GE Osmonics Seminar
by Bill Warren

Last weeks article has not yet been finished, but with good reason. Instead we (The Water Value Team) attended the Autotrol World Tour Seminar in Lansing, Michigan. Autotrol, owned by General Electric and Osmonics, sponsored the tour for the purpose of demonstrating their water softener and water filter control valves. The seminar was 8 hours long and covered setup and programming of their 255, 268, 263, Performa CV, Magnum, 180 and Aquamatic series valves along with the 440i, 460i and 960 controls.

The seminar was hosted by Pat Byle, Midwest regional account manager for Autotrol. The tour is designed to show the support and conviction that GE Osmonics has for its network of Autotrol dealers. This week, we will cover some of the points of the seminar that pertained to commercial and residential valves and how they affect you, the end user.

Why Autotrol? The reasons for choosing Autotrol over any other brand is the unique and modular design of their water conditioner control valves. All GE Osmonics Autotrol softener and filter control valves are designed around their "flapper" style valve or gate. When a backwash is required in a water softener, the appropriate flapper valve opens to allow water to flow in the proper direction for the proper function. In the case of a water softener rinsing its resin with brine water, the flapper valve that connects to the brine tank's line opens, along with the flapper valve that allows for draining of the resin tank. As the water flows from the resin tank, the brine is sucked in to replace it. The control valves work this way for rapid rinse, brine rinse, refill and brine tank refill.

These flapper valves open and close based on the lobe configuration of a central cam shaft. Various lobes can be used to configure the function of the control valve. For instance, suppose you have a softener in a township that requires very low brine usage. The first thing you would need to do is make sure that your resin tank is at least one third larger than normally called for, then order an Autotrol valve with the salt-stingy cam.

All GE Osmonics Autotrol water conditioning valves come with a 5-year warranty which starts on the day of manufacture of the valve. That is why it is a good idea to purchase your system from a reputable dealer that does not have these systems sitting around on a shelf, but orders them directly from the OEM like Water Value Company does (shameless plug)!

The Autotrol 255 Series Water Softener Valve The 255 series valves started life as the 155 series which was updated in the 1970's. It is a proven design and has been their most popular valve design ever. All settings on this valve are adjustable. The flow control plug on the valve will equal the diameter of the mineral tank you are using. The refill (brine) control is adjustable and the brine injectors are color-coded; white is small, blue is medium and red is large. Another update to this series of valves is that the material the flapper valves are made of is now chlorine resistant.

The 440i Control The 440i control is the timer version of the 255 valve. It uses a 6 or 7 day timer for setting regeneration. The "pin wheel" on the front of the valve is where you set your regeneration days. In other words, if you want to regenerate every Sunday night, you would press in the 7th day pin. If you would like to regenerate your system every 3rd day, you would press in the 6th and 3rd pins on a 6-day timer.

The Autotrol 255-440i timer control valve.

The 440i can be manually regenerated by rotating the indicator knob counter-clockwise to the "Start" setting. Regeneration lasts 118 minutes, but cams are available in 90 and 59 minute lengths. The 59 minute cam is a real water saver, but the brine adjustment should be doubled to compensate.

The Autotrol 460i Control The 460i is the automatic version of the 440i. It uses an internal turbine to measure the flow of water to your home or business. It is very easy to setup. Simply plug it in and set the time of day, the amount of hardness in your water and the size of your mineral tank. The instructions for the 460i come with a chart used for setting the mineral tank capacity.

The Autotrol 255-460i metered control vlave.

The 460i will keep track of your water usage and regenerate accordingly. The non-volatile RAM chip will not lose your information even during a power failure.

The Autotrol Performa 1" Water Softener Control Valve This is their heavy-duty residential/commercial water softener control valve. It has 1 inch connections for higher flow rates of up to 20 gallons-per-minute. This valve can use the 400 series of controls or, more commonly, the 900 series of control interface. It features a "soft water brine refill" and up to a 11/4" connection.

GE Osmonics Seminar Impressions Because of the recent purchase of Osmonics by General Electric, many dealers were concerned there would be control valves such as the ones found at Home Depot which are marketed by GE. The answer is "No". There is a good possibility we might see some Autotrol water softener control valves at Home Depot in the future, but the less desireable GE water softener valves will stay at the national home improvement stores and will not find their way to the Autotrol line of products.

Our group thought the seminar was very helpful. They showed our installers some tricks they did not know before and explained their hexidecimal control valve outputs (which I will not bore you with here). They served us lunch and refreshements and even offered us engineering support!

I would like to see some of the other water softener control companies do this type of seminar also. It was a day well spent.