SeeLevel II Replay

First Version

A couple of years ago now we purchased a SeeLevel system for our 26ft trailer, well because the tank monitors were screwing up even before we started filling our tanks.  That install was pretty straightforward as things around RVs go.  All three tanks were transverse in the front half of the trailer.  All the factory monitors and thus wires were on the same side. The sides of the tanks were flat so placing the sensors was easy.  SeeLevel II reuses the existing wiring so that wasn’t a problem either.  Inside the trailer – the factory level gauge was in the upper left corner of the main control panel and there was sufficient room that I was able to cut out the factory junk and then insert the SeeLevel panel right into the hole over the panel.

Second Version

So eventually, we traded in our TT for a Class C; Forest River, Sunseeker 3050S.  You might think with a bigger vehicle, it might be easier to get the guts and work on things.  Nope – no way, nada, can’t do it!  Well, it won’t be easy.

The first clue was that the fresh water fill was 6 feet up on the right side.  Huh?  In the bedroom – there is a closet that runs the length of the right side of the RV. It stops 2 feet or so above the floor. The fresh water tank is in that space.  If you take out the closet floor (don’t), you can see the top of the tank. If you go into the rear basement storage and take out the front wall – you can access the tank monitor, the fill, the overflow and the tank outlet hoses.   So that is the only access to the fresh water, big enough to place the SeeLevel components.   More on this later.

The black and grey tanks run transverse, under the floor, just forward of that area.

Both ends can be accessed by taking down the plastic panels in the storage bins just behind the rear wheels.  The tanks have a sloping bottom.  They are about 5 inches thick on the right side and 8 on the left side.  So the factory tank monitors are on the left side – as are the actual drains.  My grey tank doesn’t vent right but that is a story for another post.

Tight Spaces

The black tank is forward of the grey – and only the back half of it is really accessible. AND – there is a step built into the end of the tanks so they can use a metal bracket to mount them to the floor. This leaves only the sides for attaching the SeeLevel sensors.  Maybe you see where this is going.  The only side accessible on the black tank was the one 1” or less from the grey tank. To add insult to injury – they placed the tank heaters on the end of the tank.  These are some sort of wire grid, backed by 3/16 sticky foam about 8 inches wide and long enough to wrap around ¾ of the tank.  So now my only accessible place to mount the sensors to the black tank as between the tanks and about a foot deep into that space.Narrow gap between black (left) and grey tank (right).

As I was concerned about the sensors working in tight space, I contacted SeeLevel (Garnet) and they suggested shielding the sensors with 1/16 rubber gasket material.  Ok – so I actually used that on all three sensors because I had no idea what might be pushed up against the wall in the basement storage area.

But how to do this. Each SeeLevel Sensor is a flexible printed circuit – with components right oh the surface and a very sticky glue on the back.  I knew I was only going to get one chance to get this installed.  Any “second chance” was going to cost me another sensor.   (first I stuck a folded paper towel to a paint stir stick, applied rubbing alcohol liberally – and used that to clean the side of the tank.  Yes, I have alcohol wipes, but this was no place to mess around with little pieces of alcohol dipped paper.

Sensor attached to stick with peel off backing extended.The freshwater sensors went in first, and easiest, as access was quite open.  Then I took the paper that came off the fresh water tank sensors and taped it to the top of the paper protecting the back of the black tank sensor.  Then I took a long stick and taped it to the front of the sensor with gaffer’s tape – taking care to only place the tape on the edges away from components.

Push stick - 2 rubber pieces under tape. I was able then to slide the monitor strip between the tanks and hold it in place while I pulled down on the paper to uncover the glue on the back of the strip.  The stick was able to put enough pressure on the strip to stick it in place.  Then I took another paint stick – added a couple of the pieces of rubber gasket and taped over.  I then used this stick – while carefully looking down the gap between tanks – to press the strip to the tank.   This took a while as I didn’t want to pull off any of the components in the process. Rubber shield with paint stick positioner.

Now for the rubber gasket shield.  Same process, different parts.  I cut a piece of the gasket material that was about 3 inches wider than the strip. Down both edges on one side, I applied a heavy duty double stick (outdoor) tape, leaving the plastic strip on the one side.  I then attached plastic and some leftover rubber strips to the cover plastic so I could pull it down in the same fashion as I did the monitor strip.

Picture up between tanks with shield in place, not stuck down.I pulled the rubber sheet up alongside the monitor strip.  I couldn’t tell very well if I had the horizontal placement correct looking from the end, so I put my phone, in camera mode, under the two tanks, looking up – and used that to try to make sure the monitor strip was in between the Rubber shield w/double stick tape and pull-down strips.double stick tape attached to the rubber.  When I thought all was lined up – I pulled down on each of the tape covers and pushed the sheet against the tank.  Then I worked my stick back and forth until the tape let go of the sheet. Then I used the paint stick with rubber on it to push on the gasket to make sure the double stick tape was making good contact.

 

Control Panel with SeeLevel II placement

Next, I cut the old sensor wires and hooked up the new ones.  I almost forgot the SeeLevel monitors come with about 8 inches of wire – which often is long enough. For these grey and black tanks, I had added another 18 inches to make connecting a bit easier.  It was absolutely required for the black tank.

Inside – there was no room to cut the monitor panel into the existing panel – and some generator indicators were part of the tank monitor and I wanted to leave those for now. Thus I cut a space for the SeeLevel monitor below my existing panel.

Ok, now for my Forest River rant.

