Has anyone installed Sea Level gauges?

Started by tbwrench, July 04, 2018, 01:28:22 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

tbwrench

Has anyone installed Sea Level gauges in their 21BHS? I have a kit and am wondering the best place for the gauges to be installed on the tanks? It's looking like the gauges will have to be installed on the left or right sides of the tanks, rather than the front or back sides. This will mean lowering the tanks. Is lowering the grey & black tanks difficult? Will I need any sealant or gaskets to re-install the tanks after they are lowered? I am planning to just hook into the existing gauge wiring. Any issues with this? Any recommendations from people who may have already done this would be appreciated!

Merlin

There are several folks on here who have installed the SeeLevel monitors (me included). Our resident expert is @charliem who wrote up his install in this archived thread:

http://archive.aluminiumcamperforum.com/index.php?topic=2005.msg22013#msg22013

Michigan

GrampaKilt

#2
I'm not sure of the tank heights in your model, but I needed the short JS senders.

For my fresh water tank, I was able to install the full 6" sender on the rear facing side.
When it came to grey/black tanks, the long (side to side trailer) faces were stepped. Only the ends had vertical surfaces and being less than 6", I had trim the sender by one segment.
Only the port side of the grey tank had enough room for mounting but not so for the black one. The black tank sender is on the rear starboard side.

The Sea Level system works so well, it's one of the best mods I've done. GK

surfsup1955

I did. Not really worth the time or money in my opinion.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

charliem

Absolutely worth the effort. If you always camp in CGs with full hookups you might not care how much water is in your tanks. You could just dump periodically to be safe. However if you don't have full hookups you certainly want to know when your waste tanks are nearing capacity or you're about to run out of fresh water. If your camper has the factory 4 light indicator you should be aware that it is essentially worthless. The SeeLevel gauges, if properly calibrated, will save you many embarrassing and potentially messy "events".
Any 20 minute job can be stretched to a week with proper planning

Charlie
Northern Colorado
2014 21RBS
2013 Tacoma supercharged 4.0L V6
E2 WDH, P3 controller

surfsup1955

#5
With either set up, you will have to calculate what the percent indicators actually mean in terms of liquid quantity. With the Sea Level, you will get 100 points of visibility (0-100%). If that's better for your purposes, then I agree with Charlie.

However, 0% will not equal empty and 100% will not equal full. E.g., with the Sea Level on my fresh tank at 18%  I'm sucking air. [*** side note: If I could use all the water in my tank it would probably get down closer to 0% but my pump line needs to be moved lower for that to happen and I do plan to try and fix that***]. On the other end of the spectrum - with the gauge reading 100% - I can still add a good bit of water to the tank so its not actually full. However, the 100% reading is not so critical on the fresh tank - but it's still off. My point is, there is no way to place the transducer strips where they're as accurate as advertised. You still have to find out what the readings actually equate to in terms of each tanks' actual fluid levels.

Prior to doing the mod, using the cheapo stock gauges, I also had to calculate/document how much water was in each tank via the 100/75/50/25% lights. I did that using a gallon bucket, pencil and paper. Six of one or a half a dozen of the other?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk