Mopeka pro universal

[mikejay]

Anyone else fitted one of these to there water tank? I got one from lpg shop in December but only fitted it about 3weeks ago. From the off I could not get any of the quality stars to light up on an empty tank so could not proceed with the app install. But noticed once I had about 12litres in my tank the quality stars all lit up and it showed a percentage of water. But this is then totally inaccurate and a full to the brim tank shows 88%. Mopeka have been great with there help and I logged water percentage as I added 6litres at a time up to full 96litres. And

 

[RSD7a]

Cliff hanger ....
tune in for episode 2

 

[mikejay]

Cliff hanger ....
tune in for episode 2

Why? Is it a cliffhanger I asked if anyone else had fitted one to a water tank to see what there experience was. Lol dunno what happened there on my phone and it would not post at 1st

 

[Phantom]

Why? Is it a cliffhanger I asked if anyone else had fitted one to a water tank to see what there experience was.

Read the end of it!

 

[iandsm]

I have them on waste fresh and underung gas tank. One calibrated I find them pretty accurate as long as the camper is fairly level. It is essential to position them as directed with the grease on the centre contact to ensure a good connection. You could try deleting the sensor from the app and resetting it should you find it inaccurate. You do need to play around with the tank measurements and volumes. I recommend you do this with the tank full so you know the perimeters you set will be accurate.

 

[mikejay]

Iandsm, when you fitted yours did the quality stars light up on an empty tank. Mines on the bottom of my fresh watertank thats made from black plastic. And I have tried it with different amounts of grease and even without. And no matter what I can only get the quality stars to light with about 12litres in the tank. Mopeka got me to upgrade the firmware on it and it made no difference at all.

Thanks for your reply Mike

 

[wildebus]

My Mopeka Pro Sensors work fine.
I have one on a Gaslow bottle, magnetically attached on the underneath.
I have one on the Fresh Tank - also made of black plastic like yours.
Now my fresh water sensor is wedged into place very firmly so it is pressing on the underneath.
I don't really know what the grease you are talking about is for? maybe to avoid any airgap between sensor and tank? Don't recall any grease but I did fit mine back in 2024 so maybe used and forgot?
And I don't know what "quality stars"? something to do with signal strength of sensors?
Calibration is a key factor though and I think need to accept that the readings will also likely fluctate a bit on the typical fresh water tank which tends to be quite shallow so when on an incline the volume change will be exaggerated.
My Fresh Water has been empty for 3 months now so can't check any readings, but as I fill it up for some travel, I'll be comparing what the Mopeka tells me with what my water meter is telling me. (The Mopeka is good to see how much water you have left, but the water meter is great to see how much water you are putting in. Use the two together to avoid the typical overfill )

 

[mikejay]

Thanks for your reply wildebus,
The quality stars are the fit of the sensor with no water I get no stars so the sensor won't register anything. And when installing the app you can't get past this stage when it checks quality it asks you to adjust the sensor or add more grease they call it sonic grease comes with the sensor think its just silicone grease. Few pics of what I mean its sounding like mopeka are correct and it's faulty so still trying to get lpgshop to answer me. The pic with 1 star is with 12litres of water in the tank no stars is anything from empty upto 12litres. Sensor is in its plastic clip that you glue to the tank which was spotless.

 

[wildebus]

Thanks for your reply wildebus,
The quality stars are the fit of the sensor with no water I get no stars so the sensor won't register anything. And when installing the app you can't get past this stage when it checks quality it asks you to adjust the sensor or add more grease they call it sonic grease comes with the sensor think its just silicone grease. Few pics of what I mean its sounding like mopeka are correct and it's faulty so still trying to get lpgshop to answer me. The pic with 1 star is with 12litres of water in the tank no stars is anything from empty upto 12litres. Sensor is in its plastic clip that you glue to the tank which was spotless.

Ah, ok.
I never used the App apart from an initial having a go with it. I connect mine to the Victron system, so maybe that bypasses this check? The biggest issue I has was probably mounting the fresh tank sensor. Had to go underneath the van to remove a service panel (the Autotrails have their big service cap on the bottom of the tank rather than the top accessed from above) and then just 'pressure fit' the sensor as the tank woul accept no kind of adhesive whatsoever.

 

[mikejay]

Yeah I bought it to integrate with my venus os raspberry pi control panel I made but is useless at the moment. I had to drop my tank and take the plywood bottom off and cut a circular hole so I could stick the sensor to the bottom. I can alter the tank settings in venus so when its full it reads full. But as it says my tanks empty at 12 litres its not accurate. Any yes you are correct you don't need the app if using it with victron although mine had a firmware update that you need the app for.

