Hey! Marc Guido here again with Grand Adventure! Now, way back in episode 4
we introduced you to the Mopeka LP Tank Check from AP Products. It's a device
that's used to ultrasonically measure the amount of propane left in your tanks.
However, ours stopped working and it turns out there was a problem with the
second generation of the LP Tank Check. We're here to explain to you what that
problem was, and what the company's solution is, on this episode of Grand
Adventure, so stay tuned!
Now the way that these little propane tank sensors work is they magnetically
attach to the bottom of your propane tank, and right here is a little
ultrasonic sensor. What that does is it sends ultrasound up through the tank
and back to the sensor to measure how much propane is left in your tank. And
then it transmits the data via bluetooth either to your smartphone or to a
separate optional little monitor that you can mount inside the coach. Now like
we said, our's stopped working, and what was happening is the little rubber sensor --
that little ultrasound sensor -- was actually peeling back and separating, and
once that happened basically the sensor became useless. Here are our two old
sensors. You can clearly see the rubber pad peeling back in the sensor on the
right, while the pad is completely gone in the one on the left.
So AP Products has released a third generation of these sensors with a new
improved rubber system back here with the ultrasound that it's not going to
separate. In addition to that, they've improved the water tightness of these
units, and the way that you can tell that it's a third-generation is they're real thin
They're only about a quarter-inch thick, which is about half of what the old ones
were. You can actually even see that in the packaging, because they haven't
changed the blister pack, so there's a bunch of empty space in the blister pack
so you know that you've got a Gen 3. Now, they transmit to a new Gen 3 monitor,
that unlike the old Gen 2 monitors can actually be calibrated for a tank larger
than 20 pounds. Before, if you wanted to have it
calibrated to a tank larger than 20 pounds, you could only do that through
the smartphone app. Now, the only real downside is that the Gen 2 sensors
cannot communicate with the Gen 3 monitor, so therefore if you have two Gen
2 sensors you have to replace them both, and if you have the monitor you need to
replace that as well. Now, reportedly AP Products has been really, really good
about replacing defective Gen 2 units with Gen 3 units under warranty. At RVX,
the trade show a couple of weeks ago here in Salt Lake City, we did meet with
the president of AP Products who assured us that they are going through
with that, and as a matter of fact they've replaced ours. So we're going to put
the new ones in today. So, these things are conveniently marked "Tank 1" and "Tank 2"
so you know which one to put on which tank, and which one it's going to read
on your display, but they simply mount via magnet right to the bottom of the
tank. Then, if you opted for the monitor you simply press a button to pair
them before checking your propane levels from inside. The smartphone app for both
iOS and Android will provide much more information. Here we see the overview of
both tanks, with levels and update information. If we drill down to Tank 1
we see battery level Bluetooth signal level and quality of data. Switching to
Tank 2, we can see that it's down to 17 percent and getting ready to time to
refill. In each tank's settings we can rename the tank, set the tank size,and
orientation, and customize an alarm threshold at which will be notified that
the tank is nearing empty. We can also choose to see the tank level in percent,
inches or centimeters.
So we still think that Mopeka is a great little system for checking your
propane tank levels with great precision. We just understand there was a problem
with those Gen 2 units. If you're having a problem with yours, check and make sure
that those little rubber pads over the ultrasound sensors have not separated,
and if they have give AP Products a call. We'll put the toll-free phone number
right here on the screen, as well as in the video description down below. If you
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