Fleck 5600SXT Help Requested

[fritzk3]

New forum member here. I recently installed a Fleck 5600SXT unit with a 48K capacity resin tank to replace an older, smaller 1 cu-ft Autotrol unit that was no longer up to the task. The installation also included a new brine tank. The new system has been in place just under four weeks.

I'm here to request some advice and assistance. I watched numerous installation videos prior to replacing the system and believe I hooked everything up correctly. For what it's worth, I decided to include the basket at the base of the flow control unit. The one mistake I made was performing the initial regeneration without changing any settings in the control unit.

I started by pouring about 2.5 gallons of water into the empty brine tank, then added two 50-lb bags of salt pellets. After the initial regeneration, the water level was far above the salt - probably due to an incorrect (too high) initial BF setting. I added a third 50-lb bag of salt, but still the water level was above the top of the salt.

I then found these forums and changed the control valve settings to the following:

Fleck 5600SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = dF1b ; Downflow/, Single Backwash, black cam
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
NT = 1 ; Number of tanks
C = 33.1 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 15 ; Hardness [based on checks performed with test strips that you place under running water]
RS = rc ;
RC = 300 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 14 ; Day Override
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
BW = 10 ; Backwash (minutes)
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes
RR = 10 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 8 ; Brine fill minutes [might have been 8, 10, or 12 initially - not sure]
FM = p0.7 [confirmed I have the dome-style housing]

The fill rate on the brine line is rated at 0.5 GPM.

Using these settings gets me a starting capacity of 1900 gallons, which is about 6-7 days of use in my house. I initially had the hardness set to 10, which provided a larger capacity before regeneration, but found that when I tested the water from the tap on the last day before regeneration (using simple test strips), the hardness was as high as it was before replacing the softener system - roughly 15 gpg - suggesting that the system was no longer softening the water passing through.

So - here's where I am looking for confirmation or assistance.

1) My mind tells me that the reason the water was reading hard at the tap before regeneration is that the resin ran out of "capacity" and needs to be regenerated more frequently. Is that correct? If so, do I just need to adjust the hardness setting, making it higher, so that a regeneration triggers after fewer gallons? Other than more frequent salt use, are there other downsides to more frequent regenerations?

2) After the first regeneration (about two weeks into use), using the above settings, I looked in the brine tank and the water level there was still above the salt level by an inch or two. After a second regeneration, and another bag of salt, the water level and salt level are both about even now - about 19 inches from the bottom of the tank, which is one of the tapered square-side designs.

- Is this a problem that needs to be addressed?
- Should I remove some of the water somehow, such as with a wet vac, or else add salt?
- Should I change my settings and manually regenerate once or twice with lower refill rates, to effectively lower the water level?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer. I'm hoping to enjoy years of good service from this system and hope I haven't messed things up too much right off the bat!

 

[Reach4]

Confirm that you have a 54x10 tank. Seems likely. They would have called that a "48000 grain" softener.

H = 15 ; Hardness [based on checks performed with test strips that you place under running water]

Get a Hach 5-B test kit. The strips tend to not be as accurate.

City water or well water, and if well water how much iron do you have?

RC = 300 ; Reserve capacity gallons

5 people?

Using these settings gets me a starting capacity of 1900 gallons, which is about 6-7 days of use in my house. I initially had the hardness set to 10, which provided a larger capacity before regeneration, but found that when I tested the water from the tap on the last day before regeneration (using simple test strips), the hardness was as high as it was before replacing the softener system - roughly 15 gpg - suggesting that the system was no longer softening the water passing through.

Weird. Any chance the unit is in bypass?

2) After the first regeneration (about two weeks into use), using the above settings, I looked in the brine tank and the water level there was still above the salt level by an inch or two. After a second regeneration, and another bag of salt, the water level and salt level are both about even now - about 19 inches from the bottom of the tank, which is one of the tapered square-side designs.

