Propane Tank monitoring

Anyone have any great ideas for monitoring propane tank levels? Looking for a solution for 20lbs tanks. Have 3 that get regular usage in my backyard and would be great to know the levels. :slight_smile:
Thanks

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:-o

Awesome! Thanks

Has anyone done this and found a way to make it hold up to weather?

Iā€™d like to do something like this for my fireplace 40lb propane tank but Iā€™m worried the rain and bugs may mess with the load cells?

Iā€™ve definitely got my eye on the Mopeka sensors. Nice design: Battery powered, magnetic mount to bottom of the tank, non-invasive level measuring (via ultrasonic), reasonably priced. They have models for both 20 lb grill-type tanks, and for 500-gal bulk tank. (And I need both.)

Looks like there is integration available in Home Assistant to handle these. Iā€™m going to check those out, if & when we get out from under all the snow here.

They use Bluetooth, but I believe that should be quite workable, given that Iā€™ve put Bluetooth Proxy devices all over the place, including nearby the tanks I want to monitor.

Almost makes me want to use propaneā€¦ALMOST. i use charcoal lol but this is neat stuff for sure.

Looking to buy a Mopeka sensor and was wondering which you went with and how reliable they have proven to be. Thanks

I havenā€™t installed yet. I just received two Mopeka sensors yesterday. Bought one Mopeka Pro (for 20-lb tank, e.g., on gas grill), and other one is Mopeka Pro+ (for our main tank; 500 gal).

Iā€™m really motivated to install them; just had a situation on gas grill --someone opened a burner valve & vented the tank (as I hadnā€™t closed the shutoff valve) --but I could have been notified. Will be setting up HA automation to watch for that.

Last week I was present while a friend put a Mopeka Pro+ on his 320 gal main tank. It was super-slick and simple, and I was amazed at how well it worked and at the signal range. Definitely looking forward to implementing here. All the little details showed that Mopeka definitely has experience in making these things work well.

Re which one: Specs say the Mopeka Pro should cover 20-lb to 250 gal tank. And I would believe them. But depending on your installation specifics, signal range could potentially be an issue. I havenā€™t experienced the connectivity yet for the Pro. But I was super-impressed with range on the Pro+.

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Just checking into this for my camper. Have the pretty standard 2 x 20lb tanks. Just to be sure, I would need 2 M1017? Iā€™m pretty sure I have steel tanks but if I get the steel/aluminum kits, it would work either way right?

This is exactly what I got for my tanks:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09J6MXJKT?th=1

Has seemed to work well (although I havenā€™t hit the road with them yet). I will mention that the app lets you select the tank type/size and have it tell you how full they are. I found this to be wildly inaccurate for my 30 pound tanks (I had a full tank that was reporting a fill level a bit above the ā€˜100%ā€™ level in the app, but still just reported 100% full). I ended up creating template sensors to calculate the percent full and calibrated them myself as I trust this more than their values.

I also got a water sensor as well:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BX21WPCH/

It also seems to work well; I think I had to manually add it rather than having it auto-discovered? Been a few months since I got them all setup. It ONLY reports the water level in inches, so I used my same template sensors to get it to a percent full.

We primarily stay on public land, so being able to accurately know our water and propane levels will be quite luxurious. Ha

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Thank you for the links! I may wait a short while before purchasing but this will be awesome to monitor the LP, fresh and 2 grey tanks. Now just need to figure out the black tank!

We hit the road in a few weeks for a month+. It should be nice not having to guesstimate so much about whether we NEED to make a detour to get propane or water (at least if it works as it should).

Nice! month+? So jealous. We have a 10-day coming up soon and already know the place doesnā€™t have sewer connections. Bought a 30-something gallon camco portable tank to help out.

Have fun and thanks for all the advice/help!

The mopeka sensors are the way to go. Now what we need is an official Propane Tank card and gauge. Maybe even a way to bring it into energy monitoring.

I find the normal gauge cards work quite well.

Unless youā€™re using a lot of propane, they definitely arenā€™t precise enough to translate to consumption. I get a good 5% or more of drift/noise from day to day on mine. The water tank sensor was VERY bad in this regard, but I think a lot of that is due to it being a plastic tank, so it flexes quite a bit. Definitely couldnā€™t rely on it, especially when it started to get low. Iā€™m still reasonably happy with it though, as it gives me much better insight than the stock sensors on the water tank (which is VERY helpful when youā€™re stretching 50 gallons over a couple weeks).

yes they work but they look like crap. Id like a card with a tank on it at least, something similar to what the mopeka app uses. it would be a better representation when your level is measured in distance.

I forgot that the sensors report in raw distance values; first thing I did was setup a template sensor to get it into a percentage, cause yeah, the distance values arenā€™t the easiest to glance at and ā€˜knowā€™. :slight_smile:

theyre fine as long as you know the height of your tank. which is also necessary to create your template sensotr

Ive been using the MyPropane tank monitor since November. Itā€™s pretty neat, given itā€™s solar powered and I donā€™t have to change batteries out all the time, no recurring fees either.

They have MQTT available for integration also.

https://a.co/d/eOnRk9L

Could be a potential option if you havenā€™t made a decision yet.

I donā€™t understand. The device apparently communicates via cellular data. Every device Iā€™ve ever heard of which uses cellular data requires some sort of subscription. The seller on Amazon says you pay one connection fee up front. I have never heard of any cellular provider which offers a ā€œlifetimeā€ subscription. Is this something new? What provider offers this sort of subscription?