Ron, all the regeneration cycle positions are timed and flow controlled. The salt saturation is usually finished in 2-3 hrs after refill and we get 3 lbs per gallon of refill. That white dial with the pins and holes in it you mentioned on the back of the timer controls the time. It usually says 2 min/hole or pin. Yours may be different. So write down the number of pins/holes I.E. 5 holes, 6 pins, 2 holes, 5 pins, 2 holes 2 pins xx holes for us.
If that pin wheel does not rotate (in backwash etc.) at that X min per hole, the motor is not working or there is something else wrong like a contact switch or loose wire connection. Make sure you power to the valve.
In case you want or need to replace your control valve, here is a link to SS tank adapters;
http://www.apwinc.com/tankadapters-ss.html. Guaranteed to not break... Tell them I sent you.
Actually if it was my softener and not working I'd replace the whole thing and advertise the old one for say $200 for someone with a smaller house. BTW, you need to size and program for the max hardness in your 'city' water because at times they will be mixing water sources and your hardness will fluctuate and the softener will let hard water through. Then you would need to do 2 manual regenerations at 15lbs/cuft one after the other with no water use during or between the two regenerations to get all the capacity back in the resin (30k/cuft). Otherwise you would not get 0 gpg soft water until you do them.
Undoing the cable ties on the drain line may allow carbon out of the resin tank during backwash unless there is a top basket in the tank. If that happens you'll get carbon up in the valve and might have to take it apart to clean it out. So closing the main water shut off valve all but closed may be a good idea while testing the valve operation. Backwash usually is no more than 15-20 minutes. Brine draw/slow rinse can be 60 minutes or more. Rapid rinse like 5-10 minutes and refill maybe up to 15 minutes.
OK, Gary, tonight is the night. It's after midnight now and will likely be 1 am or later by the time I finish this note. The water used dial is setting at "0", which I was hoping means that the regeneration cycle should happen tonight. I will check it just before I go to bed, but will not wait up till 2 or 3 am in the morning, because it might not regenerate until tomorrow night -- just don't know.
Regarding the dial on the back side of the controller, yes it is white, with a comment that 1 pin equals 2 minutes. The dial goes from 0->160 and I have 6 pins between 0 and 10 (probably 0-12), another 6 beginning at 70 and another 2 pins at about 110 -- I have no idea what any of them mean. I laid my cut/removed cable ties around and on the little black cam type wheel (a wheel with raised notches that control some sort of solenoid switch) so that tomorrow I will know if that wheel cycled through 360 degrees tonight.
Gary, sorry, but I don't understand how opening up my drain line could cause a problem. I can't think of a reason in the world that the guys that installed would take a 5/8-3/4 fairly stiff hard rubber hose and pinch it almost closed with a cable tie. The hose was closed so much that if any or the resin did escape the tank, I am sure that it would have plugged the drain line -- although the activity in the tank had to be sorely muted because of the reduced water flow through the hose.
I am probably repeating myself, but the reason I am so worried about the regeneration cycle is that in the past, as I mentioned, I used to have a lot of water in the brine tank and the water was always above the salt level, even though I had 3-4 (maybe 5) bags of salt in the tank. Occasionally, I would have the salt above the water line, but after a regeneration cycle, the water was usually always above the salt (with the salt at a level that the guy that installed the system marked for me on the big white tube/pipe in the brine tank). Right now, I have purposely let the salt get real low and there is about 3 inches of salt in 6 inches of water, the salt resting on the platform in the bottom of the brine tank, which I think is 4-5-6 inches above the bottom of the brine tank, so there is another 4-5-6 of water there.
So Gary, will/should the brine draw cycle empty the water totally out of the tank -- or as you say, if it is timed, I guess it will just take a fixed amount of water out of the tank, providing there is enough water in the tank to take out. And on the brine refill, is the controller set up to replace just the same amount of water that it took out -- and again, if totally timed, I guess it should put water back in for the time period that it took it out -- and I suppose the controller is smart enough to compensate for pressure in, pressure out. I mentioned that I was playing with the brine line when playing around with the regeneration cycle and during the draw cycle, there was not a lot of suction in the brine line and during the fill cycle, the water just sort of drained out of the tube with little or no pressure. And again, I have no idea what the suction in or pressure out should be.
it is a little after 1 am now and I just checked and nothing is going on yet, so I think I will give it up for the night. I might stay up, but my wife has one of those fun colonoscopy's in the morning, so I think I had better be there for that. I think I have enough things set up to see if the regeneration ran, but honestly, I am not sure just how to verify what went on. With the limited amount of salt in the brine tank, I should probably fill it back with salt and do a manual generation -- and when I do that, I will likely be back seeking help on what I should be seeing. ron in round rock