- Is this a problem that needs to be addressed?
- Should I remove some of the water somehow, such as with a wet vac, or else add salt?
- Should I change my settings and manually regenerate once or twice with lower refill rates, to effectively lower the water level?

Your settings should cause 4 gallons of water to be added.

Two initial bags of salt seems low. Tilt the salt fill when you don't put in plenty of salt. This is good to do while you are still in a testing/introductory time.

That said, 19 inches does seem very high. Is the float valve maybe stopping even more from coming in? Could it be that the salt is not being drawn? The brine should all get sucked out in about the first 15 minutes of the brine draw cycle. I would do a regen, and watch that. Look down the salt well to see if the brine is being drawn out. So 10 minute backwash, and then BD starts. Have your flashlight and a clock or timer handy.

If I approximate your brine tank as 10.5 inches square in average, I would expect about 21 inches of water+salt would be added with the brine fill. With a 15.5 inch square tank, expect about 11 inches of water+salt to be added if the salt and water are at about the same height. So I suspect that for some reason, brine may not be being drawn. I would need brine tank dimensions to guess closer. But still, test the brine draw to see if the brine is all being sucked out, except for an inch or two.

I will probably have some more comments on your settings, but for now, you may have a bigger problem than just some numbers not being optimum.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[fritzk3]

Confirm that you have a 54x10 tank. Seems likely. They would have called that a "48000 grain" softener.

Correct, this is a 48k grain system with a 54 x 10 tank. It came preloaded with the resin; all I had to do was put the control valve on the resin tank and do all of the other hookups.

Get a Hach 5-B test kit. The strips tend to not be as accurate.

City water or well water, and if well water how much iron do you have?
5 people?

City water, 5 people. (Yes, I know now that perhaps this system is too small for that size household, but it's a bit late to change that.) I think there may also be a small amount of iron present in the water.

Weird. Any chance the unit is in bypass?

Definitely not. I've verified the bypass knobs are in the correct position to allow water to flow through the softener. Additionally, after a regen, the test strips show very soft water (<1.5 gpg - dark green on the scale pictured in the image I uploaded) at all taps. I've considered, but not taken, the step to monitor hardness on a daily basis to see how and when the water turns from soft to hard again. Perhaps this is something I need to do. By the time a regen is scheduled to occur, the test strips show more of a brownish-red color.

Your settings should cause 4 gallons of water to be added.

Two initial bags of salt seems low. Tilt the salt fill when you don't put in plenty of salt. This is good to do while you are still in a testing/introductory time.

That said, 19 inches does seem very high. Is the float valve maybe stopping even more from coming in? Could it be that the salt is not being drawn? The brine should all get sucked out in about the first 15 minutes of the brine draw cycle. I would do a regen, and watch that. Look down the salt well to see if the brine is being drawn out. So 10 minute backwash, and then BD starts. Have your flashlight and a clock or timer handy.

If I approximate your brine tank as 10.5 inches square in average, I would expect about 21 inches of water+salt would be added with the brine fill. With a 15.5 inch square tank, expect about 11 inches of water+salt to be added if the salt and water are at about the same height. So I suspect that for some reason, brine may not be being drawn. I would need brine tank dimensions to guess closer. But still, test the brine draw to see if the brine is all being sucked out, except for an inch or two.

I will probably have some more comments on your settings, but for now, you may have a bigger problem than just some numbers not being optimum.

Not sure what you mean by "Tilt the salt fill when you don't put in plenty of salt."

When you talk about watching the brine getting sucked out - are you talking about watching the water level in the main compartment of the salt tank, or specifically in the small round tube where the safety float mechanism is?

I am not at home at the moment to measure the brine tank but I estimate that it's closer to 15.5 inches square. I'll try a manual regen later and see what I can observe about the water levels and report back.

 

[Bannerman]

are you talking about watching the water level in the main compartment of the salt tank, or specifically in the small round tube where the safety float mechanism is?

