quantity of Iron in your water, that is likely not a cost efficient option.
 
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ditttohead

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I have another question related to the above. Does the 5600SXT actually meter the amount of water put into the brine tank? If not, wouldn't this be a chance for the manufacturers to improve upon this process and exactly be able to control the amount of brine used for regeneration? The side effect would be to shorten the whole regeneration cycle. It seems to me that 60 minutes for the brine rinse is much more than what is really needed.

Just thinking out loud.

Yes and no, but in all reality, if a system is sized properly, a "variable brining" system is not worth the headaches and the variables are too hard to control so most VB systems simply add an extra full salt regeneration occasionally anyway to lessen the potential for problems. Variable brining can be useful when a system is poorly sized. As to the brine cycle time, this has been discussed many times in this forum but to restate it, longer brine draws increase efficiency slightly, but only to a certain point. The sweet spot is about 15 minutes, the highest efficiency seems to be about 30 minutes, the slow rinse time is typically about 3X the draw time". Trust me, the engineers have already tried longer, shorter variable refills etc. Softening and the quest for higher efficiencies has been around for over 50 years, and we are still making small steps toward higher efficiencies every year. Certain math and physics equations simply have limits.
 
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