New/Used Pod Owner Lots of questions?

My name is Tom and I am new to trailer camping or" glamping".  I have only camped in a tent so this will be a huge learning curve for me. I/we are from Spanish Fort, AL. Most of my camping was either as a young kid-teens with my family,  Uncle Sam,  or with my boys at young Cub-Scouts.   My boys are now in their 30's so that has been awhile.   

More recently my camping  has been a tent, sleeping bag and what ever I could fit in the saddle bags of either my H.D. or more recently Gold-Wing and always solo.  But as the years pass by that ground gets a little hard and cold in my bones.

So as you can see this will be a huge upgrade for me even in a small trailer.

I have just purchased a used 180 for my better half and me.  She is willing to try it  so big enough for two but not too much over kill if she doesn't cotton to it and I end up going solo again.  

+1 What Fred said.  I haven't even looked at my sensors in years.  It's surprisingly easy to learn to live without them.  Regardless of whether they work, it's a good idea to have a way to add more water to the tank when you're dry camping for several days.  (How long a tank full of water depends a lot on how many showers you tank and for how long.)  Most places have water somewhere even if they don't run it to your site.  So a 5 gallon tote and a funnel or something more imaginative can keep you going indefinitely.

TT

My fresh water sensor is generally accurate in that if the tank is full, it will read full and the level will indicate a decrease as the water is used. Now there are a couple of things. On is the spacing of the sensors. When it is full, it takes a while to stop showing full and display 2/3. Then it does not take nearly so long to drop down to 1/3. Likewise, it does not take long to drop down to E. Then there is generally a good reserve before the pump starts pulling air. I think that is a vortex forming and pulling air before the water level actually is down to the pick-up. Looking at the tank, the pick-up line is an inch or two above the actual bottom of the tank which sags down due to the weight of the water. This works as a general level indicator but is far from an accurate gauge of water level.

The gray tank seems to be somewhat reliable, much as the fresh tank is due to there being no solid matter in the gray water (hopefully) to plug the sensors. The black tank is notoriously unreliable. Think about it. There is a little probe that needs to be in contact with the tank contents to read properly. When solids and paper are flushed into the black tank, those can cover the sensors which leads to false readings. Treatment with a good biological agent such as TankTech's Rx or Unique Products' RV Digest-It or some other equivalent product can help break down such things and make the sensors read properly. That is, until more paper, etc. is flushed and the problem repeats. The black tank flush helps, but does not guarantee that the sensors will be cleaned.

I agree with making sure the wiring is intact and that the panel is actually getting power. Also that the power is reaching the probes when a button is pressed per Mike's advice above. One thing I just thought of: Do you have your battery connected (proper polarity) and charged? If there is no 12V power, then there will not be any display. Polarity is important because if you connect the battery with reversed polarity, even for a second, there are two 40A fuses in the power panel that will blow to protect the power converter. Then the converter won't be charging the battery or supplying 12V power if they are not connected.

But if they let you know when your fresh tank is getting empty that provides a warning that it is time to think about finding a water source and dump station. The vast majority of my fresh water ends up in my gray tank so both events occur within about a day of each other for me. Refilling with a 5 gal container will get me about another day, after that my gray tank will need to be emptied anyhow.