Help with calculations for water softener settings

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We have a 64K (2.0 cuft) water softener system, 12 GPG hardness, 2 adults, 1 teenager, 2 kids, and a baby in our house. How would I go about setting our control panel? It's an Autotrol 760. I figured out to set the 2.0 cuft, but beyond that, I really don't understand all the options. Isn't there a calculator out there that I can put my info in for it to tell me the best settings? I don't understand how many kg of salt, how many days for Days Override, etc.
 

Reach4

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Not familiar with that control, but I can provide some help.
City water? Well water with lots of iron? If city, use 30 days. If well water with iron, it becomes harder to pick.

Anyway, typically you might want about 7 lbs of salt per cubic ft, so 14 lb, which would be 6.35 kg.

8 lb/cuft and 6 lb/cuft are popular choices. 7 splits the difference.
 
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Not familiar with that control, but I can provide some help.
City water? Well water with lots of iron? If city, use 30 days. If well water with iron, it becomes harder to pick.

Anyway, typically you might want about 7 lbs of salt per cubic ft, so 14 lb, which would be 6.35 kg.

8 lb/cuft and 6 lb/cuft are popular choices. 7 splits the difference.
Well water. It's technically 10 GPG with roughly 1.5 ppm manganese and 0.5 ppm iron. So I calculated a total of 12 GPG.

The Logix 760 controller has an L for Low, S for Standard, and H for High, and so far I found out that Standard is 9 lbs/cuft.
 

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According to a Google search, it seems that your only options are L (3 lbs/cu. ft) S (9lbs/cu ft) and H (15lbs/cu ft.). S seems to be your best option.

You will need to study and determine your days over ride, usually lower for iron removal. I've seen from 3 days up to 8 days for iron removal. 0.5 ppm iron is pretty low, so maybe you can stretch it out a bit more?? I really don't know. A Res Care feeder kit would help maintain the resin when iron is present.

Here's one instruction I found: https://www.softenerparts.com/740-and-760-Logix-Timer-Programming-Instructions_c_323.html

There are several You Tube videos too.
 

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Compensated hardness:
10 base hardness
1.5x1 Mn
0.5x5=2.5 FE
10*0.1=1 high hardness compensation
Sum total: compensated hardness=15.

If the Logix 760 controller is to compute how much salt to use, based on L-S-H settings, you would have to also tell it how much resin there is. So in that case, it would not be asking you about kg.
 
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Compensated hardness:
10 base hardness
1.5x1 Mn
0.5x5=2.5 FE
10*0.1=1 high hardness compensation
Sum total: compensated hardness=15.

If the Logix 760 controller is to compute how much salt to use, based on L-S-H settings, you would have to also tell it how much resin there is. So in that case, it would not be asking you about kg.
I don't understand... isn't the resin the 64K grain thing? As for the kg thing, it's under "Capacity." I can change how many kg:
Compress_20220214_204847_7249.jpg

And then when I'm done with the settings, it just cycles through all the settings with the display to show everything. When it gets to capacity, it then appears to show some kind of calculation:
Compress_20220214_204847_7520.jpg


That's what it looks like with 50 kg capacity (whatever that means), and hardness at 12 (I don't even know if that is always GPG or some other measurement as the default was 25 or something like that), and the salt amount at Standard.

I think mine is a little different since I'm in Canada.
 

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I was thinking kilograms. Maybe that is kiloGrains??? If so, 50 kilograins is indeed a good number if using 9 lb/cuft of salt/cuft (18 lbs total). What does the Instruction manual that Treeman points to tell you?

But how is it going to turn S into knowing to use 18 lbs of salt?

With
 
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I was thinking kilograms. Maybe that is kiloGrains??? If so, 50 kilograins is indeed a good number if using 9 lb/cuft of salt/cuft (18 lbs total). What does the Instruction manual that Treeman points to tell you?

But how is it going to turn S into knowing to use 18 lbs of salt?

With
The instruction manual linked doesn't specify, or at least, I don't understand it. I had read it before I posted here.

Why did you write in brackets 18 lbs total? How is it a total of 18 lbs when it's 9 lbs? I mean, I understand that 18 lbs is double 9, but I don't understand why you doubled it?

Also, my only options are L, S, and H. I can't choose numbers (lbs of salt).

A lot of this is really confusing to me and I wish the manuals were clearer.
 

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9 lbs/cuft * (2 cuft) = 18 lb of salt. To use 18 lbs of salt, you use 6 gallons of water.

Did you try Youtube? I am not being coy, but I really wasn't looking to read your manual.

OK. I am reading your manual.
Page 16 Step 1:
Input system size – media volume (For FA filters, choose
your closest media volume) – in cubic feet or liters.


So that is how it knows how much resin there is. It will use that to know how long to fill the brine tank with water.
 
