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Old 07-06-2010, 11:21 AM   #1
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Need help with two issues

I'm just about finished sprucing up our new-to-us Solaris. After sanitizing the water tank, I pushed the test switch. Only the red diode lights up, but the tank is full. Pop up the bed and find two sensor wires hanging loose (green and yellow). The blue wire leads into an electronic whoozits (shown below).

I attempted to plug the G and Y wires back into this thing and briefly had all the diodes light up on the panel. Now back to red only.


What is this? A resistor pack? Is the part available? I have the wiring diagram, but it is a photocopy with no info on manufacturer.

Another thing I found was this set of valves under my sofa. They seem to connect the city water inlet with the on-board tank. Why? If to fill tank, why two?


So close to having everything up and running,
Teach
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Old 07-06-2010, 11:28 AM   #2
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The two valves under your bed are low point drains for both hot and cold. If you look under the trailer, you'll see a couple of tubes sticking down a few inches directly under these two valves.

Low point drains are useful for draining all the water out of your system before winterizing. The less water in the pipes when you pump in the pink stuff, the less it gets diluted and the more effective it is.
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Old 07-06-2010, 11:34 AM   #3
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Originally Posted by awellis3 View Post
What is this? A resistor pack? Is the part available? I have the wiring diagram, but it is a photocopy with no info on manufacturer.
It is a resistor pack. I don't know that you will be able to get one for your old panel. You can get them for the newer KiB panels (seen them on ebay and in a few catalogs), but I dont know that the values are the same. If they're not, it may not work correctly.

If you have more than one tank and a multimeter you should be able to measure the resistance values off another pack and make one up. If you need help with figuring it out, we can probably walk you through it.



Quote:
Originally Posted by awellis3 View Post
Another thing I found was this set of valves under my sofa. They seem to connect the city water inlet with the on-board tank. Why? If to fill tank, why two?
Steve has you covered on this one - they are the low point drains.

- Frank
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Old 07-08-2010, 11:27 AM   #4
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If you have more than one tank and a multimeter you should be able to measure the resistance values off another pack and make one up. If you need help with figuring it out, we can probably walk you through it.- Frank
The wires are sealed inside a silicone filler. The part no. for the wiring harness is 7452. Maybe if I could find out who the manufacturer is/was, I could track one down.

Thanks,
Wright
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Old 07-08-2010, 01:48 PM   #5
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The tank sensors are pretty much standard for any make of RV. Take the part to a decent RV parts department and they should be able to fix you right up.
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Old 07-08-2010, 08:59 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by awellis3 View Post
What is this? A resistor pack? Is the part available? I have the wiring diagram, but it is a photocopy with no info on manufacturer.

Teach
Teach

See here for KIB tank monitors

KIB Enterprises - M23VWL

http://www.kibenterprises.com/manuals/m23vwl.pdf

However the pic of your does not look like my KIB. May be an older one or a different brand.

Down on the tank..... there most likley is 4 screw terminals with wires that then to a small red block. That block is a resistor pack like Frank was talking about.

Each tank only has 1 signal wire leading up to the monitor board and a ground probe. The board senses the resistance thru the water to the ground probe then then turns on the right number of lights

On mine all 3 tanks use the same ohms resistor pack down at each tank. If one works right, then we can back track into the others. If none work then have to dig harder.

Can you post the wiring diagram you have? We can read it and then follow better in attempts to help

John

PS the KIB web site has a lot of stuff burried on it. It use to have a trouble shooting guide on top of the wiring diagrams. I cannot find it right now. Things are clickable to take you to other good find areas. So run your mouse of and when it is a clickable icon, press it. There site needs to be more intuitive.
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Old 07-09-2010, 06:08 PM   #7
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Great link to the schematic, John. I have 3 or 4 wires dangling from the black and grey tanks so this should help me get them hooked up again. I noticed the web site said 22 gauge was all that's needed, but that's part of the problem. All mine just broke off at the sensor like the air flow under the trailer bent them back and forth enough to break them.

