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I am installing an Aqualarm bilge monitor and also finishing up installing a larger pump on the platform in the bilge. The old wiring is looking pretty beat so I plan to rewire all the way to the dist panel. I looked at waterproof connectors and they are expensive for this job. Has anyone used trailer light connectors for a job like this before? They seem to make sense to me and they are much cheaper. The wire size looks OK. I just want to make the bilge unit easy to remove and clean, pull the plug and remove the hoses. Any comments welcome.
Thanks
Linus
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Linus,
When it comes to a saltwater environment, there are really no reasonably priced water-resistant connectors. The best solution is to seal the connector after its been mated. I’ve had good success using the following method.Wrap the connector in self-sealing tape. This is the stuff that only sticks to itself. Radio Shack sells a black electrical tape that is made of this stuff. Then wrap the whole thing in regular electrical tape. Make this wrap longer than the first layer and make sure you’ve got it stuck tightly over the connector body. The reason for the first layer is to keep the tape adhesive from leaking into the connection. The second layer should keep water out. You can put a little dab of teflon lubricant on the connector pins before mating, but be sure to keep the lubricant off the connector body, otherwise the tape won’t stick.
The trailer connectors you’ve described work well when used as described above. The problem is that they need to be attached to the wire harness. The common way to do this is to use crimp connectors. If moisture gets inside there, you’ll have problems. You can try to wrap these in tape, but its much more difficult to make a watertight wrap on a single connector. Putting a dab of silicone caulk on the connector ends usually works, but its hard to even do that reliably. The best way is to avoid connections in the bilge.
Wire-to-wire crimp connectors come in two flavors. There is the common tube type. Each wire goes in one end. It takes two crimps to attach the wires. There is another type that has only one crimp. It looks like a thimble. You twist the wires together and insert them into the crimp connector. There is only one place to seal with caulk to keep the water out. I recommend the second type if you can find them.
Regards
Rich
BlackSheep #47
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Adam
I used starboard and made an open sided box with the bottom twice as long as the top. The small pump is mounted on the bottom with the larger pump on the top. I have a water witch float switch for the small pump and I plan to install a float on top for an alarm. I use a line to pull it out of the bilge but I think that I will copy someone else’s design. I think that it was Aaron that used a pvc pipe as a handle. It also gives a support for the wires rising out of the bilge.
Linus
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Adam
I used starboard and made an open sided box with the bottom twice as long as the top. The small pump is mounted on the bottom with the larger pump on the top. I have a water witch float switch for the small pump and I plan to install a float on top for an alarm. I use a line to pull it out of the bilge but I think that I will copy someone else’s design. I think that it was Aaron that used a pvc pipe as a handle. It also gives a support for the wires rising out of the bilge.
Linus
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Hi,
Here's what I did. I used Starboard (actually HDPE from a plastics shop because it's way cheaper) and made two 'L' shaped things. On the low switch, I mounted the pump and the switch on the foot of the 'L' so that the pump would go off when the water reached its bottom. On the other 'L' I mounted the pump on the bottom and put a small shelf about just above the pump or about 8″ from the bottom. On both the 'L's, I put a hole on the top of the vertical piece and tied a rope and wire tied the wires for the pumps. The ropes attach to something convenient that I can reach (in this case, the main engine sea strainer) so I can lift and position each pump separately.
There are two separate switches monunted at the bulkhead aft of the nav station.
Bob
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Bob Fine
s/v Pelican
Hull #8Post generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum
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For those of you who have installed 2 bilge pumps, a simple question from someone looking for advice. Are both of the pumps discharging into the same hose? It seems to me that the lower pump would prevent back flow from the second pump if it was operating, assuming that both pumps had separate intakes into the same discharge hose.
Guiding experience is sought as I wrestle with another pump. I had the v drive rebuilt recently and the worker did not brace the shaft. Evidently a wake threw the shaft forward and water started coming in. A neighbor noticed the constant pump discharge and called me. Nothing like a call that your boat is sinking while 5,000 miles away!
Dan Kalinowski
Lady Leanne II (#135)
Honolulu -
My small pump discharges through a small hose in the hanging locker on the starboard side just above the waterline. There is a vented loop up high in the locker. The big pump I plan to discharge out the transom with a larger hose. The smaller hose means less in the bilge when the water in the line runs back down when the pump shuts off.
Linus
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Dan, do a search on the .org b-board and you'll find this discussion has come up a number of times. Some of the folks on here have come up with some ingenious ways to empty the bilge in addition to the standard 12 volt unit.
My 'primary' or 'auto' is a small Rule 750 gph unit. It includes a built in float switch. It feeds a 3/4 inch discharge (just below the cap rail) that includes a check valve. The Rule unit stays on for another 15 seconds to pull almost all of the water from the bilge. It sets flush on the bilge floor, collared by a piece of painted (maybe its just oil) plywood that the other pump is mounted atop.
I do not have a check valve on my larger manual unit, nor would want one. Nothing should impede the flow of that unit, it vents near the water line after passing through an anti siphon.
Both use separate thru hull openings.
Besides the manual edson unit in the salon floor, a second unit is in the stern locker that can be operated by the person at the helm.Pete Dubler offered a neat solution in Good Old Boat using a pedometer to count auto bilge cycles. I'd like to add that to my circuit along with a bilge alarm.
As for the shaft, it is secured (the shaft is drilled to accept a set screw in the coupling) to a keyed coupling that is bolted to the V-Drive, if the shaft moved there's a larger issue. Hopefully it is something as simple as the packing gland not properly installed/tightened.
Chuck
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 3:26 PM, kalinowski < ([email][/email])> wrote:
For those of you who have installed 2 bilge pumps, a simple question from someone looking for advice. Are both of the pumps discharging into the same hose? It seems to me that the lower pump would prevent back flow from the second pump if it was operating, assuming that both pumps had separate intakes into the same discharge hose.
Guiding experience is sought as I wrestle with another pump. I had the v drive rebuilt recently and the worker did not brace the shaft. Evidently a wake threw the shaft forward and water started coming in. A neighbor noticed the constant pump discharge and called me. Nothing like a call that your boat is sinking while 5,000 miles away!
Dan Kalinowski
Lady Leanne II (#135)
HonoluluPost generated from Pearson424 Forum using Mail2Forum
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