Ultrasonic Tank sensors

[MauiPunter]

I am planning to replace all my tank sensors with this ultrasonic unit from BEP. Does anyone have any experience with these? Your experience and opinions are appreciated. These are going into a PICO monitoring system that will include black water, freshwater, and diesel.

Ultrasonic Tank Sender

TS1 is an advanced tank sender based on ultrasonic measurement technology.

www.bepmarine.com

Thoughts?

 

[Schnick]

They suck

 

[MauiPunter]

They suck

Any more detail than that? What issues did you run into?

 

[Schnick]

I spent many many hours as a pro removing and replacing BEP tank sensors of all kinds. BEP is pretty budget to start with and should stick to electrical panels, Instrumentation is a bridge too far.

 

[MauiPunter]

What do you recommend instead?

 

[silent bob]

What do you recommend instead?

 

[MauiPunter]

View attachment 573682

That doesnt integrate with the PICO system very well.

 

[Schnick]

If you can live with the "incremental" nature of them, the KUS sending units last forever. However they jump about 1/8 of a tank at a time.

In industry when we use ultrasonics for level we often blank out the first 12" or so of signal, which would be my whole fuel tank.

Best thing I think is the Maretron multi-sensor 4-20mA deal and then the screwed-in hydrostatic sensors mounted near bottom of tank. You can even calibrate them with a table to accommodate strange tank shapes and they are completely analog through the whole range. But won't work with that Pico thing.

 

[MauiPunter]

If you can live with the "incremental" nature of them, the KUS sending units last forever. However they jump about 1/8 of a tank at a time.

In industry when we use ultrasonics for level we often blank out the first 12" or so of signal, which would be my whole fuel tank.

Best thing I think is the Maretron multi-sensor 4-20mA deal and then the screwed-in hydrostatic sensors mounted near bottom of tank. You can even calibrate them with a table to accommodate strange tank shapes and they are completely analog through the whole range. But won't work with that Pico thing.

Yea, need to work with that PICO thing, which requires either restive or voltage readings for tank levels. I want to get rid of the mechanical floats and switch to sonic. I have seen that there are BlueSea, Vetus, BEP, Philippi, and Mareton ultrasonic units that fit the bill. The yard wants to install BEP units because they say they have had a good experience with them. You are saying they are no good. I was hoping to find an alternative if the BEP units are shit before they start the project.

 

[DDW]

Are the tanks plastic? If so you can use a capacitive unit stuck to the outside.

 

[MauiPunter]

Are the tanks plastic? If so you can use a capacitive unit stuck to the outside.

Yes, all the tanks are plastic.

 

[DDW]

This is old school and cheap, but they seem to work and be reliable. Uses a stick on metal foil, requires 12V (regulated to 10V is more accurate, they sell a small linear regulator if you need it). Puts out a signal that depends on installation, but around zero to 3.5V or so. You have to have a display that can be calibrated. There are fancier ones, Gobius etc., but I have 4 of these on the trawler and once calibrated seem to continue to work (16 year old boat). They make a rod version (same thing but foil strips inside a rod in the tank) and a diesel rod version. I don't know if the stick on would work with diesel.

I'd bought the Blue Seas ultrasonic to replace them in the diesel tanks, but they have a mixed reputation and required some rewiring, ended up sticking the the Tank-Edge ones now wired to a Victron Cerbo. Accuracy for all seem pretty good.

 

[Monkey]

I am planning to replace all my tank sensors with this ultrasonic unit from BEP. Does anyone have any experience with these? Your experience and opinions are appreciated. These are going into a PICO monitoring system that will include black water, freshwater, and diesel.

Ultrasonic Tank Sender

TS1 is an advanced tank sender based on ultrasonic measurement technology.

www.bepmarine.com

Thoughts?

Hard no from me. My experience isn’t on an actual boat, but in the manufacturing world. I’ve tried every brand of ultrasonic sensor out there to monitor tank depths and hate them all. They work great unless they get wet. Thankfully nothing splashes around on a boat! 😂 My go to for what you want would be a probe based setup from Keyence. Those things are bulletproof in every chemical I’ve thrown at them.

Edit: just realized we may not be talking about the same PICO system.

 

[SASSAFRASS]

I tried the blue sea one a long time ago, pretty disappointed. For non contact level sensing pressure sensors work well, you need a low point port obviously. Might take some work to get milibar range that will work with the display unit depending on what is has for scaling etc. Get a mba pressure gauge hook it to tanks at low point, measure full and at 10%. See if there is a 0-10v transducer that fits range. 0-10v and 4-20ma are the standard output ranges. If the display unit lets you span inputs for 0 and 100% should work.

 

[Will1073]

I've heard good things about the Gobius Pro from another installer. They claim to now integrate with PICO https://www.gobiuspro.com/notifications/gobius-gobius-pro-are-supporting-pico/

 

[b393capt]

I had nothing but problems using ultrasonic sensors in tanks on a 39 foot cruising sailboat, tried on water tank, fuel tank, and a waste tank. Even with focus tubes, the results were poor. The good people at Maretron recommended I switch to pressure sensors for water and fuel tanks, I think that was good advice but I sold that boat and bought another and didn't try it out.

 

[climenuts]

Home -

The original precision tank measuring system. One instrument measures from 1 to 10 tanks. It gauges the liquid level in water, diesel & holding tanks.

tanktender.com

 

[MauiPunter]

Home -

The original precision tank measuring system. One instrument measures from 1 to 10 tanks. It gauges the liquid level in water, diesel & holding tanks.

tanktender.com

My 1984 N/M 454 had that system from the Morgan factory. Doesnt work great with black water tanks though. The tubes get clogged. Not fun to clean out.

 

[Beer fueled Mayhem]

I am trialing the Maretron pressure sensors. I have one in my fresh water tank (submersible) and the pressure sensor that screws into a sitting at the bottom of the tank.
This doesn't help you really but I will say that I didn't have a good experience with the Maretron ultrasonic stuff. But that was mostly the shape of my tanks.

 

[IStream]

Count me in the Wema/Kus camp. My fuel and water tank senders are going on 30 trouble-free years. The worst issue I've ever had is a float stuck at the top of travel in a waste tank, which I fixed by pumping out followed by a good old fashioned slap to the top of the tank.