380: Water Sensor Malfunction, is it common?

[Zoid]

I have a new (as of November 2013) Lagoon 380 and just noticed an issue that might have always been there. On my control panel I just noticed that my starboard water tank never shows as being lower than ½ full. I have run the tank all the way to empty and it still shows as ½ full. It will correctly show ¾ full and full, but nothing lower than ½ full. I removed the lid and looked inside to confirm the tank was empty (which it was). I saw the electronic sensors that read the water level. They connect behind the water tank into a wire that comes through the hull behind the salon seating. The wires from the port and starboard tanks meet under the seating and go into a large wire bundle around to the control panel. The odd thing is the port water tank, which is working correctly, has more wires coming from it than does the starboard tank. The Port tank has 2 red, 1 purple, and 1 black wire while the starboard tank only has 1 red, 1 purple, and 1 black. Not sure if this is supposed to be this way or not. I contacted my person at Lagoon and was told this is a common issue and that there wasn't a good solution for it.

I obviously am not happy with that answer. I wanted to see if anyone else out here has seen this problem to confirm if it is in fact a common problem and if anyone discovered a good solution.

Thanks for your help in advance,
Zoid

[Cheechako]

Welcome to tank gauges on boats. Often it's the sender in the tank doesnt travel enough or is bad or the tank shape doesn't allow accurate sensing.

[Wendi]

I recently bought a 2012 380, the water sensors were working but now they are only working in one tank.
Also the fuel sensors don't work at all. Not sure how to proceed to get it fixed if Lagoon just says they don't have a good fix. I would like to know how much fuel I have left.

[colemj]

Well you can always just buy an aftermarket transducer and gauge. If you have plastic tanks, there are ones that just have a metal strip taped to the outside of them. If you have metal tanks, there are many types and brands of senders that fit the standard hole and cutout pattern.

This is a really easy problem to solve.

Mark

[LakeSuperior]

Before leaving for Europe in our Mason 44 we ran both fuel tanks down for a visual internal inspection. We opened both maintenance ports.

On inspection the star'b tank had a internal baffle to control fuel slosh. The tank gauge sender lever arm operated in a slot cut in the baffle. The slot was cut so that it would let the sender down half way an then it would rest on the bottom of the slot. Consequently, it would always show the fuel level to be half filled.

Clearly, if relying on the tank gauge we would always have a half tank of fuel. It was a sobering discovery. Even though we log hours on each tank it would have been easy not to pay attention to the actual hours because the tank was reading half. If I remember correctly engines only run out of fuel when entering or leaving a harbor on a rough day or when on a lee shore.

[careka]

mine did not work, hull 637, i got a new electron card to change out, now 1 tank is working the other goes full on empty tank and stays like that even when its filled up.
not good, but i can live with it, i don't drink from it anyway, i have converted one into running on the fridge cooler and keep it full al the time, the port one is for showers and food, cooking. we have beer and wine for drinking and sometimes some bottles of water.
------
my fuel tanks work perfecto.
and the cat sails very nice