Black Tank - Where is it? Calibrated?

[NealC]

I have a SeeLevel Blue Tooth monitor to view the tank levels in percentages on my phone. Newmar installed it for me, the black tank readings don't align with the coach's. The coach is showing 2/3rd (yellow light on toilet control), SeeLevel is showing 35%. I checked all of the SeeLevel sensor strips, they are centered vertically. I'm not sure which is right, I have no choice but to use the coach's reading as obviously it shuts you down when it says no more.

I removed the pegboard to review the sensor strips and see two black colored tanks. Which one is black vs. gray? I spoke with the SeeLevel tech support and he said check the alignment of the sensor strip with Newmar's sensors. Apparently this has been a common issue/complaint.

I need to know which tank is black and if anyone has had problems with the MH's sensors reading wrong and needing recalibration or is this a SeeLevel/sensor issue?

[ghaynes754]

Neal I find that the built in system is notoriously bad. Example the toilets which are supposed to go to yellow light at 2/3 turn on and stay there when the SeeLevel is at 20%. I can tell you that for fresh water I meter the amount the amount of water being added with inline flow meter that I have. 50% on the SeeLevel is spot on for 50% water added.

To tell which tank simply look at the dump side and trace the pipes. I think most Newmar the black tank is to the front of the coach and the grey is behind.

[NealC]

Did you recalibrate the coach sensor then? If the SeeLevel is correct then the coach sensor is way off. It needs to be reset then as you know when it says full it won't allow a flush.

[DGBPokes]

My Newmar, behind the pegboard, the black tank was directly under the toilet, and had one large pipe on top going into it.The Gray had two smaller pipes going into the top, one from the front area, and one from the back area. I just added the SeeLevel standard system myself a couple of weeks ago. Will calibrate it first trip in a couple of weeks. I can already tell, it is 1000% more accurate than the old factory unit.

[andyh]

The gray tank toward the front of the coach is the black tank. The tank bottoms are sloping toward the driver side. If the seelevel sensors are installed behind the peg board on the passenger side, the Seelevel will indicate lower levels than the Newmar. The full and 100% should be very close

[AzGoldDigger]

If you look in the compartment under the toilet, you should find the toilet controller. It will have a blue cable going into it that looks like an Ethernet cable. It will also have a yellow wire (I'll add a pic later). If you disconnect the yellow wire, you can defeat the "red" toilet lock-out.

I know this doesn't address your initial concern, but at least you can flush the toilet if you know the tank isn't full.

As an alternative, flush the black tank really well the completely empty it. Put the toilet in the water wasting mode. It then uses about a gallon a flush. Flush till the tank is full. Measure and mark a 5 gallon line on a 5 gallon bucket. (Most 5 gallon buckets hold about 6 gallons). Drain tank till empty while counting the true gallons.

When I did this I red lighted at 80% or 36 gallons of a 45 gallon tank!

[Steele]

Watching this thread as we are experiencing the same issue.

Last weekend I removed the peg board to check the position of the See Level tank sensors. On the strips the tech cut the tab at the top to set the function. Look carefully and you will see the BLK, GRY, FRS tabs trimmed on the corresponding strip. Using this info you can identify which tank is which.

While in there I also cleaned up the rat's nest of wiring the Newmar CPU tech left me with and added the siphon break fix I found on another thread. I haven't filled the fresh tank to verify full fill (with no loss of fresh through the overflow) yet but I have my fingers crossed. The mod took about 30 minutes and $30.[emoji106][emoji106][emoji41][emoji41]

John

[Busskipper]

Originally Posted by DGBPokes

My Newmar, behind the pegboard, the black tank was directly under the toilet, and had one large pipe on top going into it.The Gray had two smaller pipes going into the top, one from the front area, and one from the back area. I just added the SeeLevel standard system myself a couple of weeks ago. Will calibrate it first trip in a couple of weeks. I can already tell, it is 1000% more accurate than the old factory unit.

Under the toilet. This should be easy to find - but the sensor will not work reliably. JMHO

RV Tank Sensors &The GEO Method – Wheeling It

https://sites.google.com/site/cbruni/

Info on these sites might help.

Best of luck,

[C.Martin]

https://comnet2.newmarcorp.com/insta...16DSDPP130.pdf

The digilevel calibration is no more than where they physically stuck sensors onto the sides of the tank. You'll have the 1/3, 2/3, Full sensor pads. Using the TLAR method of calibration...

Schematic shows the yellow and orange wires going to macerator toilet relay.

Gotta stick head way under water bay control panels to see these little black squares afixed to the tanks... fresh tank is kinda easy to see....

[NealC]

The problem is Newmar put the sensors on the wet bay side and CPU install of SeeLevel on the pegboard (opposite) side. I can't access the tanks without removing the wet bay panel which I'm not going to do to put new sensors (approx $66ea) on the other side.

Which side did you attach yours to Charlie?

I did order one sensor strip to redo black maybe as it's the only one seemingly way off.

[C.Martin]

I also installed mine pegboard side.

I think we'll have to be appeased by coming up with a compass calibration card.

When I finally do my test, ( waiting for a FHU site, so I don't have to run my macerator at home)...I'll try to figure out a way to display the data in a graphical manner, which will be easy to see what readings correspond to a particular number of gallons. I'll try to do one for each tank. It will be a holding tank equivalent of the compass correction card.

I don't worry too much about the macerator... It is our preferred toilet...but we keep it off-limits when staying at a site with no sewer hookup. We use the gravity toilet in the half-bath as it uses way less water.

I think the black and grey tanks have a slope to them sloping down toward the drain pipe connection. The fresh tank appears flat bottomed. I think the main focus is to be able to interpret the readings in a manner that lets you trip plan...to see how and when you have to schedule a refill of water or a dump of black or gray. And to be able to adjust your routine to accommodate your plans.

[NealC]

I'd like to know not only a correction factor but if the MH sensors are off and needing calibration or if the SeeLevel is off and needing some adjustment (new sensor, better located or cut down).

I think this may be a good option to test with:

http://a.co/9v78Jhk

A flow sensor. Attach to a garden hose and bring inside and fill the desired tank monitoring readings on sensors and the meter.

[C.Martin]

That's what I have...picked it up at Home Depot.

[AzGoldDigger]

The accuracy issue with the SeeLevel comes from a couple of things.

First, the fresh water tank is level, but the standard SS sensor is not the exact correct length. Consequently, the SeeLevel will read 100% until you have used about 10 gallons and it will read 0% when you still have 5-10 gallons. If I remember right, the sensor was about 3/4" short on both top and bottom. This also affects the other tanks to a lesser degree.

Second, the grey and black tanks are tilted with the water bay side being lower by about 3/4". Consequently, these readings are off depending which side the sensor strips are on. If the sensors are on the high (pegboard side), there is clearly some capacity to be filled before the fluid even reaches the bottom of the tank on the high side. If on the low side, the fluid will reach the top of the tank on the low side while there is some unused capacity.

I put my sensors on the high side, but I think the low side makes more sense for the grey and black as I would rather have SeeLevel report 100% when I still had some capacity.

Third, the standard SS sensors have to be cut at 9" for the for our 10" Blk and Grey tanks. The sides of these tanks are no where near 1/2" thick.

I'm thinking of getting an ES sensor as that is a better fit for a 10" tank. I'm also going to mount it on the low side.