SeeLevel II Tank Monitor Went Tango Uniform

[gdbontly]

Yesterday morning everything was fine. We hitched up the coach and traveled from our house in Belen to the FamCamp at Kirtland AFB. After setting everything up, I tried to check the tank levels, and the monitor display is dead! The pump switch works and the green light is on when the switch is on. I pulled the monitor panel and found that the red wire to the circuit board does have power. But when I press any of the buttons (battery, fresh, gray, or black) to check levels, nothing. I can only presume that the circuit board went out. Tried calling Ralph at RV Sales, but they are closed for the holiday weekend and won't reopen until Tuesday. Not a real big deal; I've been tracking our usage of fresh water and filling/dumping of the tanks, and learned that we do so about once a week. So I'll just have to keep track of the days between these events until I can get the monitor panel fixed or replaced.

[KU9L]

Frustrating I'd say ... our KIB Micro Monitor just likes to say everything is 2/3 - Full every chance it gets without a lot of extra work to make it say otherwise. We are really good at using our 6th Sense to determine tank true levels.

Dave

[rockintom]

Sorry to hear about you problem....Being in our rig(s) for 6 years we can very easily tell when the black tank is gettin' full. When you flush the fuller it changes tone or it has a higher pitch....like a tall glass of water when you fill it, the tone or sound of it gets louder or "fuller" as it fills. Gray tank.....you guess and try to keep track (guess-timated) of the amount of water going in based on your experience.

All I can say (and folks that have replaced their gray and black tanks themselves concour) baby your tanks and don't let them get too full or overflow and travel with the least amount of stuff in your tanks. Fresh water tank is somewhat of an exception as the tank is surrounded with an angle iron cage and supported pretty well.

Please let us know what you find out your root cause of failure. I know you said you had B+ to the board. How about the ground circuit for that board? rockin'

[BookIIRoadtrash]

Yep you will learn by the sounds when flushing, but if it burps back at you it might be to late!!!!

["007"]

Have you checked for a good ground?

SeeLevel

[rockintom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BookIIRoadtrash Yep you will learn by the sounds when flushing, but if it burps back at you it might be to late!!!!

B2, You are so right....I almost forgot about that......when the level of water, etc. gets near the very top of the tank it covers the vent tube and the tank can't breathe.....hence the big burp when you first flush the toilet. And if you catch it just right it will belch back whatever is in the pot and spray it out of the toilet bowl. The clean up is not nice or pretty! If it starts belching.......you better get your lazy butt outside and start pullin' handles! rockin'

[rockintom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by "007" Have you checked for a good ground?

Same question I asked a couple of post ago. Glenn is pretty sharp on this stuff and he usually gets back with us quickly, but he may be at a really good happy hour!!!

Yo Yo Glenn.....how's about that ground??? Inquiring minds want to know!!

[gdbontly]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockintom Same question I asked a couple of post ago. Glenn is pretty sharp on this stuff and he usually gets back with us quickly, but he may be at a really good happy hour!!! Yo Yo Glenn.....how's about that ground??? Inquiring minds want to know!!

Sorry, was quite busy yesterday and didn't get a chance to get back on the forum. Actually, it was totally CRAZY around here; I'll save that story for another post. Anyway, when I checked the power at the rear of the SeeLevel panel, I put my meter probes on the red and black wires. I presume that if the ground was bad, it wouldn't have read any power. I'm not sure how else to check the ground, other than trying to trace the black wire to wherever it goes. So I think the ground is okay. Bryan sent me a PM yesterday, which I will try today after it starts to warm up. Although it's not too bad this morning at 30 degrees (at 6:30 am). Anyway, Bryan told me to shut off all power to the coach, including turning off the battery switch. That should reset the power to the SeeLevel. I'll let you know if that works. To be continued . . .

[gdbontly]

Bryan's "fix" worked! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I unplugged shore power and turned off the battery switch, waited a couple of minutes, re-connected power and turned battery switch back on. SeeLevel back alive.

[rockintom]

Great Glenn......just for your info....I had to do that with my RV Comfort thermostat one time (not talking about a reset by simply turning off and on the switch on the panel). I had to take the cover off the thermostat and take the fuse out and reinstall to make the darn thing work. It wouldn't do anything.....like it had lost all power.

In the electronics arena we call it a "logic lockup", in otherwords, I don't know what caused the failure, but shut me down and light me back up and I'll work!!!! Kinda like a computer reboot! So glad you shared that little trick with us! rockin'

[RickO]

Isn't it amazing how many things these days can be fixed by hitting "control, alt, delete"?

One thought on how to test for ground problems is to use a wire jumper connected directly from ground on the control board to the frame to see if it changes the symptoms at all.

Glad it's working!

Rick

[rockintom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gdbontly Sorry, was quite busy yesterday and didn't get a chance to get back on the forum. Actually, it was totally CRAZY around here; I'll save that story for another post. Anyway, when I checked the power at the rear of the SeeLevel panel, I put my meter probes on the red and black wires. I presume that if the ground was bad, it wouldn't have read any power. I'm not sure how else to check the ground, other than trying to trace the black wire to wherever it goes. So I think the ground is okay. Bryan sent me a PM yesterday, which I will try today after it starts to warm up. Although it's not too bad this morning at 30 degrees (at 6:30 am). Anyway, Bryan told me to shut off all power to the coach, including turning off the battery switch. That should reset the power to the SeeLevel. I'll let you know if that works. To be continued . . .

Just an update to this old thread. I've had this issue happen 3 times and have always done a complete power down on the rig and it fixed the dead SeeLevel monitor everytime. Tonight it was cold outside and I decided to jack with the fuses and breakers to see what I could do. Long story short, I found that simply shutting off the converter breaker for about 5 seconds and then back on fixes the issue. I didn't even have to get out of my PJs or leave my glass of wine!!! Easy and quick fix....hope this helps someone down the line. rockin'

[rockintom]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockintom Just an update to this old thread. I've had this issue happen 3 times and have always done a complete power down on the rig and it fixed the dead SeeLevel monitor everytime. Tonight it was cold outside and I decided to jack with the fuses and breakers to see what I could do. Long story short, I found that simply shutting off the converter breaker for about 5 seconds and then back on fixes the issue. I didn't even have to get out of my PJs or leave my glass of wine!!! Easy and quick fix....hope this helps someone down the line. rockin'

Guess I need to mention the "battery disconnect" switch was off...

[CynPat]

Thanks Tom ... but where's the Converter Breaker? My hubby probably knows, but just for my info?