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9 lbs/cuft * (2 cuft) = 18 lb of salt. To use 18 lbs of salt, you use 6 gallons of water.

Did you try Youtube? I am not being coy, but I really wasn't looking to read your manual.



OK. I am reading your manual.

Page 16 Step 1:

Input system size – media volume (For FA filters, choose

your closest media volume) – in cubic feet or liters.



So that is how it knows how much resin there is. It will use that to know how long to fill the brine tank with water.
Thank you, that makes sense now (with the 18 lbs thing). As for YouTube, yes, I have watched numerous videos, but they're not helpful. For example, the one from Pentair doesn't actually *explain* the settings. There was another video with the same problem. One of the videos said to leave the Day Override as 0. Why? I don't know. I am not even entirely sure what Day Override does in my case. It appears that mine calculates when to do the regeneration based on how much water we use (metered), and I don't know if Day Override means that it adds a day to that calculation, or subtracts a day, or does something else that I don't understand.

As for how much resin, I don't know what you just said:

Input system size – media volume (For FA filters, choose
your closest media volume) – in cubic feet or liters.


What does that mean? Are you talking about the 2.0 cuft size of the tank? If so, I already entered that in the control panel.
 

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Each night at 2am (default), if it has been the day override number of days since regen, the unit will regen.
If it figures it does not have enough remaining capacity to make it thru the next day (reserve), it will regen.

Yes, I meant the 2.0 cuft amount of resin. When you said " I figured out to set the 2.0 cuft, but beyond that, I really don't understand all the options." I should have realized there was a setting stating how many cuft of resin was there. I had misread what you said.

Not having read your manual at that point, and not realizing there was a cuft of resin setting, I said "If the Logix 760 controller is to compute how much salt to use, based on L-S-H settings, you would have to also tell it how much resin there is." And I later said "But how is it going to turn S into knowing to use 18 lbs of salt?"
 
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Each night at 2am (default), if it has been the day override number of days since regen, the unit will regen.
If it figures it does not have enough remaining capacity to make it thru the next day (reserve), it will regen.
What does it mean if it's set to 0? Does it regenerate every night then?

Sorry about me having trouble comprehending what you're saying. I read over what you said, several times.

Does the day override mean that it doesn't meter track the water at all? So for example, if I set day override to 2, it will regenerate every two days regardless of how much water we use?
 

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I would have thought zero would mean to not use the day override, and only go based on demand. A 5600 Economizer works based on demand only. But it is recommended to set that to 30, and less in some cases like dealing with iron. It would only come into effect if you leave for several weeks. Normally you might go about 2 weeks between regens.

Yet your manual says "Setting the day override value to “OFF” disables
this function.
" So could that be an O instead of a 0? Or even OFF? The manual says "Range: Off-99 days".
 
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Treeman

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It's not hard to be confused about all of this. Adding to Reach4's expertise, I understand calendar over ride to mean that you set the softener to regenerate every x number of days regardless of the gallons used. If you set the over ride for 7 days, it will regenerate every 7 days even if you only used 100 gallons of water. It sets up a "whichever occurs first" scenario....... it will regenerate every x days (your setting) OR earlier if you use up all the capacity sooner (your inlaws move in with you, LOL). I suppose the calendar override is to keep the resin from getting fouled if it sits too long without regenerating. As mentioned, most info states that you should not go over about 7 days +/- when you are using the softener to remove iron. In other cases (pretty good water to start off), I have seen a few sources say 30 days is o.k..

The following manual confirms that 0 disables (no) override. See page 42: "0 = no calendar override."



I also love this manual for basic intro to softeners: https://www.aquatell.ca/pages/ultimate-water-softener-guide
 
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Bannerman

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A softener that is forced to remove iron and Manganese, cannot operate as efficiently as a softener where I & M has been removed from the water prior to entering the softener.

Manganese will often create greater resin fouling problems than iron.

Recommend basing calculations and settings using 5 gpg capacity consumption for each 1 PPM iron and Manganese.

Mn (1.5 ppm) + FE (0.5 ppm) = 2.0 ppm X 5 = 10 compensated gpg + 10 gpg actual hardness = 20 gpg X 1.1 hardness compensation = 22 gpg total compensated hardness.

The higher hardness setting will cause the softener to regenerate more frequently than a lower hardness setting. More frequent regeneration will be necessessary when a substantial quantity of FE &/or Mn is removed by the softener.

The usable capacity setting will be dictated by the salt setting that is programmed.

For example, since your 12" X 52" media tank will contain 2 ft3 of resin, a 6 lbs per ft3 salt setting will mean 12 lbs salt total, which will regenerate 42,000 grains usable capacity each Regen cycle.

8 lbs/ft3 will mean 16 lbs salt will regenerate 48,000 grains usable capacity each Regen cycle.

See chart below regarding how the salt setting will dictate the usable Capacity, Hardness Reduction Efficiency and water quality.
index.php
 
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