Fleck 5800 Programing Help

[RockRiverShooter]

Hello Friends --


I know it gets asked all the time - I need some assistance programing my Fleck 5800.

City Water Hardness - 15gpg (no iron)
Average water consumption - 400 gallons/day

2.5cf of 10% in a 13x54 tank in an upflow regen configuration with gravel bed (80K)

4.0 GPM DLFC (as recommended for 13" tank)
#0 RED Injector (as recommended for slow Brine Draw flow for optimal upflow regen)
0.125 BLFC (as recommended for #0 Red Injector)


I don't want to recklessly waste salt, but I do desire very low leakage and I am comfortable with a 10lb/cf + salt dose. I would go higher if it makes sense to produce better soft water. My understanding is leakage can occur when settings are in the 6-8lb/cf range. Salt bags are not that expensive and water is plentiful in my area, so not worried too much about salt and water consumption in a reasonable amount with the understanding it might not be the most efficient, but lowers the hardness leakage associated with high efficient dosage settings.


Would appreciate any advice and explanation for settings:

Capacity - Although it's a 2.5cf 80K system, do I de-rate this number down to 64K or lower in the advanced settings? If so, why?

Brine Fill - I can manually adjust the Brine Fill time, but the 5800 will automatically compute the correct minutes to fill because I have it set for BLFC size of .125. I can indicate a desired Salt Dosage in lbs/cf and it sets the minutes.

Brine Draw - I don't believe it auto adjusts the Brine Draw time accordingly. It's default set to 60 minutes. If I increase to 10lbs/cf or more dosage, I'm worried the Brine Draw and included Slow Rinse will not have enough time since I'm using the #0 Red Injector which has an approximate brine draw rate of .250gpm. My understanding is the slow rinse time needs to be an X multiplier of the the actual Brine Draw time. If it takes over 30 mins to draw 8+ gallons of brine at .250gpm, is there enough time for the slow rinse to complete correctly in the 60 min setting for Brine Draw?

I think a slow Brine Draw rate (.250gpm) is good for the upflow regeneration. Lots of brine contact time, so I don't think increasing to a higher flow injector is what I'm looking for. Would increasing the Brine Draw time be appropriate when I have a .250gpm BD flow rate and using a higher salt dosage? Beyond the 60 minutes?



Appreciate the advice and feedback from the members. Let me know if any additional info is needed.

 

[Bannerman]

City Water Hardness - 15gpg (no iron)

How did you determine the hardness amount? Municipal water is often obtained from multiple sources, with each source potentially contributing a different amount of hardness. When asked, a municipality will typically state the average hardness level from all sources, but if your home is located close by to a higher hardness source, the hardness of the water at your location may be higher than average, so in programming the average hardness, a greater amount of your softener's capacity will become depleted than will be regenerated each cycle

Always advisable to measure the hardness level at your specific location, utilizing a titration test method (not hardness strips), such as the Hach 5Bb Total Hardness test kit. If the hardness level at your location is lower than the city's hardest water source, recommend programming your softener hardness setting @ 2-3 gpg higher than your test result, to anticipate occasions when hardness may be greater than usual. Hardness variance can occur during times of high water usage within the city, fire hydrant use, distribution/well system maintenance & repair, and seasonal variances.

I do desire very low leakage and I am comfortable with a 10lb/cf + salt dose.

10 lbs/ft3 (=25 lbs total for 2.5ft3 resin), is sufficient to regenerate 65,000 grains useable capacity in 2.5ft3 of resin. The amount of hardness leakage through the resin, will eventually rise to only 3ppm, but as you stated, salt efficiency will be less than optimal at only 2,600 grains per lb max.

For the best balance of salt efficiency, low hardness leakage (high water quality), and high useable capacity, the usual recommendation is 8 lbs/ft3 (=20 lbs total), which is sufficient to regenerate 60,000 grains of useable capacity each cycle. This salt/capacity combination, will increase salt efficiency to a max 3,000 grains per lb. Although hardness leakage is expected to eventually rise to 6ppm, that amount of leakage continues to be very low, so water quality will continue to remain high. FYI, 1 gpg hardness is equal to 17.1 ppm hardness.

upflow regen configuration

While Up Flow Brining can provide some increase in salt efficiency, the amount of increase will be marginal in a residential sized system. In consideration of the more critical settings required, and the need for a substantially longer brine draw cycle due to the lower flow rate injector, the usual recommendation is to utilize much simpler and more common downflow brining.

I haven't verified which injector is appropriate for your up flow brining application, but the Brine Draw setting will be typically 4X the time needed to transfer the full amount of brine from the brine tank to the resin tank. You said it now requires >30-minutes to transfer the brine, so, if that time is actually 35-minutes, then the appropriate Brine Draw setting will be 140-minutes to provide sufficient time for Slow Rinse flow to push the brine slowly upward through the resin bed, and to rinse away the calcium & magnesium ions that are released from the resin, while also rinsing away the chloride and any excess sodium remaining from the brine.

As each gallon of water entering the brine tank will dissolve 3 lbs salt, to dissolve the 25 lbs appropriate for 10#/ft3 salt setting, will require 8.333 gallons of water. With a 0.125 gpm BLFC (fill rate), will require the Brine Fill setting to be 66.67 (rounded = 67) minutes.

For the 8#/ft3 salt setting, will require 6.67 gallons, so the BF setting will need to be 53.33 (54) minutes.

The chart below, shows the amount of useable capacity regenerated for each salt setting. Also shown at the bottom of each salt column, is the amount of hardness leakage and salt efficiency with regards to that salt setting.