Hi Peggie; I just moved this over from the other site. There is a bulkhead in front of the forward water tank on my Catalina 320. There is not enough room to work around the front of the tank, so I have to cut a hole out of the bulkhead and re-inforce it again afterwards. The aft tank is out of the question for either product, as it is a pancake style in my 1994. Sensatank 100 pads are quite small, allowing for me to only cut about a 4" vertical slot in the wood to stick them in place. The SnakeRiver strips require more major cutting. I have read a lot of comments over the last year on Catalina sites. There are many complaints about the Snake River product when it comes to the strips falling off or the calibration system being unreliable. Perhaps they have improved something recently. The Sensatank is used on some major RV companies, but I have not any luck meeting a sail boat owner who installed one.
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99% of prob's with SR are installation errors
Sensors fall off because the supplied sealant isn't used...calibration problems are wiring issues. Like anything else, "instructions? We don' need no steeenkin' instructions!" results in problems. A lot of 'em on Hunters have problems because Hunter needed for the wiring to be "plug and play" due to labor costs to do it any other way. But the SR products aren't designed to use "p & p" wiring...doing it that way caused calibration problems. Because of the increased labor cost to wire 'em as they need to be wired and the problems caused by not doing it that way, Hunter has gone back to the Wema gauges--which are ok for WATER tanks, but tend to clog in waste tanks. You've only mentioned water tanks...so why not just go with the Wema? I haven't talked to anyone at Catalina about it...so I don't know whether the complaints you're hearing about on Catalinas are factory installations or owner installations. If they're owner installed, problems with those are due to failure to follow the instructions when installing 'em.
Sensors fall off because the supplied sealant isn't used...calibration problems are wiring issues. Like anything else, "instructions? We don' need no steeenkin' instructions!" results in problems. A lot of 'em on Hunters have problems because Hunter needed for the wiring to be "plug and play" due to labor costs to do it any other way. But the SR products aren't designed to use "p & p" wiring...doing it that way caused calibration problems. Because of the increased labor cost to wire 'em as they need to be wired and the problems caused by not doing it that way, Hunter has gone back to the Wema gauges--which are ok for WATER tanks, but tend to clog in waste tanks. You've only mentioned water tanks...so why not just go with the Wema? I haven't talked to anyone at Catalina about it...so I don't know whether the complaints you're hearing about on Catalinas are factory installations or owner installations. If they're owner installed, problems with those are due to failure to follow the instructions when installing 'em.
thanks Peggie
I neglected to say that I also need it for my waste holding tank. The aft water tank is no big deal. I run it first until empty, then I switch to the forward tank. I believe that most of, if not all of the complaints were from self-installations. Although I don't mind tackling some projects on my own, when it comes to electronics, I follow the manufacters instructions. I feel that someone who designed something knows why it goes together in a particular order for a particular reason....ever assemble a barbeque without the instructions only to find out half way through you have to tear it apart because you missed something
) I'd rather spend my time sailing, thanks.
I neglected to say that I also need it for my waste holding tank. The aft water tank is no big deal. I run it first until empty, then I switch to the forward tank. I believe that most of, if not all of the complaints were from self-installations. Although I don't mind tackling some projects on my own, when it comes to electronics, I follow the manufacters instructions. I feel that someone who designed something knows why it goes together in a particular order for a particular reason....ever assemble a barbeque without the instructions only to find out half way through you have to tear it apart because you missed something
) I'd rather spend my time sailing, thanks.- Status