Help with Fleck 9000 setup!

[OldAtHeart]

Quick update and question: I finally got a replacement Fleck 9000 with the 1” meter and installed it tonight at my second location. This location has 12” tanks and I noticed the injector says “1”. I believe I need the “2” injector for my size tanks? How difficult is it to swap this out, and is it worth doing? Here are some photos of the new parts I just installed on the 12” tanks.

 

[Reach4]

The #1 injector draws brine at about 0.25 gpm
A #2 injector draws brine at about 0.5 gpm. See the graphs in your service manual. Maybe I read them wrong.

The first part of the brine draw cycle sucks out the brine until the air check valve in the brine tank closes. That prevents air from being drawn in. The remainder of the brine draw cycle is called the slow rinse, and in that period the bolus of brine is slowly moved through the tank, and then slow (laminar flow) water rinses the brine out of the drain. If the brine gets sucked out in 15 minutes, you would like the entire brine draw to be about 4x that -- 1 hour. Actually 3.5 x is plenty. 3x may be enough. The symptom of being too short for brine draw is the first gallons drawn from the tank after regen will be a bit salty.

So if you time how long for the brine to get sucked out, and multiply that by 3.5, you could set the pins to give you the amount of time for brine draw. Maybe use 4x, and round down.

I did not try to compute how much brine you will have to draw. You know your numbers, or you could time how long it takes to draw the brine.

A #1 injector will probably need a longer brine draw time, but slower would be slightly more efficient in softening with a given amount of salt. Because you have a dual tank system, the softener is in service the whole time using the other tank. I would tend to opt for the smaller flow injector.

If you do swap injectors, there are two pieces: nozzle and throat. You use a large flat-blade screwdriver to unscrew each.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[OldAtHeart]

Thanks for the reply. Still trying to wrap my head around all of this, but does the following make sense? This is my current setup. Wondering if I need to change anything.

Tank size: 12”
Resin: 2 cu ft each (2 tanks)
Water hardness: 15 grains
Injector: 1
BLFC: 0.5 gpm / 1.5lb salt per min
Meter dial set to ~20 x 100 gallons
Dial settings shown below.

Does this all sound right? Thanks again!

 

[Bannerman]

The usual recommended salt setting is 8 lbs/ft3 so for 2 ft3 resin, this will be 16 lbs salt to regenerate 48,000 grains capacity. With calculating at 15 gpg, 48,000 / 15 = 3,200 gallons on Capacity dial.

To dissolve 16 lbs salt, 5.33 gallons water will be needed to enter the brine tank. As the BLFC is 0.5 GPM, 10.66 minutes Brine Fill will be required.

As each hole represents 2 minutes, then the pins @ 80 & 82 will need to be moved to positions 84 & 86. The resulting 5 holes will represent 10 minutes or 5 gallons BF. Because 5 gallons is slightly less than needed, reduce the Capacity setting to 2,900 gallons per cycle.

 

[OldAtHeart]

Thanks again. So if I wanted to go with 10lbs/ft3 salt for slightly better water quality, and wanted to build in some buffer to my water hardness and go with 18 grains, that would be 20lbs salt for 52,000 grains. So 52,000 / 18 = 2888 gallons?

And to dissolve 20lbs of salt would need 6.67 gallons of water. At 0.5 gpm that would be ~13.5 minutes. I would either have to round up to 14 or round down to 12? Let’s say round up to 14 since that’s a lot closer. So then I would need 7 holes and would put the pins at 88 & 90? And then could put the meter dial around 2900?

Does that all sound reasonable? Not quite sure I totally understand yet but trying to!

I still don’t see how the injector affects things? If I went from an injector 1 to injector 2, would I have to change any of the calculations above?

 

[Reach4]

Continuing on from what Bannerman wrote, if you put 5 gallons into the brine tank each time, that will get about 5.77 gallons of brine. At 0.25 gpm drawn, that will take about 23 minutes if I did that all right. So I would want the brine draw cycle to be 82 to 94 minutes, with 90 minutes being a nice round number.

You could sanity-check my calculations by watching when the brine has been drawn down

So for backwash 8 minutes, have pins 0...6 as currently.

For 90 minute Brine+Rinse, have holes 8...96 blank.

For 6 minute Rapid rinse, have pins 98...102.

For 10 minute brine fill, have holes 104...112

To stop the brine fill, have pins 114 and 116.

I hope I did that right, after the first revision.

