Fleck5600SXT 40000 grains capacity water not tasting good after salt clog

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kingrocks

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I have a fleck 5600SXT water softener and it was working fine from last year October 2015. 10 days ago I changed my salt pellets to a different company. When I have checked casualy 7 days ago, there was a salt clog. So my bryne tank had half water sitting. So I have removed the salt completely and with out checking any online videos for help, I removed the whole salt and with out keeping it in bypass when removing the salt, I changed the salt to Morton SaltII. And the water taste was good as usual. But when it got regenerated 2 days ago, the water tasted horrible. So i have regenerated last night again. But no difference. Can someone assist me what I am missing?
From past year, I was using
http://www.lowes.com/pd/Diamond-Crystal-40-lbs-Salt-Pellets/50107188

10 days back I changed it to
http://www.lowes.com/pd/Diamond-Crystal-40-lbs-Salt-Solar-Crystals/50107190

I really don't know what's the difference. But the last bag,
 

Reach4

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I strongly doubt that the problem was/is the salt.

Your reported symptoms seem to be
1. A salty taste in the softened water, where there was not a salty taste. I presume this salty taste is greater shortly after a regeneration than it is a day before regeneration.
2. There is too much water in the brine tank at the end of the regen when there used to just be a few inches.

So is there too much water because the softener is not drawing brine during the brine draw? Seems to me that it can't be that, because in that case, you would not have a salty taste. You could trigger an immediate regeneration and watch that the brine level does in fact go down significantly during the brine draw cycle, and then gets filled back up later.

That would seem to leave us with the softener putting too much water in during the brine fill. But you did nothing that should have affected the amount of brine fill.

When you test the softened water, is it soft? If you don't have a softness test, the Hach 5-B is very well regarded.

Comments so far?
 

kingrocks

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Before water used to taste like pure mineral water(spring water). Now it tasted like a slight sea water and skin is drying. How to troubleshoot the issue? I have zero knowledge how to..
 

Reach4

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Before water used to taste like pure mineral water(spring water). Now it tasted like a slight sea water and skin is drying. How to troubleshoot the issue? I have zero knowledge how to..
Do an immediate regeneration, and watch the water level during brine draw. Does it draw down, or not?

index.php

You don't have to wait until brine draw, but can instead accelerate the process:
Manually Initiating a Regeneration (copied from service manual)
1. When timer is in service, press the Extra Cycle button for 5
seconds on the main screen.
2. The timer advances to Regeneration Cycle Step #1 (rapid
rinse), and begins programmed time count down.(BEGIN_EDIT: can this be right? I thought the backwash happens first. And I see this order in two different versions of the 5600SXT service manual! I suspect we have a long-standing typo. end_of_edit)
3. Press the Extra Cycle button once to advance valve to
Regeneration Cycle Step #2 (backwash).
4. Press the Extra Cycle button once to advance valve to
Regeneration Cycle Step #3 (brine draw & slow rinse).
5. Press the Extra Cycle button once to advance valve to
Regeneration Cycle Step #4 (brine refill).
6. Press the Extra Cycle button once more to advance the
valve back to in service.

You want to let the brine draw and brine refill to happen. The brine draw is long, and the brine is supposed to be sucked out in the first 1/4 of the time. It is the Bd setting that controls the brine draw period, and it is often 60 minutes.

So I am suspecting that the brine does not get fully drawn or it is drawn too late into the cycle not leaving the 45 minutes to rinse the brine away. But you want to check that.

Somebody with experience will probably be able to help, but gathering symptom information will make that more effective.
 
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Tech1

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If the water tastes salty you will need to increase the time for the rapid rinse. Try an 8 minute rapid rinse. If that does not rid you of the salty taste, try a resin cleaner like softener mate. The resin may be fouled.

Note that every cubic foot of resin is usually 30,000 grains which would need a maximum of 7-8 lbs of salt to regenerate the resin. If you have 1.2 cubic feet of standard mesh resin then you should be dosing the brine at around 8-10 lbs of salt per regen. (Depending on the water test.) (Brine flow rate will be stated on data sticker behind the brine injector.)

Regardless of brine dose, the deionized salt and leftover ionized salt should be removed during rapid rinse (the rinse cycle after it pulls in the brine.) So adjust it and get back with us.
 

kingrocks

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I am sorry, If i confused. It is not salty. But it used to have the sweetness. But now it tastes as usual like no softener was installed.
 

Reach4

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OK. In reply #2 I tried to describe the symptoms that I thought you might be describing so that you could agree or clarifty.
OK, not tasting salty. What is your symptom? Horrible means what? Smell? Is it an iron taste? How much iron is in your raw water?

How about "There is too much water in the brine tank at the end of the regen when there used to just be a few inches."... does that match what you are seeing?

Can you measure your hardness? Describe what the water level in the brine tank is and does.
 

Bannerman

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As your unit had been working properly, but as something has suddenly changed, that would signify the problem is not a programming issue but is an operation problem.

Suggest temporarily bypassing the unit to remove and clean both the injector screen and injector. Any debris on either can result in brine not being drawn from the brine tank. After reinstalling both, run a manual regeneration while you are nearby to observe. Check to ensure brine is drawn from the brine tank during the Brine Draw cycle AND that water flows back into the brine tank during the Fill cycle. The brine tank is normally virtually empty of brine during the first 15 minutes of brine draw but as your tank now has additional brine, emptying the brine may require additional time.

Once brine draw and fill are working properly, wait at least 3 hours for salt to be dissolved before initiating another manual regeneration cycle. The second regeneration could be initiated just before going to bed. The second regeneration will help to restore the resin's total capacity, not just the capacity you regularly use between regeneration cycles.

