Testing Fleck 7000 flow meter advice?

**cartman13** · 01-28-2013, 12:50 PM

Hi,

I have a Fleck 7000 head about 1 year old. It's no longer registering flow which I gather either means it's a stuck turbine, bad cord, or bad circuit board.

I was wondering if the gurus here might have advice on how to isolate which is causing the issue w/o disconnecting the plumbing to reveal the turbine itself?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

**ditttohead** · 01-28-2013, 12:54 PM

Easy to do.

Remove the sensor from the back of the valve on the outlet (attached to the end of the meter cable) and run a small magent up and down across the sensor, if the board shows water flow, it is a turbine issue. Depending on the age, water quality, and flow rates the meter regularly sees, the turbine can become worn. You can remove the turbine from the shaft and clean it carefully. An obstruction (gravel, debris, piece of wood etc) can cause the turbine to not spin under water flow as well.

The link in my signature shows you how to get to the meter.

**cartman13** · 01-28-2013, 02:39 PM

Thanks, I tried this with a bike spoke magnet and with a stronger rare earth magnet. None seemed to register.

Everything else works fine. When I feel the water turning hard and I manually set it to regenerate overnight it cycles and we have soft water again in the morning.

Question is do the sensors cables go bad?

Or will I need to replace the circuit board? I read steady 18v pos to neg on the meter plug and 12v neg to ground and only 6v positive to ground. (Not sure if that means anything).

Thanks again for the help.

Originally Posted by ditttohead

Easy to do.

Remove the sensor from the back of the valve on the outlet (attached to the end of the meter cable) and run a small magent up and down across the sensor, if the board shows water flow, it is a turbine issue. Depending on the age, water quality, and flow rates the meter regularly sees, the turbine can become worn. You can remove the turbine from the shaft and clean it carefully. An obstruction (gravel, debris, piece of wood etc) can cause the turbine to not spin under water flow as well.

The link in my signature shows you how to get to the meter.

**ditttohead** · 01-28-2013, 04:48 PM

The sensor cables can go bad. It is more likely the cable than the board, or it could also be a programming issue. Do you have the valve programmed as a metered valve?

The cable is part # 19791-01, whoever you bought the system from should be able to get a new cable for you. I would replace that before I went to tthe control board.

**cartman13** · 01-28-2013, 05:23 PM

Really appreciate the help. Too bad they don't have a way to check the cable with a multimeter. The program is set to t1.0 for the flow meter. Oddly it doesn't have the t1.2 option that I see mentioned elsewhere. It's also set to use meter delayed cycle and shows the gallons left that never change like they used to. So pretty sure something pooped out either cable or board.

**Gary Slusser** · 01-28-2013, 06:21 PM

Reconnect the cable to the turbine and then push/pull the wires on the plug on the other end of the cable where it attaches to the circuit board. Run softened water in a tub as you do that and watch the screen. If it doesn't count down, pull that plug off the board and plug it back in a few times and see if that gets it to cont down.

**cartman13** · 01-31-2013, 07:17 PM

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the input but I think i'm missing something. This process doesn't seem to produce any different results (still not countdown and still no indication water is flowing) with water running.

I guess i'm confused if this is supposed to indicate the meter cord and sensor is bad or if control board is bad?

Originally Posted by Gary Slusser

Reconnect the cable to the turbine and then push/pull the wires on the plug on the other end of the cable where it attaches to the circuit board. Run softened water in a tub as you do that and watch the screen. If it doesn't count down, pull that plug off the board and plug it back in a few times and see if that gets it to cont down.

**Akpsdvan** · 01-31-2013, 09:00 PM

If you have removed the end of the cable that goes into the body where the turbin is as and waved a magnet closely over the end and there is no flashing of the water drop, and you have checked the connection at the board and it is clean and tight. Then I would first think that the sensor at the end of the cable has gone bad for what ever reason and first try and get a replacement for it and try it with a new one.
If the new one still will not light up the water drop then yes there is some thing wrong with the chip in the board that is responsible for reading the meter and the board will have to be replaced.