SOFT-SEL®: working principle of salt A small water softener is built in at the bottom of each dishwasher. This water softener functions in the same way as the big water softeners which quite a few people have in their basement or in their garage. The purpose of the softener is to remove calcium and magnesium from the drinking-water or the well water. If not, after drying the water could leave white calcium and magnesium traces on the dishes. Contrary to manually drying, in the dishwasher the drying takes place by evaporation and not by wiping off the remaining water with a towel. Before entering the washing compartment, the water which is used for the washing and the rinsing cycles, first flows through the ion exchanging resin to dispose of calcium and magnesium. After a number of washes the resin is saturated, it has to be "washed" in order to become "active" again. The washing or the "regeneration" is done by means of "brine". This brine is produced in the brine reservoir and is lead through the actual softener in order to remove the calcium from the small yellow micro-balls (ion exchanging resin). The mixture of salt and calcium is conducted to the sewage. After regeneration the water softener is once more rinsed with pure water in order to avoid that salt rests penetrate into the dishwasher. After this last rinsing the softener can function properly again. According to the hardness of the water the installer can determine how many times per number of washes the machine has to "regenerate" (and this also affects the salt consumption).