Edit to add: Check also all connections on the brine tube and pickup assembly. A very small air leak could result in brine not being drawn from the brine tank even as the leak is small enough that water would not be observed leaking while the tank is being refilled during the Fill cycle.
 
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kingrocks

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As your unit had been working properly, but as something has suddenly changed, that would signify the problem is not a programming issue but an operation problem.

Suggest bypassing the unit to remove and clean both the injector screen and injector. Any debris on either can result in brine not being drawn from the brine tank. After reinstalling both, run a manual regeneration while you are nearby to observe. Check to ensure brine is drawn from the brine tank during the Brine Draw cycle AND that water flows back into the brine tank during the Fill cycle.

If the brine draw and fill are working properly, wait at least 3 hours for salt to be dissolved before initiating another manual regeneration cycle. This could be performed just before going to bed. The second regeneration will help to restore the resin's total capacity, not just the capacity you regularly use between regeneration cycles.

Where can I find the injector screen and injector? I watched the below video to check what is injector and injector screen.. I understood the injector screen part. What is injector in this video?
 
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ditttohead

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If the water tastes salty you will need to increase the time for the rapid rinse. Try an 8 minute rapid rinse. If that does not rid you of the salty taste, try a resin cleaner like softener mate. The resin may be fouled.

Note that every cubic foot of resin is usually 30,000 grains which would need a maximum of 7-8 lbs of salt to regenerate the resin. If you have 1.2 cubic feet of standard mesh resin then you should be dosing the brine at around 8-10 lbs of salt per regen. (Depending on the water test.) (Brine flow rate will be stated on data sticker behind the brine injector.)

Regardless of brine dose, the deionized salt and leftover ionized salt should be removed during rapid rinse (the rinse cycle after it pulls in the brine.) So adjust it and get back with us.


Do not increase the rapid rinse to correct a salty water problem. The Brine/slow rinse cycle is intended to do that, not the fast rinse. I am not really sure how a resin cleaner would correct a salty water problem. Salt dosage directly affects the system capacity. A common resin based softener would get approximately 24,000 grains removal per cubic foot at an 8 pound salt dose.
 

kingrocks

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So I have removed all the water and salt from the brine tank completely(98%) and added hot water 3 gallons for 2 hours and even added hot water in the brine valve. Before doing this I put that to bypass from service. Now started regeneration. Pressed regeneration button to put it to BD mode. When I saw it was 3 gallons. In BD mode, after 30 minutes, I saw more water like another 2 gallons more. Finally the regeneration got completed. But it added lot more water to brine tank. So I need to clean the injector and injector screen. I tried to depressurize by trying to turn the valve off outside which it was hard. So I didn't clean the injector and the screen. Any suggestions?
 
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Reach4

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You might want to click Edit and make your post more clear.
 

Bannerman

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Your description of the softener's operation in post #13 is still not clear.

Your explanation seems to suggest water is entering the brine tank during the Brine Draw cycle. If so, then you may need a seal and spacer replacement kit and possibly a new piston.

First, try cleaning the injector and screen prior to replacing anything. Once the screen, injector nozzle and throat are removed, they should be rinsed and cleaned (old tooth brush) and inspected for cracks or other damage.

To depressurize, as stated in the video, advance the controller to 'Backwash' after bypassing the softener.
 

kingrocks

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As your unit had been working properly, but as something has suddenly changed, that would signify the problem is not a programming issue but is an operation problem.

Suggest temporarily bypassing the unit to remove and clean both the injector screen and injector. Any debris on either can result in brine not being drawn from the brine tank. After reinstalling both, run a manual regeneration while you are nearby to observe. Check to ensure brine is drawn from the brine tank during the Brine Draw cycle AND that water flows back into the brine tank during the Fill cycle. The brine tank is normally virtually empty of brine during the first 15 minutes of brine draw but as your tank now has additional brine, emptying the brine may require additional time.

Once brine draw and fill are working properly, wait at least 3 hours for salt to be dissolved before initiating another manual regeneration cycle. The second regeneration could be initiated just before going to bed. The second regeneration will help to restore the resin's total capacity, not just the capacity you regularly use between regeneration cycles.

Edit to add: Check also all connections on the brine tube and pickup assembly. A very small air leak could result in brine not being drawn from the brine tank even as the leak is small enough that water would not be observed leaking while the tank is being refilled during the Fill cycle.

Suggest temporarily bypassing the unit to remove and clean both the injector screen and injector. Any debris on either can result in brine not being drawn from the brine tank. After reinstalling both, run a manual regeneration while you are nearby to observe. Check to ensure brine is drawn from the brine tank during the Brine Draw cycle AND that water flows back into the brine tank during the Fill cycle. The brine tank is normally virtually empty of brine during the first 15 minutes of brine draw but as your tank now has additional brine, emptying the brine may require additional time.

As per above statement, do I need to clean everything from the tank and keep it empty and press the regeneration button or do I need to have salt already added and some water in the brine tank?
 

Bannerman

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The best way to test the brine draw is to have brine in the brine tank. Now that your tank is empty, you could manually add some water to the brine tank but if you're spending the time to test brine draw, it would be better use of your time to actually draw brine to regenerate capacity.

When adding salt to a freshly cleaned brine tank, you will also need to manually add water so as to dissolve salt in preparation for the next regeneration cycle. Each gallon of water will dissolve 3 lbs of salt so check the salt dose setting to determine the amount of salt needed per regeneration cycle, so as to know how much water to add.
 

kingrocks

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I have entered the programming mode to check some parameters. But I don't see all the parameters. I am seeing only DO RC and RT. No other values are shown. Am I doing anything wrong?
 
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