New 7000 SXT. Not sure about it.

[jamms]

My 14 year old Echowater 3000 was in need of repair again so I started looking at my options. My water tested at 40g when the Echowater was installed. I took a pre-softener sample to the local kenetico dealer to test and get a quote for a new unit. They tested the water at 26g. I thanked them and told them I would think about it. I decided to test the water with a pool test for calcium. It tested at 750ppm. That converts to 44 grains.

I decided to order a Flec 7000SXT and install it myself. The unit came with a 12X48 tank and 2 cubic ft of 8% crosslink resin. The installation went good but some odd things have happened with the new unit so I would appreciate your opinions. On the first regeneration I lost resin out the discharge. I had about a quart of resin in my sump hole. I am sure some was also pumped out. I called the vendor and they said that was not normal but offered no help. I decided to let it go for a week and see how things looked. In about four days I could tell the water was getting softer but not as soft as it use to be. It really bothered be about the resin loss so I called the vendor and they told me to remove the valve and inspect the distributor tube and oring. When I removed the valve the distributor tube pulled up a couple of inches. I gently worked it back down to where it originally was. My distributor tube sticks up 3/8" above the top of the resin tank. Everything looked ok so I re installed the valve and manually started a cycle. I watched every stage and put a strainer to catch what came out of the discharge. At the beginning of the B2 stage about two cups of resin came out. Now a week later my water feels very hard. I started to test with the pool calcium kit and stopped putting drops in when I reached 300ppm (17g) because I didn't see any sense in wasting more drops.

I manually started a regen cycle this morning and everything looked normal and I did not loose any resin. I would like to post my settings and get the community opinion on how I should proceed. I have seen the post with recommended settings for the taller 12X52 resin tank, would that apply to mine?

My settings:

DF- GAL
VT- dF2b
CT-Fd
C- 60 (I figured 64000 was a stretch)
H-35 (I split the difference of the tests)
RS-rc
rc-X0
D0-14
RT-2:00
B1-10
BD-60
B2-5
RR-10
BF-12
FM-t1.2

The sticker on the back of the valve:
BLFC .125
DLFC -
Injector 00

My BLFC button is marked 25 539 (is that .25 ?)

I have not had any resin in my plumbing.
I have ordered a hach 5b test kit.
Using a flashlight with the lights out it looks like I still have 28" of resin. That is all resin, I had no gravel in my install.

Thanks!

[ditttohead]

Several questions come to mind.

What is your water temperature?
The DLFC, 25 does not make any sense, it should be 350 (3.50 gpm) with another number on it, ignore the other number.
The DLFC is set according to several factors. Does the system have the turbulator? Does it have a top screen? Water temperature?

The 12 x 48 tank is undersized, but since you are not using a gravel bed, your 50% freeboard capacity tank size would be 1.83 Cu. Feet. Still undersized for 2 cu. ft. A 12x52 is slightly undersized, but it is closer than the 12x48.

You need to get a real test kit, not a pool supply kit. A Hach 5B is the preferred kit, especially if you want to DIY. When yours comes in, let us know what it tests at. For a more accurate test, you may want to cut the sample in half with pure water. The Hach 5 B has limits, but cutting the sample works well.

Your settings are way off, you will have hard water the way it is programmed. Use this guide to get you started, but put the capacity down to 44 to accomodate for the gravel-less design and the lost resin.

In order to set the reserves, etc, how many people are in your house?

This will get you started. Let us know what your Hach 5B says your actual hardness is.

[jamms]

The sticker on the back of the valve just has a dash by DLFC, not a number. The 25 539 number was on the BLFC button.
We have three people in our home now. Two and a half baths. The echowater history showed that average usage was 80 gal per day. The thing that puzzled me is in three weeks I have regenerated twice manually after about 800 gallons each time. Mainly because I wanted to see it first hand until I am comfortable with it. So I am thinking I should not have any hard water yet. I completely understand your logic suggesting that I will have hard water. But if I am doing the math correctly I should not have exceeded 32000 grains before a manual regeneration.

My cold water temp is 62F. I have a well so I would expect the water to be 55 ish before setting in the bladder tank. My incoming water line is 1" plastic and that is carried through the softener before being reduced to 3/4" copper. My watter pump kicks on at 40 and off at 60.

I am going to reset the settings to your suggestions. My only question and confusion is the BF time for the BLFC that I have. My current BF time is 12 minutes. After the BD cycle there was still a little more than an inch of brine left in the brine tank.

