Double check my Fleck 5600sxt settings please

[mrshanno]

Hi

I installed a 5600sxt this past weekend, and did the manual regeneration with everything seemingly going fine. It appeared to be lots of discharge water during the backwash and rapid rinse, so would like to know if those minutes could be reduced with no ill effects? (Also, why is the brine draw 60 minutes when the brine is drawn down in the first 15 minutes or so?...just curious)

It is a 1.25 cu ft system (40,000 grains) set up to be a bit more efficient:

Forgive my use of Reach4's template below...

System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft = 8-ish ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC = 0.5 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin = 1.25 ; ft3 resin = (nominal grains)/30,000
Raw hardness = 20; including any compensation (typically 8-10 but can be as high as 20)
People = 3 ; gallons affects reserve calc
Estimated gal/day = 103 gallons per day average based on water bills
Estimated days to regenerate:

Fleck 5600SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = dF1b ; Downflw/Upflw, Single Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
NT = 1 ; Number of tanks
C = 30.0 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 20 ; Hardness-- compensate if needed
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 180 ; 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 = 7 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = t0.7

Thanks for any information you may give

 

[Reach4]

City water or well water without significant iron?

System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft = 7.2 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC = 0.5 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin = 1.25 ; ft3 resin = (nominal grains)/32,000
Raw hardness = 20 ; including any compensation
People = 3 ; gallons affects reserve calc
Estimated gal/day = 180 ; 60 gal per person typical calc
Estimated days/regen = 7.65 ; Computed days including reserve

Fleck 5600SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = dF1b ; Downflw/Upflw, Single Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
NT = 1 ; Number of tanks
C = 28.1 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 20 ; Hardness-- compensate up if needed
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 180 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 28 ; Day Override (28 if no iron)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
BW = 5 ; Backwash (minutes)
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes
RR = 5 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 6 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = ____0.7 ; https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?attachments/img_fleck5600sxt_flow-png.31592/
======================
BLFC = 0.5
cubic ft resin = 1.25
Alternative C and BF pairs:
lb/cuft ; C= ; BF=
6.000 ; 25.0 ; 5 ; uses less salt
7.200 ; 28.1 ; 6 ;** used in above example.
8.400 ; 30.9 ; 7 ; A little softer
9.600 ; 33.1 ; 8

 

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[Bannerman]

Also, why is the brine draw 60 minutes when the brine is drawn down in the first 15 minutes or so?

Brine Draw is actually 2 functions in one setting - Brine Draw and Slow Rinse.

The brine will be transferred to the resin tank in the initial 15 or so minutes, but the brine still needs to be pushed through the remainder of the resin bed and rinsed to drain, which will occur during the remaining ~45 slow rinse minutes.

 

[mrshanno]

Thanks to you both for the info...sounds like I can reduce the backwash and rapid rinse from 10 minutes each to 5 minutes with no issues.

Do I go back into master programming to make those changes now or wait till I'm closer to regeneration time as I still probably have 5-7 days left. If I change those values now, will it also reset my registration time?

Thanks!

 

[Reach4]

Do I go back into master programming to make those changes now or wait till I'm closer to regeneration time as I still probably have 5-7 days left. If I change those values now, will it also reset my registration time?

I am not sure. If there is a resetting of the gallon count, it will make the regeneration later rather than earlier.

While fiddling around, you may inadvertently schedule a regeneration for tonight. So after doing stuff, if the faucet icon icon is blinking, and you did not intend to schedule a regen tonight, push the Extra Cycle button for maybe 1/2 second to cancel that regeneration.

 

[Bannerman]

sounds like I can reduce the backwash and rapid rinse from 10 minutes each to 5 minutes with no issues.

A major function for Backwash is to eliminate sediment and other debris that may have entered the resin during normal water use. You didn't indicate if your water source is municipal or a private well. Municipal will usually contain less/almost no sediment but that is not 'always' so the appropriate backwash setting will need to take your water condition into consideration.

The purpose for Rapid Rinse is to repack the resin bed after it was expanded and reclassified during Backwash. The RR duration is not critical since flow will be downward when water is flowing to fixtures which will maintain compaction after the initial RR procedure, and further compaction will occur when flow is greater than 2.4 gpm (the usual DLFC restrictor flow rate for a 10" diameter tank).

 

[mrshanno]

I have municipal water so it seems reducing backwash to 5 minutes would be ok.

Thanks

 

[thomascj]

City water or well water without significant iron?

System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft = 7.2 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC = 0.5 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin = 1.25 ; ft3 resin = (nominal grains)/32,000
Raw hardness = 20 ; including any compensation
People = 3 ; gallons affects reserve calc
Estimated gal/day = 180 ; 60 gal per person typical calc
Estimated days/regen = 7.65 ; Computed days including reserve

Fleck 5600SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = dF1b ; Downflw/Upflw, Single Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
NT = 1 ; Number of tanks
C = 28.1 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 20 ; Hardness-- compensate up if needed
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 180 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 28 ; Day Override (28 if no iron)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
BW = 5 ; Backwash (minutes)
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes
RR = 5 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 6 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = ____0.7 ; https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?attachments/img_fleck5600sxt_flow-png.31592/
======================
BLFC = 0.5
cubic ft resin = 1.25
Alternative C and BF pairs:
lb/cuft ; C= ; BF=
6.000 ; 25.0 ; 5 ; uses less salt
7.200 ; 28.1 ; 6 ;** used in above example.
8.400 ; 30.9 ; 7 ; A little softer
9.600 ; 33.1 ; 8

I see you (Reach4) commenting all over this forum, and you seem very knowledgeable. As such I wanted to piggy back on this recent post to ask a question regarding my own configuration. I'm trying to work out my DO setting. I could open a separate thread for this if necessary

I'm wondering if you could help me understand why you advise folks to set their DO to 28 days, when you're also recommending they use Meter Delayed Control (Fd)?

