Need a bit of help setting up older Fleck Econominder 5600

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jfzastrow

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I have an older water softener in my home. I believe it's a Fleck Econominder 5600. It's atop a 9x48 resin tank.

As far as I can tell it is still fully functioning, I just want to make sure I have it setup to properly regenerate for my household.

I recently cleaned out the entirety of the brine tank and filled with fresh salt. Very thorough cleaning. The water hardness from my city's well is 22 grains per gallon. It's just me and my fiancée living in the house. Daily showers for both of us. Daily use of dishwasher and kitchen sink as well. Laundry about twice a week between the two of us.

I've looked online for this particular timer and valve but anything I've found confuses me and isn't particularly straightforward.

I know how to set the time of day but not sure on the proper hardness settings for my household and city well? I believe the people dial should be set to 2 and the grains per gallon hardness dial at 22 based on the city well but I'm not too sure on that and certainly not sure about the rest.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Here are two pictures of the timer/valve:
Front
eHyhm5e.jpg


Back
4InWiRe.jpg
 

Reach4

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It looks to be set up right to my thinking. If you find that you are getting hardness before it regenerates next, increase the hardness setting.

The deal is that after regen the number of gallons remaining should be roughly in the 800 to 900 gallon area, depending on how much salt they use in their implicit calculations. So if you regenerated 100 gallons or so ago, the number on your photo looks about right.

Here is the latest manual. I suspect that is the one that you find confusing.
http://waterpurification.pentair.co...rvice-manual-downflow-current-40106-rev-j.pdf
 

jfzastrow

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It looks to be set up right to my thinking. If you find that you are getting hardness before it regenerates next, increase the hardness setting.

The deal is that after regen the number of gallons remaining should be roughly in the 800 to 900 gallon area, depending on how much salt they use in their implicit calculations. So if you regenerated 100 gallons or so ago, the number on your photo looks about right.

Here is the latest manual. I suspect that is the one that you find confusing.
http://waterpurification.pentair.co...rvice-manual-downflow-current-40106-rev-j.pdf

Excellent. Thank you. That is definitely the manual I referenced and it wasn't too helpful but it gave me the gist of it.

I know it varies with water usage, but at these settings I have, roughly how often should it regen? Once a week, every two weeks, once a month? I don't hear it regen all too often which is maybe a good thing. Then again I believe it does it between 2-4am so maybe I'm just missing it.
 

Reach4

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I know it varies with water usage, but at these settings I have, roughly how often should it regen? Once a week, every two weeks, once a month? I don't hear it regen all too often which is maybe a good thing. Then again I believe it does it between 2-4am so maybe I'm just missing it.
6 to 8 days, presuming about 120 gallons used per day. I think the way it works, if on the day the indicator counts down to zero, the system will regenerate at 2 am. The people setting causes the gallon calculation that it does to take 75 gallons off of the computed gallons for each person as a reserve. Thus if the unit counts down to zero at 5 am, yours would expect to have 150 gallons of reserve to tide you over until 2 am. 75 is what people used to estimate for each person. 60 is more common today, and actual use can be half of that for some low water users.

The only effect of the people selection on your unit is for the reserve calculation/compensation.

Since it regens at 2AM, you would probably usually sleep through it. If you wanted it to regenerate at 3 am, you would set the time of day to an hour later than the actual time. If you wanted to know when it had regenerated, you could just look at the dial to see the remaining gallons. When that number goes up, you know it regenerated. If you note the gallons remaining and date, pretty soon you will understand your typical regeneration period.

If you could record when you add bags of salt, you could compute the average salt use per regen. I suspect it is about 8 pounds each time, but it could be more. Expect to use about 40 pounds (a common bag) per month, but you can get the real number.
 

jfzastrow

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6 to 8 days, presuming about 120 gallons used per day. I think the way it works, if on the day the indicator counts down to zero, the system will regenerate at 2 am. The people setting causes the gallon calculation that it does to take 75 gallons off of the computed gallons for each person as a reserve. Thus if the unit counts down to zero at 5 am, yours would expect to have 150 gallons of reserve to tide you over until 2 am. 75 is what people used to estimate for each person. 60 is more common today, and actual use can be half of that for some low water users.

The only effect of the people selection on your unit is for the reserve calculation/compensation.

Since it regens at 2AM, you would probably usually sleep through it. If you wanted it to regenerate at 3 am, you would set the time of day to an hour later than the actual time. If you wanted to know when it had regenerated, you could just look at the dial to see the remaining gallons. When that number goes up, you know it regenerated. If you note the gallons remaining and date, pretty soon you will understand your typical regeneration period.

If you could record when you add bags of salt, you could compute the average salt use per regen. I suspect it is about 8 pounds each time, but it could be more. Expect to use about 40 pounds (a common bag) per month, but you can get the real number.

Thank you for all of this! Looks like I've got it dialed in right where I need it for a household of two. I appreciate all the help and clarification.
 

Bannerman

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The people setting is rarely used, which then means the gallons capacity is calculated minus reserve gallons.

With a 9" X 48" tank, your unit should contain 1 cuft of resin but the '24' after the valve model number leads me to think it might only contain 3/4 cuft (24,000 grains total capacity). The 1.5gpm drain flow rate further supports 3/4 cuft in an 8" diameter tank.

As your water source is municipal, most municipal systems obtain water from multiple sources which each may have inconsistent hardness levels. As such, it is generally recommended to anticipate some hardness variance due to time of day usage and well maintenance, by programming for 2 or 3 additional grains hardness to that tested at your home.

Since the rear label indicates 12 lbs of salt is used per regeneration, that amount could be reduced to increase efficiency, but the usable capacity would also need to be reduced appropriately.

The salt dose is controlled by a cam at the rear of the valve which means the rear cover would need to be removed to access the salt dose control.


Usual recommended settings for 3/4 cuft of resin (normally installed in an 8" diameter tank):
15,000 grains capacity (usable) would require 4.5 lbs salt (salt efficiency 15,000 / 4.5 = 3,333 grains/lb)

18,000 grains capacity (usable) would require 6 lbs salt (salt efficiency 18,000 / 6 = 3,000 grains/lb)


Usual recommended settings for 1 cuft of resin:
20,000 grains capacity (usable) would require 6 lbs salt (salt efficiency 20,000 / 6 = 3,333 grains/lb)

24,000 grains capacity (usable) would require 8 lbs salt (salt efficiency 24,000 / 8 = 3,000 grains/lb)

Here is a link to a video on programming the usable capacity on a Fleck 5600 Econominder:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLMRl7jHpKFc_i0Czzs8wrZ7cuenSNb5YV&time_continue=12&v=deT0hAc3hrI
 
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ditttohead

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In my 30 years of working on that valve I have only had 2 customers that liked the person setting. It is really cool, but useless. :)
 
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