How do aquasensors work?

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ditttohead

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The Silky feeling of soft water varies tremendously, but in general, it only takes a few ppm (1/4 GPG) for most people to start noticing the difference. Most test kits will see this as perfectly soft, it requires more sensitive equipment to test properly, but... completely unneeded.
 

Ifican

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While on the topic i have been using the hach 5-b test kit. Seems fairly accurate and completely consistent, if is not? I do also use the strips as a general idea and have gotten pretty good at reading the subtle differences in color.
 

ditttohead

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The Hach 5B is accurate enough for 99% of applications. It reads in GPG. More accurate test kits read in ppm. 1 GPG = 17.1 PPM.

So... if your Hach 5B test kits is sort of bluish without a drop but turns to blue in a single drop, your hardness is approximately anywhere from 1-17 ppm. Anything below 2 grains is good for the vast majority of applications including residential and most commercial applications including carwashes, dish machines, ro pre-treatment, etc. Steam boilers, EDI pre treatment, and many other commercial/industrial applications require extremely low hardness, <5 ppm or 1/3 GPG is often required and we have test kits designed for these applications. For your use, the Hach 5B is perfectly adequate.
 

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The water turned blue with just the powder and easy swirl. Didnt realized though our bodies were that sensitive good to know, thanks.
 

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http://www.wcponline.com/pdf/1203Michaud.pdf
This is an article by one of the smartest guys in the water industry. He did an excellent job of explaining the affects of hardness in gpg and you can see that anything past 3 will probably be sensed the same to us. I would love to see him expand this into the ppm range, but it doesn't apply to enough applications where it would be a useful article, plus the competing elements, variables etc would get to be a little to difficult to control without spending too much time.
 

Johnny Homeowner

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Yep, every Culligan aquasensor unit I have run across has been bypassed. In fact, I've bypassed a bunch of them myself. As for how they work, I believe that they do measure electrical resistance which changes with mineral content. Even when one is working I always wondered just how accurate they could be and of course, being made by Culligan, unless you are a dealer getting information from them is impossible. Almost as hard as getting anything out of Kinetico

I know this is an old thread and I am hoping that someone can help me out with this.

I believe that the Aqua Sensor has gone bad in my 18 year old softener. It is regenerating every other day or so. It used to regenerate about every two weeks when it was newer. My water is soft according to the test strips, so it is working. I would appreciate it if someone would tell me how to bypass the Aqua Sensor. Do you just disconnect it? Do the DIP switches need to be changed? If the Aqua Sensor is bypassed how will the unit know to regenerate? If I place a service call, Culligan is not guaranteeing that replacement parts are going to be available for my softener. Of course, they want to sell me a new unit. Purchasing a new unit does not make sense as I am not going to be living here long enough to make the investment worthwhile. Thanks in advance.
 
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Water Pro

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I know this is an old thread and I am hoping that someone can help me out with this.

I believe that the Aqua Sensor has gone bad in my 18 year old softener. It is regenerating every other day or so. It used to regenerate about every two weeks when it was newer. My water is soft according to the test strips, so it is working. I would appreciate it if someone would tell me how to bypass the Aqua Sensor. Do you just disconnect it? Do the DIP switches need to be changed? If the Aqua Sensor is bypassed how will the unit know to regenerate? If I place a service call, Culligan is not guaranteeing that replacement parts are going to be available for my softener. Of course, they want to sell me a new unit. Purchasing a new unit does not make sense as I am not going to be living here for enough time to make the costs worthwhile. Thanks in advance.
if the aqua sensor is bypassed the unit should give you another option for regen trigger in the programming menu. simply unplug it from the control board
 

Old

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I know this is an old thread and I am hoping that someone can help me out with this.

I believe that the Aqua Sensor has gone bad in my 18 year old softener. It is regenerating every other day or so. It used to regenerate about every two weeks when it was newer. My water is soft according to the test strips, so it is working. I would appreciate it if someone would tell me how to bypass the Aqua Sensor. Do you just disconnect it? Do the DIP switches need to be changed? If the Aqua Sensor is bypassed how will the unit know to regenerate? If I place a service call, Culligan is not guaranteeing that replacement parts are going to be available for my softener. Of course, they want to sell me a new unit. Purchasing a new unit does not make sense as I am not going to be living here for enough time to make the costs worthwhile. Thanks in advance.

Can you take a picture of your softener? They used the aqua sensor on a few different models.
Do you have a wire plugged into the output port between the valve and bypass? I have seen a few that only had the aqua sensor and did not even have a turbine meter installed.
 

Johnny Homeowner

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Can you take a picture of your softener? They used the aqua sensor on a few different models.
Do you have a wire plugged into the output port between the valve and bypass? I have seen a few that only had the aqua sensor and did not even have a turbine meter installed.

Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned the brand of softener I own. It is a Culligan Gold Series 9". Here are the photos you requested.

6-27-21 (2a).jpg
 

Johnny Homeowner

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The only wires going to the control board are the Aqua Sensor and the power supply. I believe that I do not have a turbine meter installed.
This is a view from the top.

6-27-21 (1a).jpg
 
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Old

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Yeah that's an older one. You do not have a turbine meter, regeneration is triggered by the aqua sensor only. I am not familiar with the programming on those but you may be able to set it on a day override (regenerate every set number of days). This is inefficient and usually wastes water and salt though. Probably time to just replace it.
 

Johnny Homeowner

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Yeah that's an older one. You do not have a turbine meter, regeneration is triggered by the aqua sensor only. I am not familiar with the programming on those but you may be able to set it on a day override (regenerate every set number of days). This is inefficient and usually wastes water and salt though. Probably time to just replace it.

You are right, I do not have a turbine meter which Culligan calls the "Soft-Minder". I was able to locate the Culligan Gold Series Service Manual on the internet. First, I disconnected power to the water softener. I disconnected the Aqua Sensor from the control board and set DIP switch #10 to the "ON" position. This enabled option 8 in the programming menu. This is the regeneration interval, option 8 was not available to me with the Aqua Sensor installed. I set the interval to 14 days. This is the regeneration interval I remember when it was newer. I will monitor the water softness with test strips and adjust the interval as necessary. I know this is not the optimum setup as far as water and salt usage goes, but at least it is not regenerating every day. That was a huge waste of resources.

Thanks to "Water Pro" and "Old" for your help on this problem. I hope that others will find this information useful when working on their Culligan Water Softener.
 
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