From the 5600sxt manual:

Meter Delayed Control
A Meter Delayed Control measures water usage and regenerates the system at the programmed regeneration time after the calculated system capacity is depleted. As with Meter Immediate systems, the control calculates the system capacity by dividing the unit capacity by the feedwater hardness and subtracting the reserve. The reserve should be set to insure that the system delivers treated water between the time the system capacity is depleted and the actual regeneration time. A Meter Delayed control will also start a regeneration cycle at the programmed regeneration time if a number of days equal to the regeneration day override pass before water usage depletes the calculated system capacity.

Am I understanding this correctly? When you're using Meter Delayed Control setting (Fd) -- the system regenerates only when your DO period has passed AND your meter is at 0. That's why they want you to set your reserve to make up for the time in between meter=0 and DO.

In these posts you usually give someone an estimated days/regen -- it's always less than 28. Doesn't that mean that the reserve should be the amount of gallons they'd use in the time between?

For example -- if I would get 10 days/regen and my DO is set for 28 days -- doesn't that mean my reserve needs to be enough for 18 days, otherwise I'd run out of soft water well before it regenerated? In this thread you say they could go about a week between regens (7.65 days) -- but DO is set to 28. Doesn't that mean they'd go almost 3 full weeks between meter=0 and DO triggering a regen?

It almost seems like you want folks to be using Meter Immediate Control (FI), which would trigger a regen either when your meter=0 OR after your DO passes -- whichever comes first.

Am I just totally misunderstanding all of this?

 

[Reach4]

I'm wondering if you could help me understand why you advise folks to set their DO to 28 days, when you're also recommending they use Meter Delayed Control (Fd)?

When the softener deals with significant iron, (and there is very little iron in city water) then a shorter time is warranted. I don't know just where to draw the line as to how much to shorten DO vs iron content, tho I guess at times.

28 or 30 is about the same. See https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/water-tastes-like-dirt.80482/#post-582394 for some info on motivation for that.

Delayed meter control says that if you get to where you only have the reserve amount of softening capacity, schedule a regen for tonight. Immediate regeneration means that rather than scheduling for tonight, do it now. The problem with that is that may happen during washing clothes etc. You still get water, but it is hard water for over an hour.

The exception is for a dual tank system. If that regenerates immediately, the other tank supplies soft water. Even then you might want to schedule the regen to a time based on noise considerations -- if you are sure that each regen can supply soft water for more than a day.

 

[thomascj]

Delayed meter control says that if you get to where you only have the reserve amount of softening capacity, schedule a regen for tonight.

This must be the part that I was overlooking. After reading the manual explanation (provided in my post) -- it wasn't clear to me that they schedule the regen for "tonight".

So now -- updating my understanding:

Delayed Meter Control (fd) -- when your meter hits 0 (excluding reserve), schedule the regen for RT (2am in my case).

Immediate Meter Control (fi) -- when your meter hits 0 immediately trigger a regen (even if it's in the middle of the day).

That explains perfectly why your DO can be 28 with a meter control FD, and why you always set reserve to the estimated daily consumption. This is definitely how I would want my configured.

Under that configuration your system would automatically regenerate the night your meter hits 0, which will vary but in my case would likely be ~11 days. If for some reason (vacation, or otherwise low water usage), I somehow don't use my entire capacity, the system would regen after 28 days regardless of usage.

Do I have that right?

 

[Reach4]

Do I have that right?

Yes.

 

[Bannerman]

Am I just totally misunderstanding all of this?

You are misunderstanding as Meter Delay, Reserve setting and Days Override are very separate functions utilized for different purposes.

Meter Delay: a single tank softener cannot provide soft water while regeneration is occurring. so, regeneration will typically be delayed until there is normally little if any soft water being drawn, usually between 2 am - 3;30 am once regeneration has been triggered.

Reserve: A specific quantity of brine is required to regenerate a specific amount of capacity. The capacity to be regenerated is expected to at least match the capacity that was consumed since the previous cycle, similar to topping up the fuel tank in your vehicle. If more capacity is consumed than will be regenerated, then there will be a shortfall.

The softener's meter will keep track of soft water consumption and will trigger regeneration when the gallons consumed equals the programmed capacity. Since the programmed capacity may be depleted anytime water is drawn, some of the programmed capacity is segregated as Reserve so as to anticipate the capacity that is likely to be consumed between when regeneration is triggered, to when regeneration actually commences at 2 am the next morning.

Since regeneration could be triggered upon the 1st person flushing the toilet at 6 am, then the appropriate reserve setting will be typically 1-day total average water consumption so as to provide the usual amount of soft water for household use for the remainder of that day, until 2 am the next morning. If regeneration is triggered later in the day so there is reserve capacity remaining at 2 am, that remaining reserve capacity will be ignored and will again be regenerated as part of the programmed capacity to be restored.

Days Override: This is a setting to specify the maximum number of days between regeneration if the softener's meter has not initiated regeneration since the previous regeneration cycle. For instance, if your family are away on an extended vacation and there is a long period of no water use, the DO setting may initiate a regen cycle to ensure the water has not stagnated and the resin capacity is optimized even as the meter has not initiated a regeneration cycle for water use.