[C38] Bilge Pump

[Les]

Generally the bilge pump is connected directly to the house battery.  It
sounds as though someone routed the bilge pump to the switch, which is
not good.  If you are cruising it might be OK, but for someone who
"parks his boat at the dock", or on a bouy with the house turned off,
then that runs the risk of sinking the boat, as you have found out.  If
you worry about one battery being too low, you can run diodes to the
pump from each battery (a rudimentary battery combiner).  Route the
diodes with the band (the anode) of one to each battery.  Make sure to
use POWER diodes capable of several 10's of amps.  The cathodes tie
together and run to the bilge pump.  The strongest battery will then run
the pump, or if both are low their combined current will be applied.
But they cannot cross to each other (bad if one battery should go flat).

Regards,
Les H
On Mon, 2008-06-09 at 10:08 -0700, Larry Malmberg wrote:
> We just discovered, this weekend, that our bilge pump does now go on if


> 
> 
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Larry Malmberg
> Hassle
> 
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> 
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