New Fleck 5810 meter inaccurate...

[Corey Miller]

Hi there,

Just installed a brand new softener with a Fleck 5810 head. Quite pleased with it other than the meter on the softener seems to be very inaccurate. In the realm of 30% off...

I've physically removed the meter and had a look at it, it measures 1-3/8" with a tape... The setting of t1.2 (which is what the manual says it should be) for 1-1/4" turbine meter reads over by about 30%. (The softener thinks I've used 30% more water than I actually have according to my house water meter)

I've tried changing the setting to t1.0 which made the softener read WAY under.

Tried changing to t1.5 which actually causes an under read again. Which makes me think there must be a simple volume/meter pulses set in the programming for the meter sizes, because the larger meter setting reading under kind of defies logic otherwise...

Is there some way to calibrate the meter? Is something faulty? What do you guys think?

Thanks!

 

[ditttohead]

In my testing the meter has been highly accurate, typically within 5%.

If you want to adjust the meter setting use the GEN (Generic) setting in the master programming mode, you can then set the K factor. The K factor of the meters can be found here.

https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/128-129 The 5810 has a K factor of 80 (80 pulses per gallon).

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

Is something faulty?

I don't know how fine the resolution on your city water meter is, but I might consider filling some 5-gallon buckets, and seeing how much the indicator moves. http://www.smarthomewaterguide.org/how-to-read-your-water-meter.

If using monthly figures, it could be that the city number rounds up. However it seems unlikely that you are using monthly figures, since the water used during regeneration is not reflected on the softener meter. That fact would make the apparent discrepancy even bigger if comparing monthly numbers.

Anyway, Ditttohead provided what you asked for. Nice.

Looking at the manual and expanding, for the it looks like you would set FM=Gen and then set K=114, or K=104 or whatever you compute.

 

[Corey Miller]

Thank you for the replies.

-My water meter reads down to the liter. Technically 0.1L if you go by the notches on the dial. I have not verified the accuracy of the meter, I'm only assuming it's accurate enough because that's what the city is using to charge for water. I will verify this.

-I set the k value to 47 pulses/gal. which seems to be almost perfectly accurate.

This doesn't make sense...

If the value is 80 by setting the head to t1. 2, and the softener says I'm using more water than I actually am, so the softner would have to see more than 80 pulses/gal. By setting k=47 and it seeming to work, if everything above is true the softener should be reading way, way over. Right? Or do I have it wrong?

Could anything else be wrong?

 

[Reach4]

I set the k value to 47 pulses/gal. which seems to be almost perfectly accurate.

This doesn't make sense...

If the value is 80 by setting the head to t1. 2, and the softener says I'm using more water than I actually am, so the softner would have to see more than 80 pulses/gal. By setting k=47 and it seeming to work, if everything above is true the softener should be reading way, way over. Right? Or do I have it wrong?

I was thinking backwards initially.

I agree that it looks like a higher pulse number should cause the gallon counter to move more slowly on the soften display. I don't have a theory as to what is going on. Software quirk? Maybe try some numbers and graph the effect looking for a software quirk?

What is your software version? My SV=3.0.

When I go into the diagnostics mode, it always succeeds the second try. Never the first.

 

[Corey Miller]

So...

Checked the accuracy of my water meter, seems to be good, let's say it's at least a lot closer than the softener was.

I checked the meter vs the softener again after using about 100gal of water, was off by 6 gals, but, 6 gals high. So I changed k to 44 from 47.

My SV=3.2

Maybe a programming issue?

What do you mean by your diagnostics mode never succeeds the first time? If it's anything like mine, I have to make a conscious effort to release the extra cycle button first. If I try taking both fingers off at once I think what happens is I release the up arrow first, and the extra cycle button exits out of diagnostics.

 

[Reach4]

Maybe a programming issue?

Are you using DF = Gal?

