Water Softener Operation

Operation

An AquaFlo Softener is an ion exchange system and has three main components:

Fibreglass tank fitted with Rohm & Haas action resin.
Control valve to regenerate resin with brine.
Brine tank to store salt and make a brine solution.

In a water softener the hard water is passed through a bed of ion exchange resin which is contained in a vessel. The ion exchange resin (Rohm & Haas IR120NA or Purolite C100E) has a capacity for exchanging sodium, which is held on the resin, for the calcium, magnesium and iron/manganese dissolved in the water. After passing through the resin bed, the water contains only the non hardness forming sodium salts, the calcium and magnesium having been removed by the resin. At some point the resin will reach its capacity for removing the calcium and magnesium. Before this point it is necessary to ‘regenerate’ the resin to restore its capacity. Regeneration is carried out by passing a brine solution through the resin (water saturated with good quality rock salt). This displaces the calcium and magnesium from the resin and restores it to maximum capacity. The resin eventually fills up with calcium, manganese or iron and requires regenerating.The regeneration will run as follows:

Backwash	This reverses the flow of water through resin bed for approximately 20 minutes to clean resin.
Brine Draw	This process uses a vacuum created by an internal injector to draw all brine water from brine tank. When all water is exhausted, ball in clear bowl (brine draw valve) falls to base and seals off brine. This is to prevent unit drawing too much air.
Rinse Cycle	Water is flushed through to waste to remove excess salt.
Brine Refill	Water is fed back at a controlled rate to brine tank. This water mixes with rock salt and makes brine solution for next regeneration.
Final Rinse	A forward cycle of final rinse to clean off any further residual salt. The resin will after this regeneration be re coated with sodium from the brine.

Softener Regeneration

The Softeners are preset to regenerate at 2am in the morning. This process takes approximately 90mins. There are two options to control what days the regeneration occurs.

Option 1 - Time Clock Regeneration (Timer)	The control is a 6 or 7 day timer. This means you can set the softener to regenerate daily, every second day etc. or weekly.
Option 2 - Demand Control	The regeneration day is determined by the amount of water used. There is an extra flow meter fitted to the softener outlet. The pulse output is counted by the controller. The controller looks at how much water has been consumed and matches this to a programmed capacity. This saves salt as the unit will only regenerate when it needs to.

Salt Usage

Each softener requires salt to regenerate, we recommend using grade 22 or similar at an approx cost $0.60/kg plus freight.

Softener Model	Kg of Salt Used Per Regeneration
SF200 A, C or D	3.6
SF250 A, C or D	7.0
SF300 A, C or D	13.5
Larger model specs are available on request.

Iron/Manganese

When iron and manganese are present the resin should be cleaned periodically by AquaFlo Resklean. Specs for this are available on Resklean data sheet #535.