Jump to content

Thetford warning light.


badgerbag

Featured Posts

The “bog full” light on our Thetford has stopped working. Not a huge problem, one can always look down the hole, but useful when there are “elsan virgins” aboard.

 

The fuse is ok, wires still attached, nothing useful in the manual. Does anyone know what makes it work? I was expecting to find a microswitch triggered by the weight of the cassette but it must use something else. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which thetford do you have? On hours, one of the cassettes has this problem - there is a float inside the cassette that has a magnet attached and sometimes it can get ‘stuck’ - e.g. with some rigorous cleaning (hose), case of sticking your arm inside to dislodge. Seem to recall there are some better instructions on this forum from some years ago that gave me this tip...

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, boots said:

Which thetford do you have? On hours, one of the cassettes has this problem - there is a float inside the cassette that has a magnet attached and sometimes it can get ‘stuck’ - e.g. with some rigorous cleaning (hose), case of sticking your arm inside to dislodge. Seem to recall there are some better instructions on this forum from some years ago that gave me this tip...

 

 

There are various possible problems, but in the end they all succumb to the most intractable one. The mechanism is a float on a swinging arm inside the cassette. As  the float moves up, is moves a magnet into a position near the wall of the cassette and trips a reed switch which is mounted in the toilet at the relevant place. All of this is very reliable, except that the float is made of closed-cell plastic foam, and gets encrusted with limescale and nasties, eventually turning it into a sink.

 

MP.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You'll have to bear with me on this repair as it is quite a few years since I sorted the problem on the several cassettes that I had. The magnet is mounted on a swinging arm inside the case which is restrained from moving too far by protruding lumps sticking out from the inside surface. If the cassette is swung around too violently, when swilling with water after emptying for example, the arm can get dislodged past the lower protrusion and hangs down inside the cassette. When the level rises the arm cannot move up far enough to switch the light on because it is trapped below the lowest protrusion. I removed the sliding plate, rubber diaphragm etc (from memory, two covering plastic quarter-moon shaped things which when unclipped allow access to 6 retaining screws underneath) and reached inside to force the arm back up over the limiting protrusion to its correct position (it really doesn't have a huge range of motion when located correctly). Then reassemble. 

I was pretty convinced that it was the vigorous shaking when flushing out the cassette that caused the problem and adopted a new flushing technique which was to stand, leaning over the cassette and looking at the top of it, then swing the cassette in a rotary motion (bit like the hands of a clock say between 10 minutes past and 10 minutes to the hour). I never had the problem recur after changing my technique.

Hope this helps.

Roger

Edited by Albion
  • Greenie 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Never bothered with the warning lights - haven't a clue whether it works or not. Nor looked into the cassettes. I just know when it's time to change them and, if, I'm not completely sure then it's a quick  unclip and tug and feel the weight! But that really only works with just a couple of us on board with regular routines. So I probably change/empty more often than I need to but I'd rather that than an overfull cassette.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is your light powered from the 12v supply or seperate batteries?

 

On our boat the light is powered from the 12v supply, whereas on the caravan it is powered by 2 AA batteries.

 

It is the same bog apart from the boat flush is 12v the van is manual pump.

 

If batteries, check them.

Edited by Ray T
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Many thanks everyone. Sounds like it could be my over vigorous shaking that’s to blame. (Thanks Roger) I’ll have a go at fixing them, but if it doesn’t work it’s not the end of the world. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, roland elsdon said:

With regarding fixing my advice is just dont go there.

if you must have a light to say the loo is full just buy a new loo or base.

you couldnt pay me to fix one

Until I had to replace a seal I thought the same, it's not actually that bad, fiddly but fairly straightforward. 

Saying that I couldn't be bothered with replacing the bust float

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, badgerbag said:

Many thanks everyone. Sounds like it could be my over vigorous shaking that’s to blame. (Thanks Roger) I’ll have a go at fixing them, but if it doesn’t work it’s not the end of the world. 

If you do have a go and it sorts the problem (or even if it doesn't) then it would a good idea to feed back the info to this thread so that others can perhaps learn from the experience. Always useful info for others. Although certain members might think the idea of reaching inside is gross it isn't, in reality, a problem at all provided you have given the cassette a good flush before you undertake the repair. 

Roger

Edited by Albion
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Albion said:

If you do have a go and it sorts the problem (or even if it doesn't) then it would a good idea to feed back the info to this thread so that others can perhaps learn from the experience. Always useful info for others.

Roger

Especially if the lesson is "Don't ever try this. Run away as fast as you can. Don't look back."!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are some Thetford produced videos on You Tube covering this & replacement of all the parts of a C200 cassette. They used a cutaway cassette for this particular problem, made  it a good bit clearer.

All the videos are listed about 2/3rds down this page.

https://www.thetford-europe.com/gb/products/toilets/cassette-toilets/c200-cs-no-longer-available

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 03/06/2019 at 21:48, sharpness said:

There are some Thetford produced videos on You Tube covering this & replacement of all the parts of a C200 cassette. They used a cutaway cassette for this particular problem, made  it a good bit clearer.

All the videos are listed about 2/3rds down this page.

https://www.thetford-europe.com/gb/products/toilets/cassette-toilets/c200-cs-no-longer-available

 

 

 

A very useful link, thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.