Bilge Pumps Refit - High Water Alarms

[vineyardgray]

Pumps have arrived. While I was waiting I removed the stair riser and slapped some spar varnish on it. (No pics yet) I don't expect it to improve too much (the old riser was full of staple holes from various carpeting jobs, and I am seriously contemplating that again, or a rad veneer job ). I did really want to even out the look with all the other shotgun boards, plus add some water resistance.

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Pumps are here:

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I do like these pumps. The twist out design makes cleaning the impeller easy and If for some reason I ever have to replace the whole pump it is even easier with the garden hose style fitting to do a direct swap out without struggling with hoses etc. Even comes with a check valve, but I'm not sure I want to use that - thoughts?

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[vineyardgray]

Got to this yesterday and after a lot of headscratching I drilled a hole. This will be hidden by the stair riser once I reinstall all that.

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Just for interest, the balsa core of the sole is 1" thick:

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Put the pre-built loom into the hole with the pump connector and switch connector down in the bilge and secured it well with ty-wrap. Then time to make the vessel connections:
Stripped and shrink applied:

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Then these little rubber booties go on each wire:

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Then the pin gets crimped on:

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Ta-da! Wire termination done on both ends:

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Wire management:

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Now we have an error. I was sure the old pumps were 3/4 hose, but the old rule pumps are 1-1/8". Doh. Looks like these pumps are too small. Good thing I have a new Rule 1500 so I can finish this install today:

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Here's the switch and the pump installed. Working in the bilge is not fun. This bilge is 2' 3" deep and is a full arm length down. Murder:

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More wire management:

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Not shown is the install of a new blue seas negative bus terminal so I can get power to the switch. It started raining during the install which added a frustrating element to working in the open engine compartment. Also frustrating was I never able to get power brought over to the new panel due to the rain. Boo.

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Tonight we will have power!

[Midnightsun]

And I thought I over thought stuff! Really nice work.

[vineyardgray]

I have decided to use two lengths of the 14/5c to bring the negative and positive busses right to the switches, using three conductors of each. Two cables will go into the engine bay that look something like this:

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I didn't take a ton of pics because I got started late and it took a ton of time to keep the wire managed:

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Then I connected to my newy installed essential circuit bus. No picks sorry. It's a painfully tight spot without trying to take pictures too. My only concern with this setup is that I am bringing unfused circuits into the cabin (right over a hot A/C unit)
This is kinda the way it was wired originally so hopefully I'm doing the right thing. The battery shut off does not affect these pumps. Always on. Essential. I think the idea is that if the boat is going down, the last things to die are the pumps.
Finally!

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I only have the midships pump wired so the others are just showing 1. Well they're all showing 1 - I assume this is cycle. I need to RTFM.
Here I'm pushing the manual button which is an intermittent button.

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The display cycles (you can see in these pictures one of the two trips to the first aid kit required to get this done

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Now I can confirm the Blue Guard switch via Bluetooth (next time)

[vineyardgray]

The app is pretty simple to program the switch. The fact that there's an app at all for a bilge switch is pretty astounding.
It connects with Bluetooth and looks like this to start:

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Then it finds a device:

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Then you end up with the following settings and information. It is interesting to see there is a temperature reading there that is not related to the BlueGuard control panel - perhaps BG have some future plans. This bilge temp would be very useful in an overwintering situation.

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You can set a custom name:

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Set the alarm timing:

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You can set the sensitivity to avoid nuisance alarms:

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You can set the pump run time after the switch no longer sees water:

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And finally there's a help menu with some stuff that isn't all too helpful.

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After that there is a test menu that test the pump and alarm panel.

One thing is that you can't always access the menu - you only have one minute after you power cycle the switch to access the menu and then It locks you out. Then if you're too pokey making changes it locks you out again and you have to power cycle the switch. If you see "Oops, this device is already connected to another device" as the image above shows, you're locked out.

All in all pretty impressive.

[vineyardgray]

In case any of you were thinking of upgrading your pump switches or control panels, BGI has a sale on right now:

https://www.bluebgi.com/sale/p/bilge-pu ... trol-panel

[bud37]

Nice......I would have to have a one week course to learn how to operate your boat....

[Phrancus]

Nice write up, thank you! I have figured out in part the ideas behind the setup in my boat. Luckily my bilge is not as deep. Your write up and pictures help me to design my setup.

A question about the location: is the panel with the 3 panels in it now above the top step? Will there be a protection something in front agains feet/toes kicking it and inadvertedly switching something?

My stairs are in need of rebuilding so your project inspires me to add some things like this in it too (battery watch, some indicators of what is runnig on what power and such)


For one, I will use (or add) a momentary push button for the manual bilge operation, if it needs continuous operation, I have bigger problems and the automatic should take over. I dread forgetting it and leaving it an, running dry.




About the unfused wiring into the cabin: one indeed must be 'always on' - bypassing switch panel - but that does not mean that you cannot fuse it. You can add an inline fuse or an additional small fuse box near the place where the cabling go through the wall into the cabin.

You might want to create a small signalling method in the switch panel where you can see if that fuse is blown or not. (for example a LED also always on when the pump is powered. Somewhere were you can spot it easily when leaving the boat for example.
If you don't like the light, you can add a push button to check manually, although that would be an extra thing to forget.
Or wire it so that the led is always off except when the fuse is blown but that would give a false idea of security (no light so all is well. but when a lot is not well: also no light)

[vineyardgray]

Thanks for your thoughts Pharancus - i found a pile of breakers this spring in the "things I have removed from the boat pile" and I realize they were originally the breakers for the bilge pumps. I will have to reinstall those into the feeds from my essential circuits panel.

Like you I was also worried about feet inadvertently switching off or on the bilge switches but that hasn't been a problem yet, although I had considered putting clear plexiglass over the whole thing if it ever did. That is one nice thing about having it recessed into the stair riser.

[km1125]

They make "protected" breakers which are made to prevent inadvertent switching off, but still allow you to switch off. They also make both pushbutton and toggle breakers that you can't turn off manually, but can reset if they get tripped. A lot of manufacturers use those types for things like smoke alarms and emergency bilge pumps.