Electric water softener (limescale)

[ekonoflow]

Hi all

Does anyone have any circuits / idea how those plug in water softerners are supposed to work - you know, the ones where you wrap a wire around the incoming mains feed and its supposed to condition the water.

just curious really, it would make a nice additional feature to add to my project assuming they wont cost too much to include.

regards

David

 

[stevez]

About once a year someone will ask this question. There are people who do sell systems that you describe but I've not actually seen one that works. Typically the only information that is supplied is testimonial. Usually absent is good test data.

 

[ekonoflow]

About once a year someone will ask this question. There are people who do sell systems that you describe but I've not actually seen one that works. Typically the only information that is supplied is testimonial. Usually absent is good test data.

thanks, i did try the search first.

Ill buy one and open it up - im not too concerned if it works , but more what the electronics inside actually do so that i can replicate the circuit on my project as an 'oh, it also descales as well' unique selling point.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

thanks, i did try the search first.

Ill buy one and open it up - im not too concerned if it works , but more what the electronics inside actually do so that i can replicate the circuit on my project as an 'oh, it also descales as well' unique selling point.

The magazines have been full of them over the years, EPE have done both normal IC and a PIC based one - with the usual disclaimer that there's no evidence they do anything at all.

 

[mramos1]

I build on many years ago (ran from a PIC 16F84 and big FET). It finally died and I did not replace it. Maybe I will repair it and see again.

I have the code and thing schematic. It just pulses a coil at a certain frequency. It was from EPE way back.

 

[Boncuk]

Although there is no evidence my friends use one of those for their swimming pool. It scans through a set of fixed frequencies starting at 2.5KHz up to 32KHz.

They say lime scale has reduced considerably since the device treats the incoming water. From thorough cleaning removing the lime scale once a month the time interval has now become 6 months, and even after that time the pool doesn't look as ugly as before.

Nobody is obviously interested in finding out why and how those circuits work. (I tried to get somebody of Frankfurt/Main University-chemical institute, but they don't care.) There is one logical explanation saying that the lime is converted to a crystal like shape and thereby reducing the scale.

The one I opened for curiosity had an ATMEL 89C2051 built in.

Advise: If you use such a device and fill a pot with water hearing a clicking noise, you'll know the circuit works allright.