 

[wildebus]

Yeah I bought it to integrate with my venus os raspberry pi control panel I made but is useless at the moment. I had to drop my tank and take the plywood bottom off and cut a circular hole so I could stick the sensor to the bottom. I can alter the tank settings in venus so when its full it reads full. But as it says my tanks empty at 12 litres its not accurate. Any yes you are correct you don't need the app if using it with victron although mine had a firmware update that you need the app for.

I don't know what motorhome you have, but I thought initially that I had no access to the tank underneath but spotted a large square panel which I thought was just part of the tank cladding - and undoing that exposed the access point, which surprised me TBH. I thought I might have to do what you did ref cutting a hole
I honestly cannot remember what I did to set it up and calibrate it - maybe initially used the app for the tank sizes? really don't know, but I had the Mopeka display (sold on), the phone app AND the venus setup all talking to the Mopeka sensor, so what I did where two years ago is going to be a bit hazy, but I know I DID do a calibration.
Can't use the phone for the mopeka any more as changed phone and can't be arsed to get under van and take off cover to retrieve sensor to re-pair. I'll wait until I have to get the sensor out to change the battery.

 

[Geek]

Anyone else fitted one of these to there water tank? I got one from lpg shop in December but only fitted it about 3weeks ago. From the off I could not get any of the quality stars to light up on an empty tank so could not proceed with the app install. But noticed once I had about 12litres in my tank the quality stars all lit up and it showed a percentage of water. But this is then totally inaccurate and a full to the brim tank shows 88%. Mopeka have been great with there help and I logged water percentage as I added 6litres at a time up to full 96litres. And

I use one on my diesel tank. The sensor cant find the level.if the tank is empty. When you fill the tank, leave a tiny space at the top (pretty hard not to do that, in reality) then in the app, adjust the height setting of the tank until it reads between 95% and 99% full. Although you can enter fractions of a cm, my experience is that it only stores full cm values.
Then it should give reliable readings.

 

[mikejay]

Thanks for the reply Geek,

I did what you said I filled the tank fully then adjusted the tank height in the app from 29cm which is what I measured it at to 26cm this brought the mopeka percentage down to 97% good enough for me, I am not really interested when the tank is full its more of when I need to go and get water. But here goes my readings as I drained the tank until I started loosing the quality stars there are 3 when all go out the sensor can not work and reports an empty tank. So at 30% I lost 1 star but carried on draining it then went to back up 53% then 59% then 42% which changed to 1 star at 36% then all stars lost right at 36% at this point the sensor stops working and shows empty. I then measured what was left in my tank and got near on exact readings as all my other tests the tank had 12.9 litres in it.

Thanks Mike

 

[Geek]

...at 30% I lost 1 star but carried on draining it then went to back up 53% then 59% then 42% which changed to 1 star at 36% then all stars lost right at 36% at this point the sensor stops working and shows empty.

How have you attached the sensor to the bottom of the tank? Using the grey plastic stick-on mount?
Is the sensor in the middle of the sensor pressed firmly to the bottom of the tank?
Is there anything unusual inside the tank above the sensor?
Once mine gets a three star fix, it keeps it until the tank is empty.

 

[mikejay]

How have you attached the sensor to the bottom of the tank? Using the grey plastic stick-on mount?
Is the sensor in the middle of the sensor pressed firmly to the bottom of the tank?
Is there anything unusual inside the tank above the sensor?
Once mine gets a three star fix, it keeps it until the tank is empty.

Sensor is fitted to the center of the bottom of the tank which is just a standard black plastic tank fitted by autosleeper. Nothing is in the tank and yes its fitted with the plastic ring that is stuck to the tank and the clip has pushed it right tight to the tank. I cleaned the bottom of the tank first with panel wipe then used the little tube of primer that came with the sensor. I have tried varying amounts of the sonic grease. Mine will only get any stars with water 12 or over litres of water in the tank. Mopeka usa have said it sounds faulty to contact uk distributor. Lpgshop finally answered me today after I sent them a message through Ebay as I bought it from there Ebay store. They said all they can do is test it if I send it back. But I want to get other people's thoughts first to make sure its not just me fitting it wrong or expecting too much from it. Everyway I have tested it even with old firmware and old app it would only work with 12 or more litres.

Thanks for your help.

 

[wildebus]

Sensor is fitted to the center of the bottom of the tank which is just a standard black plastic tank fitted by autosleeper. Nothing is in the tank and yes its fitted with the plastic ring that is stuck to the tank and the clip has pushed it right tight to the tank. I cleaned the bottom of the tank first with panel wipe then used the little tube of primer that came with the sensor. I have tried varying amounts of the sonic grease. Mine will only get any stars with water 12 or over litres of water in the tank. Mopeka usa have said it sounds faulty to contact uk distributor. Lpgshop finally answered me today after I sent them a message through Ebay as I bought it from there Ebay store. They said all they can do is test it if I send it back. But I want to get other people's thoughts first to make sure its not just me fitting it wrong or expecting too much from it. Everyway I have tested it even with old firmware and old app it would only work with 12 or more litres.

