mcarthur
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 9, 2018
- Messages
- 307
- Location
- Australia
- Vessel Name
- Blu Emu
- Vessel Make
- Ligure 50' aluminium power catamaran
Wiring a bilge pump with separate water-detection switch is relatively straightforward:
Bringing in digital switching adds some more options (we're using Maretron mPower, but Czone and others should be the same).
My thought is that there's the main +ve to the digital switching unit (75a unit in our case). One of the lines off the unit is "manual" line down to the pump"(second dot point above).
Now the "auto" setting could just go straight from battery, but really it could also go off the digital switching unit just before the main +ve connects to the unit. This would be nice as both +ve lines would come from near the same point (the digital switching unit) making them easier to run.
Now those wires are decent sizes for the 3% drop, so rather than run 2x +ve and 1x-ve, it would be nicer to run 1x+ve,1x-ve and 1x"control". However, as far as I can work out this would mean a relay near the pump, which doesn't seem a good idea.
Is there any other way?
Now you may think it's a bit silly to worry about one more wire, but as a catamaran with separate areas, we have 8x bilge pumps. So instead of 16x 10gauge +ve wires I would only need to run 8x 10 guage + 8x "control" say 16gauge.
But...one of the nice things about the digital switching unit is that it a) detects and send to N2K any amperage going through the switches, and b) detects "blown bulbs" and other anomalies in the different switched circuits. So if wired properly I could have an N2K detection of the automatic bilge pumps, counting number of turn-ons, hours on, etc.
I've been looking at this for some time, but my brain is still mush on how to get 8x auto and manual bilge pumps connections from the digital switch unit (which has only 12 switches). I feel there's a fancy way, but I'm not seeing it!
- +ve wire from unswitched to water-detection switch, water detection switch to pump (aka "auto")
- +ve wire from switched panel to off/on manual bilge switch, then straight down to pump (aka "manual")
Bringing in digital switching adds some more options (we're using Maretron mPower, but Czone and others should be the same).
My thought is that there's the main +ve to the digital switching unit (75a unit in our case). One of the lines off the unit is "manual" line down to the pump"(second dot point above).
Now the "auto" setting could just go straight from battery, but really it could also go off the digital switching unit just before the main +ve connects to the unit. This would be nice as both +ve lines would come from near the same point (the digital switching unit) making them easier to run.
Now those wires are decent sizes for the 3% drop, so rather than run 2x +ve and 1x-ve, it would be nicer to run 1x+ve,1x-ve and 1x"control". However, as far as I can work out this would mean a relay near the pump, which doesn't seem a good idea.
Is there any other way?
Now you may think it's a bit silly to worry about one more wire, but as a catamaran with separate areas, we have 8x bilge pumps. So instead of 16x 10gauge +ve wires I would only need to run 8x 10 guage + 8x "control" say 16gauge.
But...one of the nice things about the digital switching unit is that it a) detects and send to N2K any amperage going through the switches, and b) detects "blown bulbs" and other anomalies in the different switched circuits. So if wired properly I could have an N2K detection of the automatic bilge pumps, counting number of turn-ons, hours on, etc.
I've been looking at this for some time, but my brain is still mush on how to get 8x auto and manual bilge pumps connections from the digital switch unit (which has only 12 switches). I feel there's a fancy way, but I'm not seeing it!