Bilge Pump wire

AKBASSKING

AKBASSKING

Active Member
Apr 13, 2008
4,649
SE Alaska Summer/Columbia River winter
Boat Info
1988 Yacht Fisher
Engines
Twin 375hp Cat 3208 T/A
OK need some advice.

Old Set Up:

Two batteries with all house and accessories coming off of the Stbd battery. Bilge pumps circut panel is hard wired to the stbd battery.

New set up:

3 batteries. one for each engine and one for house. The one for the house is a big deep cycle.

Issue: Which battery would you hook up the bilge pumps too?

I also have 2 mistery wires. A green and yellow wire. Green is ground and yellow has an inline circuit breaker. I believe the go to the bridge. Any ideas??
 
May be a little out of my league but just thinking out loud...

Any chance the green (ground) is for the bonding system?

Any chance the Yellow (going to the bridge) is for an alarm? High bildge water alarm?
 
mwph said:
May be a little out of my league but just thinking out loud...

Any chance the green (ground) is for the bonding system?

Any chance the Yellow (going to the bridge) is for an alarm? High bildge water alarm?
Click to expand...

Already have a green wire for the bonding (will be needing to clean all those many connections too....). the green water runs up to the bridge. Just wondering as it has a circuit breaker at the battery terminal.
 
I just replaced the float switch in mine, it was set up interestingly. The float switch gets its power from the house battery, run directly to it w/ an inline fuse. The other power lead that is run from the switch on the dash gets its power from the starting batteries. I thought this was wierd and was going to simplify it, then I realized that this way even if one of my battery banks is dead I can still run the bilge. Smart setup i thought, maybe yours is similar and the extra wires are to isolate the ground and power for the float switch. Just a thought.
 
Interesting. I will have to see if the cable that goes to the switch panel also goes to the bilge, then that would tell me to make sure the hot wire to the bilge breaker panel need to go to another battery.

Funny, it was wired that way you were going to do it. The previous owner had both wires to the same battery.

Thanks.

BTW Do you think Gary would loan me wingless to test the wires?
 
Do you have a bildge switch on your bridge? I know with my boat the float will activate the pump if it rises in the presence of water but it also has a wire to the helm bildge switch to override the float and turn the pump on manually.
 
BillyT0020 said:
Do you have a bildge switch on your bridge? I know with my boat the float will activate the pump if it rises in the presence of water but it also has a wire to the helm bildge switch to override the float and turn the pump on manually.
Click to expand...

LOL I have been so involved below, I haven't been on the bridge in a few months. I will have to check, but I think I do. I know I have switches in the cabin.
 
Tonight, I cleaned the engine connections.

On the port side I have a large ground wire that goes to the genny. There is also a small ground from the emergency solenoid.

I have discovered that I only have one wire that goes to the bilge breaker panel. The other hot wire is to the switch panel for lights and house stuff.

So, I am leaning to placing this on the house battery, to keep the engine start batteries safe.

I also have a large red and ground coming from the cabin, don't yet know what these are too, along with the green and yellow wire.

Man, it would be nice to have a cabin wiring diagram. I was an aircraft electrician in a former life, so a little detective work will reveal it. The 2 big wires, I bet are to the windlass, would be my guess.
 
AKBASSKING said:
OK need some advice.

Old Set Up:

Two batteries with all house and accessories coming off of the Stbd battery. Bilge pumps circut panel is hard wired to the stbd battery.

New set up:

3 batteries. one for each engine and one for house. The one for the house is a big deep cycle.

Issue: Which battery would you hook up the bilge pumps too?

I also have 2 mistery wires. A green and yellow wire. Green is ground and yellow has an inline circuit breaker. I believe the go to the bridge. Any ideas??
Click to expand...

it is possible that additional wires are for indicator light on bridge dash (if any).
some older sea rays had separate "manual" and "auto" indicator lights for each pump
 
boatmailster said:
it is possible that additional wires are for indicator light on bridge dash (if any).
some older sea rays had separate "manual" and "auto" indicator lights for each pump
Click to expand...

I never looked at my wiring but this is the way that mine is set up. I have an amber 24/7 LED indicating power to the float switch auto 24 hour pump. Another red LED lights when the pump runs regardless if it is triggered automatically by the float switch or manually by the helm switch between the two LEDs.

The lamps were upgraded to LEDs when Scott reproduced my gauge and switch panels.
 
Run all new wires for something this important. Tear out all old wires, have a nice clean install, and label all wiring.
 
Sorrento 25 said:
I never looked at my wiring but this is the way that mine is set up. I have an amber 24/7 LED indicating power to the float switch auto 24 hour pump. Another red LED lights when the pump runs regardless if it is triggered automatically by the float switch or manually by the helm switch between the two LEDs.

The lamps were upgraded to LEDs when Scott reproduced my gauge and switch panels.
Click to expand...

Thanks Sorrento and Boatmailster. Mine has a green lamp that shows I have power to the pumps. Don't know yet what they do when a pump turns on. I found two bad float switches and I am waiting for it to stop raining to get down in there and replace the floats. Very tight between the two engines.
 
Last edited:
AKBASSKING said:
Thanks Sorrento and Boatmailster. Mine has a green lamp that shows I have power to the pumps. Don't know yet what they do when a pump turns on. I found two bad float switches and I am waiting for it to stop raining to get down in there and replace the floats. Very tight between the two engines.
Click to expand...
My Halon system indicator illuminates green with ignition on.

I thought I had a bad float switch once when my pump wouldn't shut off but found a twig wedged underneath the float holding it up. Good thing - I don't think I could replace it myself. I had a nightmare once about getting stuck in the bilge and not being able to get back out. :grin:
 
Sorrento 25 said:
My Halon system indicator illuminates green with ignition on.

I thought I had a bad float switch once when my pump wouldn't shut off but found a twig wedged underneath the float holding it up. Good thing - I don't think I could replace it myself. I had a nightmare once about getting stuck in the bilge and not being able to get back out. :grin:
Click to expand...

Ummm......

Funny you should mention that. I did get stuck and the Admiral looked at me and said: "You will have to loose some weight or I will have to get out the butter! But since you don't want to mess up your clean bilge, then I will come back and check on you in a week or so.":smt100

It took me an hour to wiggle my way out.........:smt009
 
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