FLECK 5800 DLFC, BLFC, Injector sizing for .....

[David Isom]

Hi Everyone,

hope you are all staying safe (re covid19).

I would be very interested to hear the views of experts regarding a setup of

5800XTR 2 Valve and controller with Chlorinator

this is mated to a 10inch x 35 inch tank.

The media installed is a simple gravel bed with .88 cu ft (25 litres) allowing around 1/3 tank left empty for freeboard.

the unit is to configured as upflow with variable bringing and variable reserve .

my question relates to the best sizes of DLFC, BLFC and injector so that the flow rates for regen I.e brine draw and slow rinse , fast rinse and backwash are optimised

the unit currently had 4gpm DLFC 0.5gpm BLFC and blue injector.

I am concerned that these are all over size for such a small tank and the amount of media installed.

and that the flow rates ( remember this is an upflow system ) will lead to poor regen and possible excessive disturbance /mixing and maybe loss /clogging of the Resin And gravel bed.

I was thinking of replacing the above with 2.4gpm DLFC 0.25gpm BLFC and red size 0 injector ... but would really appreciate any experts view .

thanks in advance and god bless you all.


David

 

[Reach4]

was thinking of replacing the above with 2.4gpm DLFC 0.25gpm BLFC and red size 0 injector

With a 5810, I would go to the #00 Injector - Violet, and use BD=60. I have not studied the 5800 injectors much, but it looks like

While 0.25gpm BLFC would be good, I think 0.125 would be a little better-- giving finer resolution on the brine fill.

Are you in Spain? Your avitar is the flag of Spain.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[David Isom]

With a 5810, I would go to the #00 Injector - Violet, and use BD=60. I have not studied the 5800 injectors much, but it looks like

While 0.25gpm BLFC would be good, I think 0.125 would be a little better-- giving finer resolution on the brine fill.

Are you in Spain?

On that basis do you think 2.5gpm DLFC should be reduced also ? In which case which 1.7 or 2.0gpm ?

 

[David Isom]

With a 5810, I would go to the #00 Injector - Violet, and use BD=60. I have not studied the 5800 injectors much, but it looks like

While 0.25gpm BLFC would be good, I think 0.125 would be a little better-- giving finer resolution on the brine fill.

Are you in Spain? Your avitar is the flag of Spain.

Sorry to forgot to say yes I live in the Valencia region of Spain in a town surrounded by mountains called Ontinyent

 

[Reach4]

On that basis do you think 2.5gpm DLFC should be reduced also ? In which case which 1.7 or 2.0gpm ?

I thought your DLFC number was probably OK, but I was not sure if there should be a change with this short tank. Go back and check https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/please-check-my-5810-sxt-settings.86163/#post-620465

Whether you are in Spain or California, your water may be fairly warm.

 

[David Isom]

I thought your DLFC number was probably OK, but I was not sure if there should be a change with this short tank. Go back and check https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/please-check-my-5810-sxt-settings.86163/#post-620465

Whether you are in Spain or California, your water may be fairly warm.

It’s not a great sizing tool as it only seems to consider tank diameter and the range of media does match mine installation .

 

[Reach4]

It’s not a great sizing tool as it only seems to consider tank diameter and the range of media does match mine installation .

Do you have an unpainted tank? If so, you could shine a bright light through in the dark during backwash to see how much lift you get during backwash. You could order both a 2.0 and 2.4 DLFC, and see which looks better. If your tank is painted, you can't do that.

If you don't have a top basket (top distributor), your resin may have already been washed away with your 4.0 gpm DLFC.

 

[Bannerman]

Although you didn't state so specifically, the mention of brining and reserve seems to suggest the 0.88 ft3 (25 litres) is water softening resin. As such, a 4.0 gpm DLFC would be excessive for a 10" diameter tank.

A 2.4 gpm DLFC is normally appropriate for a 10" diameter water softener. If the incoming water to be utilized for backwash is particularly warm, then a higher DLFC flow rate will be needed.

 

[David Isom]

Do you have an unpainted tank? If so, you could shine a bright light through in the dark during backwash to see how much lift you get during backwash. You could order both a 2.0 and 2.4 DLFC, and see which looks better. If your tank is painted, you can't do that.

If you don't have a top basket (top distributor), your resin may have already been washed away with your 4.0 gpm DLFC.

I have not started using yet because I was pretty sure DLFC BLFC and Injectors Installed were way oversized That is 4.0gpm DLFC
0.5Gpm BLFC and injector 2 blue . So no worries there

 

[David Isom]

Although you didn't state so specifically, the mention of brining and reserve seems to suggest the 0.88 ft3 (25 litres) is water softening resin. As such, a 4.0 gpm DLFC would be excessive for a 10" diameter tank.

A 2.4 gpm DLFC is normally appropriate for a 10" diameter water softener. If the incoming water to be utilized for backwash is particularly warm, then a higher DLFC flow rate will be needed.