When working on the panel – I needed to remove two wires from their spade lugs – did I say that?  Actually, I needed to pull two spade lugs from the back of a switch so I could add power and ground for the SeeLevel.  The wires pulled right out of the spade lugs – as I expect, many of the wires on the panel would do.  Forest River cannot reliably put terminals and crimps on their wires!!! I’ve seen this problem dozens of times on RVs I’ve worked on.  All too often crimp connectors are installed with PLIERS!  Never use pliers – use a real crimp tool.

Second – look at this panel that covers the fresh tank.  There were 5 screw holes UNDER the trim meaning someone put it together that way – THEN decided trim was necessary because it looks like they cut the wall panel with a chainsaw.  Of course, the trim was nailed in.  When I went to reinstall it all, I put screws in because I might just need to get back into that space.  Why use 10 screws on three sides of the panel, then a dozen nails on one side with trim?

I’m a happy user of SeeLevel II.  I just recommend if you want to install yourself, step one is exploring your tanks to make sure you can find a place to install them.  Measure your flat space because you’ll need that to order your sensors.

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Good Idea, So So Product, Terrible Service.

It is a good idea for your RV to have some sort of shore power test and protection device, an Energy Management System (EMS).  A device that checks to see if a pedestal is wired correctly, that power frequency and voltage are within reasonable bounds so devices in your RV aren’t damaged.  I chose a particular brand of EMS and have installed three of them in different RV’s in the family.  I chose the same model – a built-in model as I didn’t want to mess with one that hangs off a power pedestal (and has to be locked to keep it from being stolen). Also with the built-in model, the display can be remotely mounted, inside the RV.

In our travels, these EMS units have warned us several times against miswired power pedestals.  They have also cut power when campground power was too low to be running air conditioners and the like.  And when they are operating, the display gives us the comfort of knowing our power condition and load we are placing on then shore connection.  Great, right?

As with so many products today – they work until they don’t and then EVERYTHING comes down to customer service.

And customer service with this particular company just plain sucks.  [Company name withheld temporarily]

When I first installed my unit – it would freak out when I plugged in my generator.  I contacted tech support and they refused to diagnose “because I was using a generator”.  Not because I was using some crappy generator that didn’t supply a decent power waveform, but simply because I was using a generator.  I knew this generator supplied a clean power waveform – but I pulled out my oscilloscope and checked – yes, very clean sine wave.  So they must not trust their product to operate or self-diagnose if power isn’t perfect.  Wait – did I just say that?  An EMS needs to operate under the most severe conditions – at least enough to refuse to connect power and indicate an error condition.

What was worse with mine was the unit was NOT acting in a reasonable manner.  The relay was buzzing, indicating the control board was in some sort of loop, unable to come to a stable state.

So, no help from tech support.  I checked EVERYTHING.  What I found was the shore power connector on the side of my RV did not have the RV side wires fully screwed down.  Thanks, Forest River.  The screw was touching, but not making a good connection.  I tightened everything properly, put it all back together and the EMS was perfectly happy running on the generator.   We used this EMS for several months worth of camping.  I installed the same EMS in another RV that put about 6 months camping on it – both happy customers.  Then I traded in my RV for another – and installed yet a third EMS that I’ve put a couple of months on as well – still a happy camper, one bad experience with tech support notwithstanding.

So, why am I bitching?  The second unit failed.  While boondocking in the middle of no-where.  While using the generator.  I’m sure you can see what is coming.  The owner called tech support only to be told – “Generator?  Nope, call us back when you get on real power.”

That was going to be days in coming.  Via a terrible cell phone connection, I talked them through some tests and a procedure to bypass power around the EMS so they could continue to use the generator.

Days later when they were finally able to get to a campground with power, they called tech support again – meter in hand to diagnose the problem.  The tech asked them to check power on the box incoming side – then outgoing and verified – nope, the box isn’t passing power.  Then tech had them check the ohm reading on the relay energizing coil.  Just over 2 ohms – sounds to me like the energizing coil is good.  No questions about the status of the LED on the control board. The tech asked if the display was showing anything – and was told no – so he knew it was dead.  The LED is off, indicating the control board has no power.  The display is dead, indicating the control board isn’t operating.  So the tech’s conclusion – “you need a new relay”.  Now, these people are on the move.  They spend only a few days in any location, so they will have to arrange for the item to be shipped to some fixed address they can access.  When it gets there, they will have to install the relay themselves.  And when the EMS doesn’t work – this stupid dance will start all over again. I don’t know the warranty state on that unit, they’ll probably be charged for the relay they don’t need.  They managed to convince customer service to send them both a control board and a relay.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this unit uses some twisted logic of a circuit that uses the energizing coil as part of the power supply to the control board.  I can’t imagine why someone would do that, or why a tech would ignore a dead board and jump to the conclusion that the relay is bad.  It just makes NO SENSE, though if I’m wrong – wouldn’t it be great if tech support would actually explain?

But the story doesn’t end there.  I wrote Tech Support myself to try to explain the situation – and all they could do was write me back and tell me to go to their web page and file a warranty claim.  That’s it.  No interaction.  No telling me I was right or wrong.  No telling me to mind my own business – just go file a claim.  It is almost as if noone read my mail and some robot was bouncing me.   I get it a little.  Tech support people have to deal with all kinds of customers – some who clearly think they know more than tech support.  I sometimes have to request that first line support people escalate an issue to someone at a higher level so they can take me seriously.   And I know, I’m not always right.  But I do believe when I buy a product, I have a right to have a conversation with someone who actually reads what I write or listens to what I say and not a droid that just fires back stupid canned messages.  I’m not the kind of person that has to be told – “make sure your PC is turned on”.  I’m an electrical engineer for god’s sake.

No matter how this episode turns out – I will NEVER buy their products again.  Nor will I rest until I convince at least TEN other people NOT to buy their products.

Oh, and they replaced the control board and the EMS magically came to life.  No new relay needed.