 

[Reach4]

I still don’t see how the injector affects things? If I went from an injector 1 to injector 2, would I have to change any of the calculations above?

With injector 1, I would use 90 minutes for Brine+rinse. For injector 2, maybe use 60 minutes. I would prefer injector #1.

If you want different minutes, I could re-work things. My numbers presumed 10 minute brine fill.

 

[OldAtHeart]

Hm, so with my current injector 1, the settings that @Bannerman suggested wouldn’t have nearly a long enough brine+rinse cycle?

 

[Reach4]

Hm, so with my current injector 1, the settings that @Bannerman suggested wouldn’t have nearly a long enough brine+rinse cycle?

Yes, but with a car wash a little residual salt might not be as bad as it would be for drinking water. I don't think it would mess up the RO.

 

[OldAtHeart]

So if I wanted to go with the #2 injector, what settings would I need to use? Using the assumptions below:

Tank size: 12”
Resin: 2 cu ft each (2 tanks)
Water hardness: 18 grains (really 15, but added
margin)
Salt usage: 10lbs / cu ft
Injector: 2 / 3.5 gpm
BLFC: 0.5 gpm / 1.5lb salt per min

What would the pins and meter dial need to be set to?

 

[Bannerman]

I would suggest to continue using the #1 injector, but increase the Brine Draw time to compensate to draw the additional brine volume.

The additional Brine Draw time will allow the resin to be regenerated slower than a #2 injector, which will allow longer brine contact with the resin which will provide higher regeneration efficiency. The additional brine draw time will not effect your usage as the alternate tank will be supplying soft water to your car wash equipment while the depleted tank is undergoing regeneration.

Suggest after first resetting the Brine Fill setting and performing 1 regen cycle so the correct new amount of water will enter the brine tank, wait at least 1 hr for sufficient salt to dissolve before performing another regen cycle. Initiate another regen cycle but time the number of minutes required for the brine to be drawn from the brine tank to the media tank, and then reprogram the Brine Draw setting for 4X that number.

To utilize 20 lbs salt per cycle will require 6.67 gallons water to enter the brine tank. That will require 7 holes (=7 gallons) which will require moving the last two pins as previously described.

Hopefully, the placement of the safety float within the brine tank will allow 7 gallons to enter without causing the float to lift. If the float becomes lifted before all 7 gallons enters, that will stop water from entering which will reduce the capacity to be regenerated. If the float does become lifted, you will need to determine if the float maybe further adjusted to allow the entire 7 gallons to enter.

As you stated, 10 lbs/ft3 will provide 52,000 gr capacity / 18 gpg = 2,888 gallons Capacity setting on Capacity dial.

 

[OldAtHeart]

Ok, thanks for the feedback. Sounds like both of you think the #1 injector is better so I’ll go with that.

May I ask why the #1 injector says it’s for 8-10” tanks and the #2 injector says it’s for 12” tanks then? That’s the part that is confusing me now…

(Edit: just realized - is it because the recommendation is typically for a 1-tank setup where the regeneration time is more of a concern?)

 

[Reach4]

So if I wanted to go with the #2 injector, what settings would I need to use? Using the assumptions below:

Tank size: 12”
Resin: 2 cu ft each (2 tanks)
Water hardness: 18 grains (really 15, but added
margin)
Salt usage: 10lbs / cu ft
Injector: 2 / 3.5 gpm
BLFC: 0.5 gpm / 1.5lb salt per min

What would the pins and meter dial need to be set to?

I agree that sticking with the #1 injector would be best.
3.5 is your DLFC.
At 14 minute fill, you will get 10.5 lb/cuft for salting
At 12 minute fill you will get 9 lb/cuft
At 10 minute fill you will get 7.5 lb/cuft

If I did that right... You have 2 minute granularity on your brine fill time through a 0.5 gpm BLFC. You need to pick one of those times if you stick with the 0.5 gpm BLFC.

 

[Reach4]

May I ask why the #1 injector says it’s for 8-10” tanks and the #2 injector says it’s for 12” tanks then? That’s the part that is confusing me now…

(Edit: just realized - is it because the recommendation is typically for a 1-tank setup where the regeneration time is more of a concern?)

Yes.

 

[OldAtHeart]

Hopefully my last post about this - I believe I have finally dialed in the settings for my two locations, and would appreciate one last sanity check:

Location 1:
Tank Size: 13x54
Resin: 2.5 cu ft per tank
Water Hardness: 15 grains (increasing to 18 grains for calculations below for a 20% margin)
Salt setting: 20 lbs (2.5 cu ft * 8 lb / cu ft)
DLFC: 3.5 gpm
BLFC: 0.5 gpm / 1.5lb salt/min
Injector: #2
Dial settings:
- Backwash: 8 minutes
- Brine and Slow Rinse: 60 minutes
- Rapid Rinse: 6 minutes
- Brine Tank Refill: 14 minutes (20 lbs salt / 1.5 lb/min = 13.33 minutes)
Timer gallon setting: 3,300 gallons (60,000 grains / 18 grains = 3,333)

Location 2:
Tank Size: 12x52
Resin: 2.0 cu ft per tank
Water Hardness: 15 grains (increasing to 18 grains for calculations below for a 20% margin)
Salt setting: 16 lbs (2.0 cu ft * 8 lb / cu ft)
DLFC: 3.5 gpm
BLFC: 0.5 gpm / 1.5lb salt/min
Injector: #1
Dial settings:
- Backwash: 8 minutes
- Brine and Slow Rinse: 90 minutes (longer, since it has injector #1)
- Rapid Rinse: 6 minutes
- Brine Tank Refill: 12 minutes (16 lbs salt / 1.5 lb/min = 10.67 minutes)
Timer gallon setting: 2,600 gallons (48,000 grains / 18 grains = 2,667)

Does that look reasonable? I greatly appreciate all of the advice!

 

[Reach4]

Looks good. You could reduce your backwashes to 6 minutes.

 

[OldAtHeart]

Looks good. You could reduce your backwashes to 6 minutes.

Will do - thanks again for all of the help!

 

[OldAtHeart]

Just realized that putting 7 gallons of water into my brine tank causes the water level to end up being pretty high (maybe 3/4 of the way to the top?). I have a 18x40 brine tank. This means I have to make sure to keep the salt level close to full or it will drop below the water line after a few regenerations.

Would it be better to reduce the gallons of water during the brine fill cycle and then just have it regenerate more often?

 

[Reach4]

Would it be better to reduce the gallons of water during the brine fill cycle and then just have it regenerate more often?

See the table on https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?threads/help-for-programming-fleck-5810.82673/#post-595983
See the note on the bottom. And here are some possibilities based on that table, for the 2 cuft softener, except that you are limited to an even number of minutes :
BLFC = 0.5
cubic ft resin = 2
Alternative C and BF pairs:
lb/cuft ; C= ; BF= ; grains/pound of salt
5.250 ; 18.6 ; 7 ; 2363
6.000 ; 20.0 ; 8 ; 2222
6.750 ; 21.5 ; 9 ; 2126
7.500 ; 23.0 ; 10 ; 2048
8.250 ; 24.4 ; 11 ; 1976
9.000 ; 25.7 ; 12 ; 1902 #Where you are at 12 minutes...
9.750 ; 26.7 ; 13 ; 1826
10.500 ; 27.5 ; 14 ; 1749
11.250 ; 28.2 ; 15 ; 1672
12.000 ; 28.7 ; 16 ; 1597
12.750 ; 29.2 ; 17 ; 1526
13.500 ; 29.5 ; 18 ; 1457
14.250 ; 29.8 ; 19 ; 1393
15.000 ; 30.0 ; 20 ; 1333
15.750 ; 30.2 ; 21 ; 1277


So choices are a bigger brine tank, or to make filling the brine tank part of regular maintenance. Note there are alternatives to 40 or 44 or 50 lb bags. If you have a little fork truck, there is something called a super sack. 1,000lbs/ 2 per pallet. OK, come to think of it, I don't remember a car wash with a fork truck.

 

[Bannerman]

An 18X40 tank will hold 400 lbs salt, but that size is only adequate for a 2 ft3 softener while utilizing a 10 lb/ft3 salt setting.

Reducing the salt setting to 6 lbs/ft3, that size brine tank will support up to a 3.5 ft3 softener.

While a larger capacity brine tank will be your best option, another option is to install a brine platform (brine grid) within your exsisting tank. This will elevate the salt 5" above the tank bottom. Although this will reduce the salt capacity to 350 lbs, the additional vacant space below the elevated salt will result in less fluid height for your current salt setting and will keep most of the salt elevated above the liquid.

Your exsisting brine tank with a brine grid installed, will support a 3 ft3 softener while utilizing your current 10 lb/ft3 salt setting.

See brine tank sizing chart at the link below.

https://view.publitas.com/impact-water-products/2018-catalog-final/page/132