Hi,

our water supply is always less than 65f and yes main media water softener resin

 

[ditttohead]

When doing upflow brining the injector must be kept small in order to not fluidize the resin bed. For you application a 00 would be fine. The 00 injector has a draw rate of about .175 gpm. If you are drawing our about 3 gallons of water then the brine /slow rinse time should be about 70 minutes. Use the .125 BLFC since the water flows through the injector and if you notice the chart, the 00 injector can barely flow .25 so the injector may become your flow restrictor instead of the BLFC button.

 

[David Isom]

When doing upflow brining the injector must be kept small in order to not fluidize the resin bed. For you application a 00 would be fine. The 00 injector has a draw rate of about .175 gpm. If you are drawing our about 3 gallons of water then the brine /slow rinse time should be about 70 minutes. Use the .125 BLFC since the water flows through the injector and if you notice the chart, the 00 injector can barely flow .25 so the injector may become your flow restrictor instead of the BLFC button.

Thanks for responding .
? I have 2.4 DLFC .25 BLFC and 0 injector on the way.


I need to order the smaller Parts 00 injector .125 BLFC from USA what would you do about the DLFC ? Is 2.4 also going to,be oversize.

in the meantime if I were to start using the .25 BLFC 0 injector and 2.4DLFC do,you think it would cause a problem or just be eating salt and water ?

David.

ps Whilst I am super experienced with engineering systems and central heating systems I am new to water softeners So very much appreciate any knowledge you are willing to share with me.

 

[ditttohead]

The DLFC only matters based on temperature. The "density" of water varies with water temperature. Colder water is more dense so it takes less water to backwash media at colder temperatures. 2.4 is fine for most 10" diameter tanks under varying "cold" water applications ie: 55-75F water. You can do the metric conversion...

The injector "0" is fine for upflow, fluidization of the resin bed is the concern. I don't want to give away the true "secrets" of our industry when it comes to the truth about upflow, lets just say that a properly sized downflow system is 95% as good as a complex upflow system. In general, an upflow variable reserve system only really makes sense when a system is severely undersized. Marketing is great and totally understood, but sizing a downflow system properly makes things very simple. A good example is your application. You have a small 10x35 tank. If you were to install a more proper 12x52 or 13x54 tank, you could go downflow regen and completely eliminate all the question. You might use do an extra regen each year but completely eliminate all the complexity and problems of upflow/variable brining regen... I wrote an article years ago about a much better solution based on using less water.. it makes far more sense. You can only make a softener so efficient. At a certain point the efficiency gains gets silly. It is like bragging that my car gets 49 miles per gallon, you only gets 48.5... properly sized systems make more sense.
In the past the average water usage per person in a household was 75 gallons per person per day. By upgrading my house to modern "ultra high efficiency" fixtures and touch free faucets etc.. we are down to less than 25 gallons of water per person per day. Obviously the most efficient softener pales in comparison to updating your fixtures in your house.

 

[David Isom]

The DLFC only matters based on temperature. The "density" of water varies with water temperature. Colder water is more dense so it takes less water to backwash media at colder temperatures. 2.4 is fine for most 10" diameter tanks under varying "cold" water applications ie: 55-75F water. You can do the metric conversion...

The injector "0" is fine for upflow, fluidization of the resin bed is the concern. I don't want to give away the true "secrets" of our industry when it comes to the truth about upflow, lets just say that a properly sized downflow system is 95% as good as a complex upflow system. In general, an upflow variable reserve system only really makes sense when a system is severely undersized. Marketing is great and totally understood, but sizing a downflow system properly makes things very simple. A good example is your application. You have a small 10x35 tank. If you were to install a more proper 12x52 or 13x54 tank, you could go downflow regen and completely eliminate all the question. You might use do an extra regen each year but completely eliminate all the complexity and problems of upflow/variable brining regen... I wrote an article years ago about a much better solution based on using less water.. it makes far more sense. You can only make a softener so efficient. At a certain point the efficiency gains gets silly. It is like bragging that my car gets 49 miles per gallon, you only gets 48.5... properly sized systems make more sense.
In the past the average water usage per person in a household was 75 gallons per person per day. By upgrading my house to modern "ultra high efficiency" fixtures and touch free faucets etc.. we are down to less than 25 gallons of water per person per day. Obviously the most efficient softener pales in comparison to updating your fixtures in your house.

Hi, thanks for your sage comments . I can’t for a moment say I have any more knowledge than what I have managed to glean by reading . I am a little dissapointed that my system could be considered as undersized ?

We currently use no more than 150 gallons per day maximum
and Our water hardness is a little under 12 grains
We have .88 cu ft of resin.

As I mentioned the valve came configured as upflow so with that in mind I thought why not use the variable brine and variable reserve options offered by the XTR2 head.

my question re DLFC BLFC and injector is because the valve came with 4.0 Gpm BLFC 0.5BLFC and size 2 blue injector as it was built for a 13-54 and we have a 10x35 tank,

I used the sizing guide from the FLECK 5800 installation manual to get the DLFC as 2.4 the the BLFC as 0.25 and the injector as 0 Red.

it was only after reading about issues with resin problems with upflow configurations I wanted to check whether I needed to down size to DLFC to something less than 2.4 and likewise BLFC to 0.25 and injector to 00 ?

