water softener

Dusty MI

Well-known Member
Our water is not all that hard but we have a softener that is 9 years old and works fine, it has a clock control. It has a small problem, if the electricity goes off the clock might restart running backwards.

Is it possible and/or practicable to change the control to a modern mattered one?

Dusty
 
I doubt a new one could be retrofitted, but might be worth looking into.

In the meantime, try opening it up and cleaning the mechanism. Look for anything that may be binding. Oil it with some very light oil.

Some timers have replaceable motors. If it can be removed, look for numbers on the motor itself, or it may be available from the manufacturer, someplace like Ereplacment parts, etc.
Clock Motors
 
I have worked on softeners a little bit, those clock motors that I have seen have a little ratchet in them
to prevent them from running backwards. Maybe yours is stuck and not working properly, blow the dust out
of it and give it a little light lube. One time years ago the wife and I walked into church with some
other folks and an older lady said the clock is running backwards. My wife unplugged it, turned the plug
over and plugged it in, and the clock started running clockwise! She has been proud of that moment ever
since. It seems when a clock motor starts it's not fussy which way it goes so that's why they need a
little ratchet to prevent running backwards.
 
Yep, you are CORRECT, those little "synchronous" clock motors simply start and RUN, and keep in sync with the line frequency and it's a 50-50 deal which WAY they start and run.

Typically, there's a little spring-loaded or counterweighted pawl that catches 'em if they start backwards and bounces 'em back in the correct direction.

IF the pawl isn't gummed up or stuck.

If it is, it causes observers to wonder what the heck is going on, as they observe a clock or an appliance time running backwards!
 
The clock in our old one room school would often start and run backwards when the power blinked, which was quite often in the fifties. Wasn't the red dot in the little hole under the "12" an indicator to tell you if it was running backwards? Seems like an eighth grader would be dispatched to get up on a chair and re-start the clock when the red dot appeared.
 

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