Fleck 5600SXT running out of water before regen

[steppinthrax]

I currently have a Fleck 5600SXT 48K. I have around 10 - 11 grains of hardness and about .3ppm of iron. I don't have a reserver set in it at all. So it ran for almost month and ran out of water in the middle of the day. I intentionally did this because I wanted to see what happens without a reserve. So I tested the water (Hach test) and the water had 0 hardness before about 100 gallons or so. Then when it ran out of water (0 gallons) it flashed "RC ------" on the display. I ran the water for several minutes and tested it and I still got (0 gallons) even though the machine showed 0 gallons of water left.

So later that night/morning the system regenerated and everything is good.

My question is will it cause any damage to the resin bed or system if I let it go that "deep" without a regen? I currently have my DO set to 28 days. It seems there is some soft water present even though the system shows 0 gallons of softeness.

 

[Bannerman]

The '0' gallons remaining is calculated by the controller based upon the 'C' apacity and 'H' ardness settings that were programmed. The controller does not sense hardness but only measures the amount of water flowing through the softener since the prior regeneration cycle. During regeneration, the remaining calculated capacity will be reset which is then reduced by the programmed hardness setting for every 1 gallon that flows through the softener to the home.

The softener's capacity as programmed will normally be less than the total capacity of the resin. You didn't state your C or H settings or the salt dose utilized.

A softener is commonly programmed to regenerate using a specific amount of salt which relates to the specific amount of capacity to be regenerated. Using more capacity than is programmed, will result in less than the capacity that was used, from being restored during regeneration. To reduce the potential for additional capacity being used than will be restored, a single tank softener will typically employ a 1-day reserve.

Without a reserve, the programmed capacity could be consumed at say 2 minutes into the 1st shower of the morning, which would mean additional capacity will be consumed to provide soft water for the remainder of that day until regeneration will occur, usually at 2 am the following morning. If for example, the average daily capacity consumption is 4K grains and the softener is programmed to use 9 lbs salt to restore 30K grains capacity, then 34K capacity will have been consumed, but only 30K will be restored during regeneration. This may not be too much of an issue unless this same situation occurs repeatedly.

Regenerating additional capacity will require additional salt which will result in lower salt efficiency than was originally chosen.