I appreciate your help!

[ditttohead]

The 32000 grins per cu. ft. is thae maximum attainable capaciy, not what the system will actually produce. If you regenerate the system at 8 pounds of salt per cubic foot, you will get 24,000 grains removal. 32,000 grains is a technical number that is rarely used for programming.

Your 2 cu. ft. system is more realistically 48,000 grains total. You had the BLFC set to fill the brine tank with 3 gallons of water, so your actual salt usage is around 4 pounds per cubic foot, which will drop you to about 30,000 grains total capacity for the unit. Minus the lack of a gravel bed (not all of the resin is available for use) and the lost rein, your capacity will be slighly lower. You also possibly set the hardness way under what it may be (need to test with the Hach 5B to confirm) and you have a system that guarantees hard water. Reset the system to my programming recommendations and add a few gallons of water to the brine tank, run it through a regeneration and you will be just fine. Be sure to set the hardness up a couple of grains to compesate for the high TDS.

The brine draw cycle will leave about 1-3" of water in the bottom, this is normal. The brine draw cycle should remove the water from the brine tank in about 10-20 minutes.

On my cheat sheet, change H to the actual hardness +2.

[jamms]

OK thanks!

[Bob999]

You had the BLFC set to fill the brine tank with 3 gallons of water, so your actual salt usage is around 4 pounds per cubic foot, which will drop you to about 30,000 grains total capacity for the unit.

According to the original post the BLFC is .125 and BF is 12 minutes. That works out to 1.5 gallons of water and 4.5 lbs of salt. With 2 cubic feet of resin that is a salt dose of 2.25 lb/cubic foot which gives a much lower total capacity with very high leakage rates.

[jamms]

According to the original post the BLFC is .125 and BF is 12 minutes. That works out to 1.5 gallons of water and 4.5 lbs of salt. With 2 cubic feet of resin that is a salt dose of 2.25 lb/cubic foot which gives a much lower total capacity with very high leakage rates.

By leakage rate do you mean hard water making it through?
Somewhere along the line I got it in my head that the BLFC size listed on the sticker should match the number on the BLFC button. My sticker says .125 but the button has 25 on it. Is this a concern?

Thanks

[Bob999]

By leakage rate do you mean hard water making it through?
Somewhere along the line I got it in my head that the BLFC size listed on the sticker should match the number on the BLFC button. My sticker says .125 but the button has 25 on it. Is this a concern?

Thanks

Yes leakage rate refers to hardness making it through.

The value on the sticker should match the BLFC installed. Most individuals servicing the unit would use the information on the sticker without actually comparing it to the installed BLFC. If you have determined the actual BLFC is .25 gpm I suggest you change the sticker value.

[ditttohead]

Confirm the refill rate, use a bucket and a stop watch during the refill. And like Bob said, change the notation on the sticker to indicate the actual flow rate. .125 or .25 are acceptable, but it is nice to know for sure what the flow rate is.

Hardness leakage is a problem with ultra low salt settings. 8 pounds per cu. ft. gives you minimal hardness leakage. It also gives you better water efficiency in place of slightly lower salt usage.

[jamms]

Got it.
Thanks guys!

[jamms]

Update:

I am running out of soft water before the next automatic cycle runs.
Using dittihead's recommended settings except capacity is set to 44 and hardness is set at 40.
I know that I could lower the capacity more, but I thought I would run it past the experts.

Recent history:
-----------------------------------
Water sample taken at well head
Sample diluted 50/50 with distilled water
Diluted sample tested with Hach 5b kit at 20g
Conclude hardness is 40g

2/7/13 automatic cycle

2/14/13 test sample is < 1g

2/19/13 automatic cycle will run tonight
test sample is 25g

2/24/13 test sample is < 1g
manual verification of blfc produced 64oz in 2 minutes
blfc verified to be .25
---------------------------------------

Should I take daily samples to verify the actual capacity my unit can handle?

Also I notice that I have a depth of 14" of water in the 18" diameter brine tank with the BF set at 22 minutes.
Does that sound normal? If not is it accumulating unused brine?

Thanks guys!

[Gary Slusser]

You may have a bad 7000 valve. Check out the post below;

http://www.terrylove.com/forums/show...ck-7000-valves

[jamms]

Thanks for the heads up. I will respond in the other thread for this problem.