My possible incorrect understanding was to look at sizing the system so that With our water usage/hardness we would regenerated the .88 cu ft of resin no more than 1 every 10/14 days .

Right now I am i think just wanting to know whether the switch injector size 0, the BLFC 0.25 and the DLFC 2.4 will (A) clause any problems with the resin bed in upflow and (B) if not whether changing any of them would allow for a more efficient regen setup.

I appreciate any comments that are made as I am just setting out on this journey.

many thanks

David

 

[ditttohead]

Proper sizing is not just based on capacity and regeneration frequency. The length of time the water is in contact with the filtration media (EBCT) is also a factor. That being said, water softening resin does its ion exchange process very quickly and your 10x35 tank should work just fine. If you want to be sure your resin bed is not fluidizing their is a simple test. While the system is in service, hit the side of the tank solidly with the palm of your hand. You will notice it has a definite solid feel too it. Now put it into brine draw, you may notice a change in the tank feel when you hit it this time. Now put the system into backwash, the tank should feel as if it were empty. The tank should reverberate like a drum during backwash.

Don't overthink it, your original setup was way off. Your current setup is close enough.

As to variable brining, it is really only useful if your systems capacity is extremely undersized. If you were regenerating every other day, then the variable reserve will be effective. We really only use variable reserve in commercial applications where a twin alternating design is not feasible due to space limitations, or when a customer is trying to save equipment costs. If your system is regenerating every 10 days, your variable reserve would fill the brine tank up with the regular amount of water anyway so the variable reserve is not even being used. There are a lot of programming tricks we use in variable reserve due to the hit/miss nature of the way it works. We have programmed valves to ignore the variable reserve after 70%, or to regenerate with extra salt every 5th regeneration and many other unique ways of getting around the capacity anomalies. It may sound complex, because it is, but we have worked around most of the problems so there is no need to overthink it. You did good by catching the error by the company you bought the unit from.

 

[David Isom]

Proper sizing is not just based on capacity and regeneration frequency. The length of time the water is in contact with the filtration media (EBCT) is also a factor. That being said, water softening resin does its ion exchange process very quickly and your 10x35 tank should work just fine. If you want to be sure your resin bed is not fluidizing their is a simple test. While the system is in service, hit the side of the tank solidly with the palm of your hand. You will notice it has a definite solid feel too it. Now put it into brine draw, you may notice a change in the tank feel when you hit it this time. Now put the system into backwash, the tank should feel as if it were empty. The tank should reverberate like a drum during backwash.

Don't overthink it, your original setup was way off. Your current setup is close enough.

As to variable brining, it is really only useful if your systems capacity is extremely undersized. If you were regenerating every other day, then the variable reserve will be effective. We really only use variable reserve in commercial applications where a twin alternating design is not feasible due to space limitations, or when a customer is trying to save equipment costs. If your system is regenerating every 10 days, your variable reserve would fill the brine tank up with the regular amount of water anyway so the variable reserve is not even being used. There are a lot of programming tricks we use in variable reserve due to the hit/miss nature of the way it works. We have programmed valves to ignore the variable reserve after 70%, or to regenerate with extra salt every 5th regeneration and many other unique ways of getting around the capacity anomalies. It may sound complex, because it is, but we have worked around most of the problems so there is no need to overthink it. You did good by catching the error by the company you bought the unit from.

Hi again, thanks for taking time to respond. I am waiting for the 2.4 DLFC 0.5 BLFC and 0 (red) injector. Given what you have said I will go with these to start with . It would seem that if I did want to increase contact time I should change BLFC to 0.125 is that correct . Regarding the 2.4 DLFC you don’t think it needs to be made smaller ? David

 

[ditttohead]

The DLFC controls only the backwash and rapid rinse, it has nothing to do with anything else. It is fine.
The BLFC controls the refill rate to the brine tank only, nothing else, it has nothing to do with contact time of the salt in the resin bed or the potential bed expansion. The problem with that large of a BLFC is that the injector will become your refill flow control. See the injector charts here. The #0 injector will not flow .5 GPM below 70 PSI. You need the .25 or .125 BLFC to do it correctly. https://83498217-c360-4279-a995-14f...d/a3c37f_d5f0cd6dde0843bc9fac6e3991fa022d.pdf

 

[David Isom]

The DLFC controls only the backwash and rapid rinse, it has nothing to do with anything else. It is fine.
The BLFC controls the refill rate to the brine tank only, nothing else, it has nothing to do with contact time of the salt in the resin bed or the potential bed expansion. The problem with that large of a BLFC is that the injector will become your refill flow control. See the injector charts here. The #0 injector will not flow .5 GPM below 70 PSI. You need the .25 or .125 BLFC to do it correctly. https://83498217-c360-4279-a995-14f...d/a3c37f_d5f0cd6dde0843bc9fac6e3991fa022d.pdf

Ok think I got it ! If I want to extend contact time I need to change injector from 0 to 00 ?

 

[ditttohead]

yes, as it shows in the injector charts.