Electronically monitor four tanks from single control panel
by Frank
Plumptre
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Installing Snake River tank
monitor system
The Snake River Tank Monitor System (Snake
River Electronics) is ideal for a Catalina 36. It can
electronically & accurately monitor four different holding
tanks.
Prework at home/boat:
Check for wiring routing for waste
tank and bow tank. Looks like running cable from battery
compartment to water manifold locker the way to go. After
struggling for several hours best way to fish wire is from aft
inboard bottom corner of battery locker towards water manifold
locker. Once I figured that out, the actual fishing took a minute.
At home, prewire
2 ft coloured coded pigtails on all tank monitor leads - wire
colours match sensor wire colours.
Notice soldered connectors, heat
shrink tubing colours again match. Overkill? Hey its our new
Catalina 36!! The above prior facilitated mounting
the instrument and connecting the long wiring running (also colour
matched). Yes there are extra solder joints in the system, but
this causes no harm.
Mount panel using aluminum rivets
(colour black with nail polish beforehand) in Radio Shack type
black plastic project box.
Have everything nicely labeled
before you go to the boat.
Establish reference heights using
the cabinet makers principle of making a story stick
Ready to pull wire, using the aft
tanks as an example
Insulate wire when in contact
with heating hose using styrofoam cup pieces.
And I recommend you tape up the
blue, red, and black wires together in a wiring harness as you
unspool the wires from the individual wire spools. You can
create a real rats nest if you don't. Tape with a single layer
of black electricians tape every 18 inches or so. (Obviously
buying wire of the correct colours in a protective jacket would
have been better - couldn't find any at my location so had to
make my own wiring harness.)
Use outer jacket from #12 120VAC
boat wiring cable for mechanical protection where required.
Wiring at Main panel - put in
separate neutral bus for black wires from tanks (makes for a
neater job).
Start of panel area wiring.
Clean up tank side walls with
alcohol per instructions. Picture below shows paper towel taped to
stick. Remember to dry area afterwards using the same principle.
Setting up story stick for starboard aft tank -- stick butts to top of exit water hose.
PUT A SOCK IN IT! After the tank
is empty using a couple of wool socks to shift the tank aft to
give room to attach the strips.
Ready for 'the surgeon's touch'
(using the waste tank as an example)
Mount Acu-gage panel at an angle
in stereo cabinet
Notice custom labels - I wasn't
happy with stock labels.
- Made up labels in Visio drawing
program
- printed on plastic sheet (used for
overhead transparencies)
- made sure printing was in reverse (select
T shirt transfer option)
In this way the labels will not wear
from repeated finger presses.
Close-up of custom label -
mounted with double sided mounting tape.
Experience and Operation
Two aft tanks calibrated fine.
Holding tank goes from empty to 1/4
with one flush - SOLUTION cut off bottom part of tapes per High
FLights original suggestion, aluminum tapes only need to go to top
of fiberglass edge - don't put tape down between the narrow space
between tank and locker side wall.
Fwd tank - shows 1/4 full when empty.
Talking to factory, cut off off about 1/2 inch from bottom of each
strip
I installed a toggle switch on the
bottom of the project box to avoid LEDs being continuously
illuminated. No need, as LEDs only light when pushbuttons on touch
screen are pressed.
THANKS: Thanks
to Larry Brandt from 'High Flight' for advice to not remove
the holding tank. and to Tom Senator for the 'Surgeon's Touch'
techniques for installing the aluminum foil strips.