Henry
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Old 07-09-2010, 06:53 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by henryj View Post
I noticed the web site said 22 gauge was all that's needed, but that's part of the problem. All mine just broke off at the sensor like the air flow under the trailer bent them back and forth enough to break them.

Henry
Henry

Yeh those little wires are crimped onto a ring terminal and flex at the end of the crimp and I'm sure they can break off looking at them sideways....

"Maybe" when you redo it, make a little strain relief. Get a small piece of shrink tubing, slide it over the wire, crimp wire to ring terminal, then slide shrink tube up over the crimped end of the ring terminal. Then shrink to terminal and wire. It should help beef it up a little.

Mine are now inside my enclosed tank compartment. So I no longer have the wind on the wire problem. BUT I did have to trouble shoot the “fresh” tank. Darn thing was full all the time when the tank was bone dry…. After several hours of chasing this thing come to find the wire was skinned when it went up thru the floor to the inside and grounded it out 100% of the time…. That was when I found all the K & B stuff researching how they worked.

John
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Old 07-10-2010, 07:16 AM   #9
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Teach

Down on the tank..... there most likley is 4 screw terminals with wires that then to a small red block. That block is a resistor pack like Frank was talking about. ...
On mine all 3 tanks use the same ohms resistor pack down at each tank. If one works right, then we can back track into the others. If none work then have to dig harder.

John
Thanks! Yep, that's what I have. Tanks #1 and #2 work (sorta), so the problem is the two wires that pulled out of the resistor. I will try to remove the silicone and get to the terminals and reattach the wires.

Teach
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Old 07-10-2010, 09:30 AM   #10
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Thanks! Yep, that's what I have. Tanks #1 and #2 work (sorta), so the problem is the two wires that pulled out of the resistor. I will try to remove the silicone and get to the terminals and reattach the wires.

Teach
Teach,

John beat me to it - it should be safe to assume that the packs on the other two tanks are identical. So, if you can't repair the one you have and can't locate a replacement, it should be very straightforward to make a replacement one up. You would need a multimeter to take some resistance readings.

If you get stuck, give a yell. If you can't make one, but can take the readings, I might be able to make one up for you.

- Frank
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Old 07-11-2010, 07:11 AM   #11
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Teach,

John beat me to it - it should be safe to assume that the packs on the other two tanks are identical. So, if you can't repair the one you have and can't locate a replacement, it should be very straightforward to make a replacement one up. You would need a multimeter to take some resistance readings.

If you get stuck, give a yell. If you can't make one, but can take the readings, I might be able to make one up for you.

- Frank
I just happen to keep a meter in my truck. I tried to get a reading yesterday by putting the meter's probes on the screws where the wires attached to the external sensor component, but no luck. I feared taking the screws out and wires off lest something go "plunk" in the tank. Is it OK to remove the screws and take the harness off?
Here it is:


The green, yellow and blue wires (once removed from the tank) woiuld be the harness I need.
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Old 07-11-2010, 08:21 AM   #12
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Hi Teach

That pic is worth a million words..... you obvioulsy have something different then the newer ones. I see no resistor pack near your tank.

Can you take any kind of pics of the back side of the tank monitor unit so we can see what you have? We can help you figure out what it is you have.

Now for an ohms check, the tank must be empty. Did you try a ohm check from ground to one probe? and then ground to the next? You may not get anything from probe to probe.

I agree I would not yet undo those probe screws. Mine have double nuts at least so I can take the wire off and the probe stays put.

Your unit may have the resistor pack inside the monitor unit verses the newer KIB units that have a resistor pack at the tank and only send 1 wire up to the monitor per tank. Your looks like it is sending all the hot probes up to the monitor.

Thanks

John
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Old 07-11-2010, 08:57 AM   #13
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Teach,

Took a good hard look at your picture and this is what I think I'm seeing:




Looks like the white wire is the ground connection, probably tied to the ground (white wire) on the water pump.

Also looks like the white with the stripe runs back to the monitor panel.

