CR Spotless Cartridge Replacement

[kilobravo]

I started seeing positive numbers on the DIC-20 display after seven months of regular and frequent use. Ordered the new carts and did the swap yesterday.

The original carts were not "see through" so I couldn't tell how "dirty" they were but the exterior of the new carts is clear. I added the metal centering gizmos because I had them for the house water treatment carts.

Easy ten minute job.

Edit: Forgot to mention the life cycle of the carts with respect to the number of rinses compared to the advertised life.

7 months
approximately five rinses per month
lowering output to 600psi is approximately 1.5gal/min flow rate
approximately 5 mins per rinse

The math comes out to 263 gallons per set of carts and the officially advertised number is 300. There's probably enough error on my estimates to make up the difference.

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[OF5.0]

KB,

With my experience as a chemist, you won’t see the resin look “dirty” when it is exhausted. So, you didn’t miss anything.

For your consideration: next time, try regenerating the resin with a 15-20 wt% solution of salt (NaCl) dissolved in distilled or deionized water. Flush the CR resin containers in reverse-flow mode (add the brine to the outlet of the CR unit and collect the effluent from the inlet of the first CR cartridge. Then flush the unit, again in reverse-flow mode, with distilled/deionized water to remove the excess brine. Based upon your pictures, you would probably need 2-3 gallons of brine and 3-6 gallons of distilled/deionized water to regenerate the resin if you can get a pump to deliver the brine at a 1-2 gallon/hour rate. The distilled/deionized water flush can be performed at a faster rate. You will save a lot of $$ and not generate a lot of plastic waste by regenerating your resin.

Scott

 

[kilobravo]

Scott: You say chemistry and I think of a two inch stack of organic memory cards! <grin>

Really appreciate the regen info but I've been down that road before with a small softener for an espresso machine in years gone by. I HAD to regen that resin and it was a bit of a pain. Roger on the resin not being dirty, I knew it wouldn't be from minerals, I was mainly ensuring that my house water treatment system was giving the DIC-20 clean water.

For a few extra bucks, I'll just buy the fresh carts, I'm too old to mess with the regen process now but many thanks for the input.

 

[GoGoGadget]

KB,

With my experience as a chemist, you won’t see the resin look “dirty” when it is exhausted. So, you didn’t miss anything.

For your consideration: next time, try regenerating the resin with a 15-20 wt% solution of salt (NaCl) dissolved in distilled or deionized water. Flush the CR resin containers in reverse-flow mode (add the brine to the outlet of the CR unit and collect the effluent from the inlet of the first CR cartridge. Then flush the unit, again in reverse-flow mode, with distilled/deionized water to remove the excess brine. Based upon your pictures, you would probably need 2-3 gallons of brine and 3-6 gallons of distilled/deionized water to regenerate the resin if you can get a pump to deliver the brine at a 1-2 gallon/hour rate. The distilled/deionized water flush can be performed at a faster rate. You will save a lot of $$ and not generate a lot of plastic waste by regenerating your resin.

Scott

15=20 wt%? That mean % by weight I assume? 3 gal of water is 25lbs so 3.75-5lbs of salt dissolved into it? I have a pump I use to circulate vinegar through my tankless water heater but it is gal per minute flow rate, not per hour. Will too high of a flow rate be ok or does it affect the process negatively?

 

[OF5.0]

15=20 wt%? That mean % by weight I assume? 3 gal of water is 25lbs so 3.75-5lbs of salt dissolved into it? I have a pump I use to circulate vinegar through my tankless water heater but it is gal per minute flow rate, not per hour. Will too high of a flow rate be ok or does it affect the process negatively?

Your choice of pump is exactly what I was thinking of. I also have a tankless water heater and use a similar pump for descaling the coils. You can slow the flow by restricting it. Alternatively, you could gravity feed the brine and adjust the flow with a stopcock valve.

Salt (NaCl) has a saturation limit of about 25 weight percent in water at practically all temperatures. Using the descaling pump in recirculating mode, similar to the tankless water heater descaling method where the descaling solution is fed and discharged to the same bucket is an excellent way to get the salt to dissolve to prepare the brine.

The time needed to regenerate the resin is crucial. Slower is not bad, but too fast of a flow will require more brine to regenerate. Ideally, one to two bed volumes per hour is the ideal flow rate. Do not recirculate the used brine. Otherwise, you will put the calcium, magnesium, and other water-spotting ions back on the resin.

 

[Specracer]

If you would like to start changing out your own cartridges (which is what I do), I buy the resin in bulk, and change as needed. The resin has sadly doubled in the last years, but still cost effective for me.

https://usa.windows101.com/products/mb1-1-non-regenerable-virgin-mixed-bed-di-resin-1-cubic-foot

 

[OF5.0]

That price isn’t bad. It’s about the same price per cubic foot as an order for bulk resin purchased in 7,000 cubic-foot quantities.

 

[kilobravo]

I've had resin on the floor of my garage ONE TIME after putting new resin in my house water softener. I put up with those little bastids for a month or more, sweeping, sweeping, vacuuming. For me, the extra cost of the prefilled carts is well worth avoiding the hassle of tiny little balls everywhere. :-)

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