John Canfield
Site Team
Others have gone before me, but I will attempt to make a detailed how-to for those of you still putting up with the not particularly useful standard Winnebago tank monitoring system (obviously it will be specific to the Vectra/Horizon, but the basics should be the same across many models.)
Let me back up a bit. If you are a weekender with your RV or you travel primarily from campground to campground with full hookups, the standard Winnebago tank monitor system is quite adequate. If you want to boondock for a week or two where you are measuring every quart of water coming out of the fresh water tank and going into gray/black, then the standard system is completely inadequate.
This is another project I have put off for several years, but now is the time since we are planning on doing some boondocking this summer. I'll give the 'Cliff's Notes' version of the project here, but post a more detailed write-up on our web site.
I was dreading gaining access to the tanks, but as I discovered this afternoon, access to the gray and black tanks is quite easy (once you figure out which screws to remove); access to the fresh water tank is not going to be too easy. There will not be enough room to get my hand along side the 16" high tank to stick on the new sensor strip, so I will have to get creative by making a device that I can use to position the new sensor and apply force to the tank wall to stick it down adequately.
If you read Garnet's literature, they specify two inches of clearance between the sensor and any metal which would be a bit difficult to accomplish in my situation. I talked to Garnet today and the very helpful gentleman I spoke with told me in his experience, if you have 1/2" of clearance, the system will work fine.
The height of our fresh water tank is 16" (perfect for a 16" tall sensor strip), and the height of the gray/black is 7.5" - a 12" sensor strip will work fine (you can cut them to length as I recall.)
The Garnet (model 709) display is a diminutive 4" wide and 3" tall and you can run two (or more maybe?) displays from the sensors. The new sensors (model 709 again) use two wires so all of the hard wiring work is already done by the Winnebago factory. I'll install two monitors, one in the OnePlace inside, and one in the plumbing bay to replace the standard one there.
Haven't ordered the system as yet - today was survey day to figure out how high the tanks are; I'll get the SeeLevel ordered sometime this weekend.
Here's a few pictures of the survey results. Yes, there is rust on the plumbing bay sheet steel - look around the screw holes. This looks like a great excuse to buy a cheap Chinese shear and a brake and make some replacement panels from aluminum (ooh - more tools ;D.)
Let me back up a bit. If you are a weekender with your RV or you travel primarily from campground to campground with full hookups, the standard Winnebago tank monitor system is quite adequate. If you want to boondock for a week or two where you are measuring every quart of water coming out of the fresh water tank and going into gray/black, then the standard system is completely inadequate.
This is another project I have put off for several years, but now is the time since we are planning on doing some boondocking this summer. I'll give the 'Cliff's Notes' version of the project here, but post a more detailed write-up on our web site.
I was dreading gaining access to the tanks, but as I discovered this afternoon, access to the gray and black tanks is quite easy (once you figure out which screws to remove); access to the fresh water tank is not going to be too easy. There will not be enough room to get my hand along side the 16" high tank to stick on the new sensor strip, so I will have to get creative by making a device that I can use to position the new sensor and apply force to the tank wall to stick it down adequately.
If you read Garnet's literature, they specify two inches of clearance between the sensor and any metal which would be a bit difficult to accomplish in my situation. I talked to Garnet today and the very helpful gentleman I spoke with told me in his experience, if you have 1/2" of clearance, the system will work fine.
The height of our fresh water tank is 16" (perfect for a 16" tall sensor strip), and the height of the gray/black is 7.5" - a 12" sensor strip will work fine (you can cut them to length as I recall.)
The Garnet (model 709) display is a diminutive 4" wide and 3" tall and you can run two (or more maybe?) displays from the sensors. The new sensors (model 709 again) use two wires so all of the hard wiring work is already done by the Winnebago factory. I'll install two monitors, one in the OnePlace inside, and one in the plumbing bay to replace the standard one there.
Haven't ordered the system as yet - today was survey day to figure out how high the tanks are; I'll get the SeeLevel ordered sometime this weekend.
Here's a few pictures of the survey results. Yes, there is rust on the plumbing bay sheet steel - look around the screw holes. This looks like a great excuse to buy a cheap Chinese shear and a brake and make some replacement panels from aluminum (ooh - more tools ;D.)