Let me know if I'm correct. If correct, then you would want to take two readings (obviously on a working and empty tank):

1) Resistance from the green wire to the yellow

2) Resistance from the green wire to the blue

Quote:
Originally Posted by awellis3 View Post
I just happen to keep a meter in my truck. I tried to get a reading yesterday by putting the meter's probes on the screws where the wires attached to the external sensor component, but no luck. I feared taking the screws out and wires off lest something go "plunk" in the tank. Is it OK to remove the screws and take the harness off?
Those probes (well nuts) are a bit different than what is used in the newer stuff. Like JohnB said, the newer ones have a threaded stud with nuts. I wouldn't want to remove yours because they are a bit older and the rubber is probably not very supple anymore. Meaning that once removed it may be a real problem to get them to reseal again.

If you do need to remove them at some point, I would not remove the screws. I would back them off a couple of turns which should allow them to be pulled out of the tank. If you remove the screws you may have the rear half of the probe fall into the tank. I personally would not remove the probes without having four brand new ones to replace them with (they are cheap, like 4 for $3).

- Frank
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Old 07-11-2010, 02:35 PM   #14
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Frank

Good eye. Pictures can be tricky....

Teach a question, have you ever filled the tank full of water and does the monitor read full?

Now that Frank pointed out the glob on the floor might be the resistor pack (I thought it was the wires poking thru the floor as my tanks are under the camper, yours is on top of the carpet, it's inside...duh) Yes, I agree do Franks resistor check as he stated. And do a tank that works so we can compare.

If the numbers come back like I think they will, a trip to Radio Shack may solve this problem.

Frank, I think green is common and then it parallels off to 2 resistors. One to yellow and one to blue. As the tank fill with water it grounds out the blue first, then as it rises the yellow is connected in the circuit and the resistance changes as we now have 2 resistors in parallel in the circuit. When it reaches full the water has less resistance thru the water then thru either of the 2 resistors on blue and yellow.


Here is a cut and paste out of my KIB manual to test there resistor pack.
Quote:

KIB STATES:

K101 PIGTAIL TEST PROCEDURE

THE K101 PIGTAIL CAN BE TESTED WITH AN OHM METER AS FOLLOWS

RED TO ORANGE – 0 OHMS
RED TO GREEN – 68K OHMS
RED TO YELLOW – 188K OHMS

NOTE: DO NOT SHORT FRESH WATER TANK PROBES WITH JUMPER
WIRES. WATER TEST OR USE A 43K OHM RESISTOR FOR TESTING
Here are some pics of the newer KIB system
My gray tank. White wire is ground over on the left



The resistor pack


The hook up


The probe nuts


Hope this helps

John
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Old 07-12-2010, 06:00 AM   #15
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Teach a question, have you ever filled the tank full of water and does the monitor read full?
Yes, I agree do Franks resistor check as he stated. And do a tank that works so we can compare.

Yes, I have filled the tank and the monitor worked on full. After I drained it down, it read 2/3 briefly then went back to reading empty.

I tried to do a resistor check on the black water tank and got no readings. I need to crawl back under and clean the terminals. BUT ... I also got no readings on the clean, internal terminals either, regardless of the combo of terminals tested.

Thanks for the advice. I'm working on carpet replacement this week and then will address the saggy roof issue and the rotted wood under it (as well as in the galley and bedroom, recent discoveries). Tank's sensor just moved waaaay down on my to-do list, as you can imagine.

I'm copying all the stuff y'all provided into a folder and will re-visit this problem at a later date. Now I have to find a good membrane roof tech in Richmond.

Teach
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Old 07-12-2010, 06:12 AM   #16
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Teach,

Took a good hard look at your picture and this is what I think I'm seeing:
Let me know if I'm correct. If correct, then you would want to take two readings (obviously on a working and empty tank):

1) Resistance from the green wire to the yellow

2) Resistance from the green wire to the blue
- Frank
You saw correctly. When I get back on this, I'll see what I can come up with. My meter may not be sensitive enough even set to the 200 ohm setting.

Thanks a bunch,
Teach
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