Jane and John's RV pagesWe finally kiss the one-thirds goodbye!
Hello Garnet SeeLevel tank monitor system
>Page 6 - access to the fresh water tank, installing the sensor strips on the tank wall, sensor wiring
Installing the sensor on the fresh water tank wasn't nearly as impossible as I first thought. Okay, not impossible but it certainly had my head hurting. As far as I know, there is no easy way to expose the side of the fresh water tank or get your hand access to it, so we have to resort to a bit of 'magic' - sort of like arthroscopic surgery. Have no fear - you can get the new sensor strip firmly against the side of your tank!
First order of business is to get the Styrofoam insulation board up and out of the way on the forward part of the tank to make room for the new sensor strip.
We are recycling the picture of the device I made to position the sensor strip against the side of the fresh water tank in case you are jumping around the pages. Stick the strip on the board and make a practice run or two of positioning the board near the tank, but not in contact with it. Once you are comfortable with your technique, pull the paper completely off the adhesive and carefully position the board/strip against the wall of the tank and flex the board against the tank which will partially stick the strip to the tank.
Carefully pull the board out and grab the foam paint trim roller (or use whatever device/method you chose) and roll it up and down several times to press the strip firmly against the tank. Try to get the roller as close to the bottom of the strip as possible. The foam roller I bought did go to the bottom of the tank after sawing off the 'ears' on the handle.
Note: Before you stick the sensor down permanently, buff up the surface of the tank wall with some 220 grit sandpaper using something like the device I show on page two. After you make a few swipes with sandpaper, use a device that will let you stick a cloth with some acetone on it to wipe down the target area. Here again the Masonite strip worked quite well for this purpose.
If you are only sticking down the one sensor (what I did), you do not need to cut anything on the sensor strip for programming - you can use it as-is. If you are going to stack sensor strips, then you will need to check the Shop Manual for programming instructions. If you stack sensor strips, they must both be an equal length. For example, our 16" tall tank would need 15" of sensor to allow for 1/2" clearance at the top and bottom (the strip should not go all the way to the top or bottom.) For 15" of sensor strips, you would cut two strips to 7 1/2" (and you only cut between the pads - I have a picture showing this detail on page four.)
The reason you need to connect both yellow wires together is that one of the wires goes to the outside monitor, and the other one goes to the inside monitor. Here you can notice my soldering job with heat-shrink tubing. While it appears the sensor strip is not monitoring quite a bit of the tank, the full fill level of the tank is about two inches from the top, so in reality I have about two inches not read (16" tall tank - 12" sensor strip = 4" left over.) The critical parameter is how much water is left, so that's why the strip is biased toward the tank bottom.
The fresh water tank is all completed! I should have dressed the sensor wires to the right of the strip and not up, but it seems to work okay like this.
Page 1 - project introduction
Page 2 - pictures of the 'special tools' and jigs I used, picture of the Garnet system, disassembly of the plumbing bay part 1
Page 3 - we finish disassembly of the plumbing bay and look at wiring
Page 4 - we test and finish up sensor strip installation
Page 5 - building a bezel for the outside display, finishing up the outside
>Page 6 - access to the fresh water tank, installing the sensor strips on the tank wall, sensor wiring
Page 7 - we start installing the inside display, removal of the old display board & switches, cutting off the solar panel part of the old circuit board (optional), cutting an opening in the OnePlace steel panel for the new display
Page 8 - Wiring and project wrap-up