Thanks for your help.

Can you test this with another standalone water container? maybe a 20 litre container?
Out of interest, how are you sure you have 12 litres of water in the tank? is that an amount that you have knowingly filled up, or is it that when the sensor sends these stars it tells you it has 12 litres? If so, does the 12 litres reported tie up with the 12 litres you filled up from totally empty?
Is the van (and so the water tank) totally flat? I don't know how big your tank is, but 12 litres is at a guess around 15% for a fairly typical fresh tank full of water. Does the Mopeka app report percentages as well as volumes?

 

[mikejay]

Can you test this with another standalone water container? maybe a 20 litre container?
Out of interest, how are you sure you have 12 litres of water in the tank? is that an amount that you have knowingly filled up, or is it that when the sensor sends these stars it tells you it has 12 litres? If so, does the 12 litres reported tie up with the 12 litres you filled up from totally empty?
Is the van (and so the water tank) totally flat? I don't know how big your tank is, but 12 litres is at a guess around 15% for a fairly typical fresh tank full of water. Does the Mopeka app report percentages as well as volumes?

I am going to test it on a container like that tomorrow I am sure its always around 12 litres as I fill the tank with a 6litre watering can that I fill with a jug and I always get the 3 quality stars to light up at this level. Then when draining the tank as soon as the 1st quality stars goes out I start measuring whats left with a jug. And then measure whats left when the quality stars go out and the mopeka reads zero and its always around 12 litres again. Tank size according to my manual is 108litres but when doing all this testing I get around 96litres and it starts over flowing. The mopeka app only shows a percentage.

Thanks Mike

 

[wildebus]

I am going to test it on a container like that tomorrow I am sure its always around 12 litres as I fill the tank with a 6litre watering can that I fill with a jug and I always get the 3 quality stars to light up at this level. Then when draining the tank as soon as the 1st quality stars goes out I start measuring whats left with a jug. And then measure whats left when the quality stars go out and the mopeka reads zero and its always around 12 litres again. Tank size according to my manual is 108litres but when doing all this testing I get around 96litres and it starts over flowing. The mopeka app only shows a percentage.

Thanks Mike

thanks, I am just trying to understand as I due to changing my phone I can't use the Mopka App to talk to the sensors. I know when you have the sensors info via Victron you get both a percentage and a quantity. I've been meaning to flush my water tank ready to reuse so when I do that (possibly today if not too cold/wet outside), I will keep an eye on:
a) Sensor via Victron - both percentages and quantity values
b) Autotrail water data (4 values shown ... 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%. Reasonably accurate but not granular enough)
c) Water Meter on hose - quantity value and very accurate.

What could complicates things a little is the water that goes in the tank and then into the hot water system, but I guess if no tap is turned on, all the water will stay in the fresh water tank so that hot water should not come into play?

Ref your tank size, I wonder if you have a similar effect as mine? I can't remember the exact value, but I think it is 80 Litres. I fill up but if I fill up to the point it starts to overflow, it does not stop overflowing when I turn the hose off! The overflow carries on for some weird reason never really understood. So if I stop the hose when the meter says 80 Litres (from memory again), I get 80 litres. If I carry on and it overflows, I end up with less than 80 litres!

And your 108 Litres? I wonder if that value includes the hot water tank which is usually around 10 litres? Or.... possibly 12 litres (108-12=96 ) which is why you start getting a reading once you have put over 12 litres in as the first 12 litres went into the hot tank?
(That last bit above is a logical fallacy, but added it just because the numbers happened to nicely match )

 

[wildebus]

Just noticed my Mopekas have not been communicating for a few months! not used the van as a camper since October so not noticed. I guess maybe the batteries need replacing? So have to get comms back before I do anything else I think

UPDATE: Just replaced the battery (a 2032 battery) in the LPG sensor and now it is communicating with the Victron. Added it also to the Mopeka App on the phone as a new device and talking to that. Complaining device not level but I know the van is on a slope so not much I can do there right now. I see the quality stars thing now ... fluctates from none to 3 and no idea what that is meant to mean TBH.
Will need to do the same battery replacement for the fresh tank as well. That involves crawling underneath and undoing a panel and getting grubby so not my #1 priority right now

Just as an FYI, I got my two sensors in June 2024 and it looks like comms stopped (and presuming because batteries died) in December 2025, so battery life 18 months? Original battery was a 'Panasonic industrial', so a decent brand.
Might see if there is a super long-life 2032 battery to put in the Water sensor to delay the next replacement as long as possible