Black Tank Sensor

[Chuggs]

Guess I'm not up on the "Famous Yellow wire." Can you enlighten me?

I believe it’s the one that disables your macerator toilets, due to FULL holding tank...frustratingly when the tank isn’t necessarily FULL.

 

[NWIP]

Yellow wire removes the signal from the KIB control board indicating tank level is full. Removing yellow wire will allow you to flush toilets when tank level is FALSELY indicating full.

KIB control board is located in bay compartment with shore power cord.

 

[ARD]

Guess I'm not up on the "Famous Yellow wire." Can you enlighten me?

So thanks to "@10 Fan" who helped me out way back when (his photo, btw). This board is located to the right above power reel. The orange wire on the right is Toilet 75%. Next one to the left of orange wire is the smaller yellow wire for toilet 100% and you can pull that wire when your tank is falsely reading 100% so you can use your toilet. The next one to the left is the larger yellow wire which will kill the monitor panel. Hope that helps. ?

 

[ARD]

Yellow wire removes the signal from the KIB control board indicating tank level is full. Removing yellow wire will allow you to flush toilets when tank level is FALSELY indicating full.

KIB control board is located in bay compartment with shore power cord.View attachment 4454

LOL. You are FAST, Bill. I was a typing away when you must have posted. ?

 

[NWIP]

Your picture is better?

 

[JimBob]

So thanks to "@10 Fan" who helped me out way back when (his photo, btw). This board is located to the right above power reel. The orange wire on the right is Toilet 75%. Next one to the left of orange wire is the smaller yellow wire for toilet 100% and you can pull that wire when your tank is falsely reading 100% so you can use your toilet. The next one to the left is the larger yellow wire which will kill the monitor panel. Hope that helps. ?
View attachment 4453

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LOL. You are FAST, Bill. I was a typing away when you must have posted. ?

Thanks for the photos and explanation. I will keep this handy if I have an issue.

 

[Calpop45]

Just emptied my tank and it says 0%. Is this sad that this makes me so happy? ?

View attachment 3723

ARD: I have received this setup from Newmar, but without installation instructions. Would you take a pic of the connection to the existing black pipe showing how it is done? Any info you can provide before I drill a hole is appreciated! Thanks!

 

[ARD]

ARD: I have received this setup from Newmar, but without installation instructions. Would you take a pic of the connection to the existing black pipe showing how it is done? Any info you can provide before I drill a hole is appreciated! Thanks!

Sorry @Calpop45 that I haven't responded sooner. Been traveling a lot of one nighters. I'll take another photo backing away a little farther so you can see location. I'm sorry I don't have any information on how to do this modification. The techs did tell me that they lowered one side of coach to do the job. I'm guessing they manually dumped the drivers side of coach so it would be a less messy job. ?

 

[Blackcloud]

August 2021 I had the new pressure sensitive sensor installed on my 2018 Dutch Star. First time out it failed. 50%=100%. I tried recalibration with no luck. Then it quit reading altogether. I shut down all power to the coach. When I turned power back on I had readings but they were inaccurate. Does anyone know where I can start trouble shooting?

 

[NWIP]

When you say it quit working, can you elaborate? Just wondering if your experience is like mine

I have had and still have issues with mine, worked great for about 6 months then the LCD screen locked up and I could do anything. Removed power from monitor and I then got control again but tank was no longer calibrated (tank empty=0%, one flush of toilet=50% but would then take 2 days to get to +75%). I had it looked at in Sep at Newmar Service Center and they said they just did factory reset and recalibrated. I asked for procedure in case it happened again and they said they could provide it to me.

Shortly after leaving Nappanee screen locked up again and removed power from monitor and was back to square one. I just had Newmar techs at Tampa RV Show do factory reset again, thinking I would do the zero/full calibration and be good. Not so much, now it reads zero all the time. I am looking at getting a mobile tech to come out.

 

[Blackcloud]

I also had the screen lock up on me. After I finally got a read on the screen it looked like it was going to work. 5% then 10% then topped out at 20%. It should have been reading 50-60%. Can’t trust it when dry camping. When my read only zero, per a service tech in Atlanta, I disconnected coach power for a few seconds. It came back up to a read but never in proper calculations.

 

[NWIP]

Have you tried this procedure to recalibrate. You need to have a flow meter to know how much water you put into the back tank prior to setting full level

 

[redbaron]

@Blackcloud I think the first recalibration you did messed up. The original problem was a typical kib freeze on communication. The power reset is the correct action.

Once you have done a reset, then do the full recalibration again. That should fix it.

Fwiw, the pressure sensor seems to be working, or dead. The dead ones are usually revived with power reset.

The working ones, once calibrated, are very accurate.

 

[DavidL]

The problem with ARD's picture is the pressure sensor is not oriented correctly. It needs to be level with the bottom of the tank. It is measuring the water column pressure. Pointed the way it is, it won't measure the last 20% of the tank and all measurements would need to be calibrated less the 20%. The problem with water pressure sensors is the port / sensor getting plugged and not sensing pressure anymore. Rotate it 90 more degrees and recalibrate.

A better design would be a fitting to allow air to be pushed to clear the "crap" in the port...but without ruining the sensor that has to be pretty sensitive. 2.31 feet of water / per PSI. So looks like their sensor is rated up to 3psi so can support a tank that is 7 ft tall. I think that'll do it....
Nothing new with this design...but new apparently to RVs.

 

[redbaron]

The sensor is in the pipe attached to the bottom of the tank. The pipe will fill first before the tank holds water, since gravity dictates water will always flow downwards.

The orientation of the sensor does not matter, as that pipe will be the first to fill.

As the tank above collects more volume, this sensor will detect it.

I have personally experienced this sensor design in both black and gray, and can report that it is very accurate all the way from 0 to 100.