The round tube is the 'Brine Well'. The liquid height in the salt storage area will be the same as within the brine well, but when the brine tank is filled with salt, the fluid level will be more easily observed within the brine well.

As mentioned, test strips are not an accurate hardness measurement method. As you have installed and will be maintaining the softener, suggest obtaining a Hach 5B test kit for more accurate results.

 

[Reach4]

The main difference here is that I am presuming a much higher compensated hardness than 15. When you get your Hach 5B result, multiply that by the high hardness compensation, and add 5 for every ppm of iron.

http://www.terrylove.com/forums/ind...0-sxt-programming-settings.60651/#post-450189
talks of high hardness compensation.

System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft = 8 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC = 0.5 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin = 1.5 ; ft3 resin = (nominal grains)/32,000
Compensated hardness = 24 ; including any compensation
People = 5 ; gallons affects reserve calc
Estimated gal/day = 300 ; 60 gal per person typical calc
Estimated days/regen = 5.00 ; Computed days including reserve

Fleck 5600SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = dF1b ; Downflw/, Single Backwash, black cam
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
NT = 1 ; Number of tanks
C = 36.0 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 24 ; Hardness-- compensate if needed (initial guess before good iron and hardness numbers)
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 300 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 14 ; Day Override (28 if no iron)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
BW = 5 ; Backwash (minutes)
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes (assumes #0 red or #1 white injector set)
RR = 5 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 8 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = P0.7 ; https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?attachments/img_fleck5600sxt_flow-png.31592/

 

[fritzk3]

What are the reasons for changing the backwash and rapid rinse minutes from 10 to 5?

 

[Bannerman]

As many municipal systems obtain their supply from multiple sources, it is advisable to program an additional 2-3 gpg to the test result, to anticipate occasions when the hardness may be higher.

As the water is municipal which will be chlorinated, iron compensation will not be required.

 

[Reach4]

The shorter backwash is OK unless there is a lot of sediment to wash out. The shorter fast rinse is enough. Shorter saves water. Those are not critical settings.

As many municipal systems obtain their supply from multiple sources, it is advisable to program an additional 2-3 gpg to the test result, to anticipate occasions when the hardness may be higher.

As the water is municipal which will be chlorinated, iron compensation will not be required.

I missed the municipal part.

Call the water department and ask what the maximum hardness is. Then apply the high-hardness compensation.

 

[ditttohead]

Agreed, shorter is fine. Some of the original automatic softener did not have a backwash, just an upflow brine/rinse cycle. The default settings are designed to work in 99% of water supplies including water like in the Hetch Hetchy area where water may come in with very low TDS, but very high sediment. In most areas where sediment is not an issue, the water savings are preferred over the longer backwash rates. The backwash also helps remove any broken resin beads which can eventually cause flow restrictions, but this is not that critical in most applications.

 

[fritzk3]

I looked up info online on my municipal water system - according to a 2018 report, peak hardness was reported at 20 grains. Amusingly, the county's website (multiple water systems within the county) states that their water has a hardness of 8.4 grains, which seems too low compared to what I have measured at my house.

I'm hesitant to set the hardness to 20 grains without running a Hach test because I'm not sure how I feel about regens every 4-5 days, but as long as there's no great harm in that, I may end up going that route.

Later today I'll try a manual regen to see if I can tell what's going on with the brine draw.

 

[Reach4]

I looked up info online on my municipal water system - according to a 2018 report, peak hardness was reported at 20 grains. Amusingly, the county's website (multiple water systems within the county) states that their water has a hardness of 8.4 grains, which seems too low compared to what I have measured at my house.

I'm hesitant to set the hardness to 20 grains without running a Hach test because I'm not sure how I feel about regens every 4-5 days, but as long as there's no great harm in that, I may end up going that route.

Later today I'll try a manual regen to see if I can tell what's going on with the brine draw.