What do you mean by your diagnostics mode never succeeds the first time? If it's anything like mine, I have to make a conscious effort to release the extra cycle button first. If I try taking both fingers off at once I think what happens is I release the up arrow first, and the extra cycle button exits out of diagnostics.

Thanks. I have tried it with either slightly first (by milliseconds). It doesn't seem to matter.

 

[Corey Miller]

Are you using DF = Gal?

Yes indeed.

Regen tonight.

Will keep an eye on softener display and water meter readings over a large volume and see what happens. I think I'm very close now. As long as it stays consistent I'm fine with it.

Was thinking about it tonight. When I got this new, I thought I had to program everything and wanted to verify what flow meter I had. I removed it from the softener to check it out. I don't remember seeing anything out of the ordinary. I do remember measuring 1-3/8" though, because there's the 1-1/4" option, and 1-1/2" option, and remember thinking, well, now what... I remember there being 2 magnets on the flow meter, and it spinning perfectly fine. It's in a bit of an awkward spot now that it's installed, and I didn't feel like draining water tonight anymore to pull it out and check things again.

I did some math though, and it doesn't seem unreasonable.

44 pulses/gallon. That's 22 revolutions a gallon. It's a 1" port, high flow softener, if the meter had to spin at a high rpm, it would be a great flow restriction. So, 22 rpg. That's 0.172L per rev or 0.045 gal or a bit more than half a cup if you prefer. With a resolution of half that 0.086L per pulse. That's slightly more accurate than the water meter on my house. Seems to add up.

 

[Reach4]

I did some math though, and it doesn't seem unreasonable.

Yes, but if the count was 80 with the original setting.... that is the odd part.

 

[Corey Miller]

Yes, but if the count was 80 with the original setting.... that is the odd part.

Well, that's a big IF in my mind right now though. I don't think it was 80 to begin with. Softener used to tell me that I was using MORE water than I actually was (verified by water meter). This was with t1.2 set for the flow meter. Meaning in actuality that for every gallon that went through the softener, if the t1.2 meant 80 pulses/gallon, the softner had to see more than 80 pulses per actual gallon. This is definitely not the case.

Over the last couple weeks I've kept a very close eye on everything. My K value is now 44.5 and the softener is accurate within 2% of the meter.

Everything looks fine, I'm at a loss as to why the factory setting doesn't work properly.

If anyone has an idea what could be making this difference with my unit, I'd love to hear it. As well, there seem to be a lot of other new owners of this water softener on here. Anyone else with software version 3.2 having similar issues?

 

[Al WA]

I also have a 5810 that had a very inaccurate meter. One difference is that I have an XTR2 controller.

I had set mine to 1.25" Turbine (self install) and it was showing very high water usage. I saw Corey Miller's post and thought that's the same problem I'm having.

Since my water meter is at the bottom of a 4' pit at the edge of my property I've had to use a low volume method to check gallons used (3 gallon marked bucket).
I tried the other standard settings first but they were worse than the 1.25" setting. Then per Post#2 set meter to Generic K factor 80. That appeared to be same as 1.25". Then set to Corey Miller's 44.5 K factor. After 10 repeat bucket fillings each showing 3 gals change with the total showing 30 gals change I'm calling that setting pretty good. So big thanks from me Cory.

As to why the standard setting doesn't work, I have no idea. The only thing different in my set up is I have ¾" to 1" flex hoses.

I've been lurking on this site since before I purchased my system last February. There's a large amount of very good information here. My thanks to all who contribute.

 

[Reach4]

My 5810 SXT softener is accurate per my simple test. Every 33 days, I put in almost a gallon (121 ounces) of bleach into a 15 gallon solution tank for my H2S+iron filter. There might be 1/2 gallon of residual in the tank before I add the bleach. I top up with water going through the softener. So I would expect to be putting in about 13.5 gallons of water.

Today, using both the gallons-remaining and the diagnostic volume used (NU) there was a 13 gallon difference indicated before and after fill. 14 would have been reasonable also, since there is a 1 gallon resolution on the numbers.