Thursday, September 11, 2008

Setting Brine Tank Refill Time on Fleck Softener Valve

The Pentair® Fleck® multi-port softener valve controllers, electronic versions SE, XT, XTR and SXT and non-electronic versions, are very flexible allowing for customization of the regeneration cycle of the water softener. This flexibility requires that you know a little bit about the system and a simple calculation -"Brine Refill Time". Although a simple calculation, "Brine Refill Time" is often misunderstood.

Definitions:
The "Brine Refill Time" is easy to calculate and is the same regardless of valve and controller type.

The following values are based on the design of the softener and valve.

T = Brine Tank Refill Time (minutes)
X = Brine Line Flow Control Rating (gpm)
Y = Salt Dosage sometimes called Regeneration Level (lbs/cuft)
Z = Amount of Resin in Softener (cuft)

In order to set the time you need to know the concentration of saturated brine

C = 2.6 lbs/gallon = Concentration of Saturated Brine

So the equation is:

T = (Y * Z)/(X * C)

Example:

X = 0.5 gpm
Y = 12 lbs/cuft
Z = 2.5 cuft

T = (12 * 2.5)/(0.5 * 2.6) = 23 minutes for brine refill step

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