Here is another method that does not need the actual hardness:
The softener display displays how much capacity in gallons remains. When you regen, that gets reset to a bigger number. When you detect hardness, make the change in H, or reduction in C, that would have caused the number to have counted down to zero some time yesterday, and thus cause the softener to have regenerated last night.

One thing tho-- if you change the settings without regenerating, the controller may think it is starting out already regenerated. So it is best to do that when the

 

[fritzk3]

OK, the unit was set to regen overnight (less than 300 gallons remaining on the counter) so I triggered a manual regen. Before doing so, I tested water at the tap and it was still showing soft - small victory there! Seems like we can go at least 1600 gallons without hitting capacity (was computed at 1900, 280 remaining when I triggered.)

After a 5 minute backwash, the brine draw started. At that point both the salt and water were at about 20" of height from the bottom of the brine tank, which measures about 15" x 14" at the top and 13" x 12" at the bottom. I watched the water level in the tube containing the safety float for about 10 minutes, and noted the water level slowly but steadily decreasing, so it seems as though all is well with the brine draw cycle. I checked again after about 20 minutes, and the water was at a height of only about 3" at the very bottom of the tube - similar to what Reach4 suggested in post #2 above.

Following the brine draw and rapid rinse cycles, I observed the unit during the brine fill cycle. The water filled up and the salt descended a bit - about 3" - guessing due to being dissolved in the new water. When the fill cycle completed after 8 minutes, the water level of the salt pellets and water was just about even again, both at 17" from the bottom of the brine tank (about halfway full). It's less than it was before (20"), but the water level is still just about covering the salt pellets.

Since I had not had hard water prior to the regen, I also changed my C setting from 33 to 36, leaving the H setting at 15. This changed my capacity from 1900 gallons to 2100 gallons. I plan to check hardness again in about a week prior to the next regen.

As for the water / salt pellet levels in the brine tank, what should I do at this point - just add a bag or two of salt, and call it a day?

 

[Reach4]

Since I had not had hard water prior to the regen, I also changed my C setting from 33 to 36, leaving the H setting at 15. This changed my capacity from 1900 gallons to 2100 gallons. I plan to check hardness again in about a week prior to the next regen.

Since you are watching the countdown number, note that the number represents the number of gallons remaining until you have only your 300 gallon reserve remaining. So you will regenerate any night that the count has counted to zero. (I forget what the display does then, but it somehow indicates that you are into the reserve.)

As for the water / salt pellet levels in the brine tank, what should I do at this point - just add a bag or two of salt, and call it a day?

Yeah, make sure the lid is on the brine tube, and add as many bags as it will accept. You have now pretty well determined that things are working right, so you don't have to keep as close of an eye on things. Just remember to add enough salt to keep the salt level above the brine.

With as much water and salt that you use, a bigger brine tank would have been handier for you.

 

[fritzk3]

Ahh, I didn't realize that the counter was a true counter - the zero mark was when regen would occur. I'll keep that in mind for future reference.

Sounds like I just have to keep the salt level pretty high in this tank. No big deal, I live only five minutes from a Costco so I can grab a couple bags there when needed. I'm hoping this will settle out to only needing a bag or two per month.

I appreciate all of the help and guidance!

 

[Bannerman]

hoping this will settle out to only needing a bag or two per month.

Easy to estimate.

The 8 minute Brine Fill will result in 12 lbs salt being consumed every regeneration cycle. (8 min X 0.5 BLFC X 3 lbs/ gallon)

With Hardness programmed at 15 gpg, then 36K grains Capacity will equal 2,400 gallons - 300 gallons reserve = 2,100 gallons usable capacity per regeneration cycle. (C = 36,000 grains / 15 gpg = gallons - reserve amount)

 

[Bannerman]

the zero mark was when regen would occur.

The zero mark is when regeneration will be triggered.

Regeneration will be delayed usually until 2am (RT = regeneration time). If regeneration is triggered at say 9:06 am, then Reserve Capacity will be utilized to provide soft water for the remainder of that day until regeneration is to take place starting at 2am the following morning.