Help for programming Fleck 5810!

Hi,

We just have a water softener installed in our house. The tank is Pentair 1054 with Fleck 5810 Controller. There is a white label on the controller said: Drain Flow=2.4GPM, Injector=1. There is also a blue label said: .25GPM, .75LB SALT/MIN.

My water hardness is 20gpg (I tested it with a test strip). I have 4 people in the family with average water usage of 230 gallons per day.

Below is the current setting on my unit:

- DF = GAL.
- RF = DF1B.
- CT = FD.
- C = 36 X 1000.
- H = 20.
- RS = SF.
- SF = 15.
- DO = OFF.
- RT = 2.00
- BW = 10.
- BD = 60.
- RR = 10.
- BF = 17.
- FM = T1.2
- RE = OFF.
- VR = OFF.

I tried to read some other posts on this forum to figure it out the best way to set my softener. But I am still confused how to calculate all the parameter for programming.

I hope someone could help what settings should I use.


Thank you,

 

Presuming city water.

System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft : 7 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC : 0.25 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin : 1.5 ; Same as (nominal grains/32,000)
Raw hardness : 20.0 ; including iron etc
H comp factor ; 1.12
Hardness compensation
Estimated gal/day ; 230.0 ; 60 gal per person prediction (auto-tunes)
Est days/regen
6.4 ; presuming days each use estimated

Fleck 5810SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = 5810 ; Valve type
RF = dF2b ; Downflow, Double Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
C = 33.1 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 22 ; Hardness grains after comp factor
RS = cr ; Cr = base reserve on recent experience
DO = 30 ; Day Override (typ 30 if no iron/Mn)
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
B1 = 5 ; Backwash 1 (minutes) [3...10]
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes
B2 = 4 ; Backwash 2 (minutes)[3...10]
RR = 6 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 14 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = t1.2 (usual) ; t1.2 is default flow meter

Alternative C and BF pairs:
lb/cuft ; C= ; BF=
5.000 ; 27.3 ; 10
5.500 ; 28.6 ; 11
6.000 ; 30.0 ; 12 *less salt used
6.500 ; 31.5 ; 13
7.000 ; 33.1 ; 14 *used in above example.
7.500 ; 34.6 ; 15
8.000 ; 36.0 ; 16 *softer
8.500 ; 37.3 ; 17
9.000 ; 38.5 ; 18

 

Thank you so much for your help.

I have a few questions for better understanding.

1. What is the advantage for dF1b (single backwash) and dF2b(double backwash).

2. Isn't that the capacity of a unit is fixed based on the size of the resin inside the tank? (this is where I confuse the most). I always thought that 1 cubic of resin = XXXX grains and 1.5=YYYY grains.

3. Based on your reply I figure it out the .25GPM on the label is for BLFC. How about the .75LBS/MIN on the label. What it stands for?

Thank you.

 

The second backwash re-orders (shakes up) the brined resin.

You have 1.5 cuft of resin. The "48000" that the marketing lit referenced is the capacity of the resin when regenerated with a lot of salt. If you used that much salt each regeneration, you would be buying a lot more salt for each grain of softening.

Each gallon of water dissolves 3 lbs of salt. So in 7 minutes, you would inject 1.75 gallons of water, which dissolves 7 pounds of salt. MIN stands for minute.

 

DF1b is fine if you are not trying to do ultra low salt settings.
Ultra low salt settings, use df2b.
The second backwash helps mix the poorly regenerated resin so as to give you a little higher quality product water.

The capacity of resin is based on how much salt you use to regenerate it. Higher salt settings = lower efficiency but higher quality. See the chart below for a better explanation.



Water holds about 3 pounds of salt per gallon, so .25 GPM = .75 #'s salt per minute.

 

Thank you very much for your explanation. Now I can understand how to calculate salt Dosage, Capacity and BF now.

But how about BW, BD and RR (let say in dF1b). Does it have any formula for those or always use 10/60/10 min as standard?

Thanks,

 

4-10 is standard for BW, not really critical
BD is 4X the draw time, use the chart in the manual to determine the draw time. We try to set the injectors to be near the 60 minute total time.
RR 4-10 minutes, not critical.

 

Thank you very much for all your help. I have learned a lot today.