Fleck 5812 SXT softener not regenerating often enough

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LetterK

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I have a 2cf Fleck 5812 SXT carbon system and water softener. I lost power recently and had someone come out to reprogram it, but I get about 2 weeks of soft water and then about 2 weeks of hard water. Before the power outage, I would get some days with hard water, but less than I am right now. I'm trying to figure out what needs to be adjusted so I get consistent soft water. Hoping someone here can help.
 

Reach4

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You have two Fleck 5812 valves.
What hardness is your water?

It may be that your dealer had to set the system up as California wants. So we can maybe tell you what you might change to make you happier.
 

LetterK

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Yes, two 5812 valves.

I haven't tested it myself, but the last plumber that came out to reprogram it mentioned 160. I'm assuming that's PPM. I'm guessing it's best I test it myself? My pool test kit can measure calcium hardness. Would that work?
 

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My pool test kit can measure calcium hardness. Would that work?
Not so well typically, but you could try that. The Hach 5-B is is better for measuring your hardness.

160 ppm would be about 9 grains.

City water? City may publish a number.

Care to tell us what your softener is set to now?

What is your BLFC? There should be a sticker under the cover.

Also knowing the injector number would be interesting but not critical, unlike the BLFC value.
 

LetterK

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Yes, city water. 2020 water report states a range of 160-160ppm after the city treatment plant. So that is spot on with what the plumber tested.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing here, but here are settings I was able to see.

DO: 21 (days override)
H: 20 (feed water hardness)
SF: 0 (reserve capacity)

I left out time when it regenerates. Do you need any other settings?

Sticker says

BLFC: 0.25 GPM
DLFC 3.5 GPM
Injector: 3
 

Reach4

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Try this. Also tell us what the BF number was before.
I would still get a Hach 5-B test. That can confirm the raw water hardness, and can also check the residual hardness of the softened water.

System info (not programmed)

salt lb/cuft : 7.875 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC : 0.25 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin : 2 ; Same as (nominal grains/32,000)
Raw hardness : 10 ; including iron etc
Estimated gal/day ; 120 ; 60 gal per person prediction (auto-tunes)
Est days/regen ; 36.01 ; presuming days each use estimated

Fleck 5810SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = 5812 ; Valve type
RF = dF2b ; Downflow, Double Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
C = 47.5 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 11 ; Hardness grains after comp factor
RS = cr ; Cr = base reserve on recent experience
DO = 30 ; Day Override (typ 30 if no iron/Mn)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
B1 = 5 ; Backwash 1 (minutes) [3...10]
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes
B2 = 4 ; Backwash 2 (minutes)[3...10]
RR = 6 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 21 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = t1.2 (usual) ; t1.2 is default flow meter
RE = OFF ; Relay
VR = OFF ; ?
 

LetterK

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Thanks for the help on this. Finally got my water hardness test kit. Hach never shipped and I had to find another source. Test kit says 10 grains.

I adjusted all the settings per your recommendation. Most were 1 or 2 off from your recommendation. The one with the biggest change was moving DO from 20 to 30 days.

Should I force a regen tonight now?
 
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Bannerman

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Should I force a regen tonight now?
2 cubic feet of resin has a total hardness removal capacity of 64,000 grains.

Even as you will normally deplete less than 64K grains before each regeneration cycle, 100% of the resin's capacity had been previously depleted and will now need to be regenerated. Regenerating all 64K grains will require 40 lbs salt for a 1X cycle, but in programming the settings recommendation above, only 15.75 lbs salt will be utilized to regenerate 47,500 grains capacity.

To restore some additional depleted capacity, suggest performing 2 manual regenerations back to back. Once the 1st Regen cycle has completed, to allow time for sufficient salt to be dissolved for the 2nd cycle, wait ~1.5 hrs before initiating the 2nd cycle. The 2nd cycle could be initiated just prior to retiring for the night.
 

LetterK

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I forgot to change the time back to the correct time after entering the advanced programming mode. So it did a regen in the middle of the day. After 5hrs of it running, I turned it off. Before the change, a regen would take 1.5-2hrs (I never timed it exactly). Why would those changes cause a regen time so much longer? Did I mess something up?
 

Reach4

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I forgot to change the time back to the correct time after entering the advanced programming mode. So it did a regen in the middle of the day. After 5hrs of it running, I turned it off. Before the change, a regen would take 1.5-2hrs (I never timed it exactly). Why would those changes cause a regen time so much longer? Did I mess something up?
Possibly you messed up a setting. Possibly the piston broke.

The display can tell you what phase the control thinks it is in, and it might have an error code if the control detected the failure. Knowing what phase it thinks it is in could lead you to some thing you entered as 6000 instead of 60.

Pressing the extra cycle button should move the valve to the next stage.
 

LetterK

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I double and triple checked the settings and they are all correct. But I also noticed that even after 5hrs, it didn't use much salt. Maybe it wasn't in the part of the cycle that used salt, but thought I'd mention it.
 

Reach4

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5+60+4+6+21= 96 minutes. However the softener is in service during the 21 minute brine fill.

Any remaining symptoms, such as the cold water testing hard, even if the softener regenerated last night?

Salt gets used during and the next hour or two after BF.
0.25*21*3= 15.75 lbs of salt expected to be used for each regen.
 

LetterK

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The long cycle never repeated itself. But I continue to have issues. It just did a regen three days ago and I've had zero soft water, even the day after.
 

Reach4

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1. Check that the softener is not in bypass.

2. Make sure that during the BD cycle, the drain line does not jump in saltiness for maybe 10 minutes or more. If it jumps in less than a minute, there is a bug with a solution. This would have existed since install. You did not say there were several months of good softening before the problem started.

You can taste the drain line for salt, or get a cheap TDS meter, and look for the jump in TDS.
 

LetterK

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1. No, it's not in bypass.

2. I haven't done this test yet, but it's worked fine for large chunks of time throughout owning it. It's just intermittently not giving us soft water. It worked for over a year flawlessly.

I had a repair person out yesterday and he says the injector nozzle isn't seating correctly, which is leading to intermittent loss of vacuum. If there's no vacuum, it can't pull brine from the salt tank. So now I'm trying to figure out how to find a replacement part. Local distributor says they were discontinued and parts may not be available.

Looks like I need part 61959, right?
 

Reach4

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I suggest the new injector be either.
#00 Injector - Violet (I would use BD=110)
#0 Injector - Red (I would use BD=80)
#1 Injector - White (I would use BD=60)
My BD suggestions were assuming 7 lbs/cuft.

I would change those BDs to 130, 90, and 60 respectively for 8 lb/cuft.

Injector part numbers are
61454-00 ... Injector Assy, #00, Violet
61454-0 ..... Injector Assy, #0, Red
61454-1 ..... Injector Assy, #1, White
 
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