Black water tank level indicator

[zboss]

Originally Posted by svfinlandia

Sorry guys. The spell checker got me again!
That was meant to be "a good old "WEMA" sender".

They are electric.

The hart tank tender has no moving parts (well one), uses no electricity, and works with odd tanks of any shape.

[wsmurdoch]

Ferriello and SCAD are the same unit. Save yourself a little money and check out Ferriello Sales.

I tried the foil on the side of the holding tank sensor, but it did not work as my tank wall seems to be fiberglass/plywood/fiberglass. I went with the sensor that enters the tank from the top. It is basically a piece of PVC pipe with the foil strips glued to the inside of the pipe. It works well.

I had one of the early electronic units labeled "SCAD Solo" and had some problems with it. I replaced it years later with a current Ferriello unit which works fine.

Dennis Ferriello was a pleasure to work with.

[DavefromNZ]

The ultrasonic does bounce a signal off the liquid surface. The program unit can be told to fit almost any shape you will find in a yacht and all the odd dimensions to give a true volume. It does compensate for movement and slosh. 7 tanks and battery info can be attached to the DC monitor, or it can monitor how often say a bilge pump or heater had turned on and off.


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[ssscruz]

I have an indicator (that I have not tried to ascertain the make of) that does not seem to work. My tanks are plastic, and translucent. So I can use a flashlight. If you reach around a corner from where you are looking, you can move the light around and get a very accurate view of the levels. My tanks are easily accessible. So this method is not too PITA, until I get around to digging into fixing the guages.

[Moody46CC]

I have a WEMA gauge. It has a rubber stopper that floats within a stainless steel shaft. The level of the float is sent electrically to a gauge that reflects the level. When clean it works well, but when not clean, it sticks. We can imagine what makes it stick. I have macerators on each of my heads, but sooner or later the float sticks and I get a static (and useless) reading. Easy enough to clean, but it is a PITA of major proportions to remove the sole covering, open up the WEMA sender, and clean the gauge, all the while smelling lovely effluent from the tank.

I'm looking for a new system, but I have what seems to be an aluminum or SS holding tank. That is not good either.

[cwyckham]

Originally Posted by ssscruz

I have an indicator (that I have not tried to ascertain the make of) that does not seem to work. My tanks are plastic, and translucent. So I can use a flashlight. If you reach around a corner from where you are looking, you can move the light around and get a very accurate view of the levels. My tanks are easily accessible. So this method is not too PITA, until I get around to digging into fixing the guages.

This is precisely my situation. Gauge didn't work 5 years ago when I bought the boat, and there's such a long list of higher priority items that I just pull up the floor boards and use a flashlight if I'm curious!

[autumnbreeze27]

I used the flashlight method on my tank. My tank is visible in the engine room, but it is mounted on the far side of it. I bought a small LED flood light from Amazon for just under $10 and mounted it to the side of the tank and wired it to my engine room lights.

I turn on the engine room light at the panel, then open the door and flick a switch which turns off the engine room lights and turns on the light on the black water tank. Saves a lot of crawling around.

I had a marine toilet expert tell me that idea would never work and I should pay him to pull the tank and drill holes in it to install senders, etc, etc. They then put their flashlight on the front of the tank, which doesn't work. I didn't bother explaining it to them, but if you try it, assuming your tank is rectangular and the long side is visible, you put the light on the short side, so it's shining into the tank from the side. If you mount a light to it you need to be sure it's high up, because once the black water level gets to the light it won't indicate anything anymore.