Electrical, Bilge Pump Switches, Part 2: Wiring

The bilge pump switches, wired and ready for final installation

Having discussed, in the first half of this article, my reasoning behind my choice of certain brands of bilge pump switches and bilge pumps, and having discussed my rationale for locating these switches and pumps where I located them, I will now discuss, in the second half of this article, the steps I took in the wiring of these devices in Oystercatcher, my Ericson 25.

Although these Blue Sea Systems bilge pump switches, like all bilge pump switches, are rather small, they require quite a bit of wiring, and, in my experience, quite a bit of time to wire. Certainly the stripping, the crimping, the heat-shrinking, and the labeling of each wire was time-consuming in and of itself. That, however, can be said for any wiring project on a boat. What I'm talking about here is the routing of all of these wires. The 16 AWG (American Wire Gauge) yellow wire had to go to a negative bus bar in the cockpit locker. This yellow wire was the negative for the LED. The two 14 AWG red wires had to go all the way to the bilge. These would serve the pump and its float switch. The 14 AWG red wire on the far right (in the picture above and below) had to go to the house bank bus bar in the lazarette. This red wire was, of course, the positive wire that fed this bilge pump switch.

Before I had ever started this wiring process, I had temporarily installed the bilge pump switches in the bulkhead in the galley of Oystercatcher.

The backside of the bulkhead was in the cockpit locker on the port side of the boat.

The bilge pump switches were the least accessible of all the electrical components in this space.

In the lazarette, just beneath the cockpit locker, there were bus bars for the DC main circuit. The outboard bus bar, i.e., the one on the far left, was dedicated to the house battery bank. It's to this bus bar that I would need to rout the positive wires for the two bilge pump switches. See the bus bar in the cockpit locker? It's to this that I would need to route the LED negatives. As far as the other wires were concerned, I would need to route them down into the lazarette, and from there, downward into the bilge. While this might seem simple, it was not. There were many other wires to route through these spaces, and I had to take many of them into consideration. As I have said in other articles, if I were simply replacing and rewiring an existing component of an existing electrical system, this would not have been that challenging. Since, however, I was creating this electrical system anew, I had to take many different things into consideration during almost every step of the process. At times I felt like I was playing several different games of chess at once.

Now let's focus on the positive wires themselves. In the picture below, we see the gray, 10 AWG wire for the emergency bilge pump switch. I used 10 AWG on this switch due to the size of the emergency pump and its energy demands. The female quick disconnect that I crimped and heat shrunk on the end of the wire was almost too large for the male blade on the back of the switch. I had to bend the blade down slightly to get enough clearance from the switch fuse, which was an obstruction of sorts. I used black electrical tape to support this 10 AWG wire and to keep it from bending the blade any more than necessary.

I have already discussed the wiring of the primarily bilge pump switch, i.e., the switch we see pictured below. I'll only add here that the red 14 AWG wire (on the far right) was much easier to slide onto the male blade. It was almost as if the switch had been designed with 14 AWG wire in mind. I found this surprising, especially since the clear and well-written instructional information that came with the switch from Blue Sea Systems indicated that 10 AWG wire is often necessary in the wiring of bilge pumps.

In order to route these two positive wires downward into the lazarette I had to drill a hole in the bottom of the cockpit locker.

I had already drilled a large hole for the gray conduit that held two AC three-wire cables. I had also drilled a hole for the black conduit that held the 6 AWG grounding cable for the AC distribution panel. Now I drilled another hole for the these two positive wires from the bilge pump switches. I planned to use this same hole (and the black conduit that I would run through it) for the pump and float switch wires, which also had to be routed down into the lazarette. The second hole that you see pictured, therefore, has nothing to do with the bilge pump switches. This one would be dedicated to the battery monitor data cable. I knew that I also had to route this cable downward into the lazarette, so I went ahead and drilled it at this time, before things got too crazy with wires running everywhere.

When drilling these holes, I made sure to drill them through the un-cored area of the locker. Notice the large cut-out for the hatch that I would later install in the cockpit locker. I had earlier routed out the balsa core about 1/8 inch and had filled the gap with thickened epoxy. I did this, of course, to prevent moisture from working its way into the core and causing rot. By drilling through the un-cored area, close to the bulkhead, I was able to leave the balsa core undisturbed.

I said that things would get crazy with the wires. The picture below gives you a glimpse of this.

Now let's focus again on those positive wires from the bilge pump switches. You can see that I have now connected them to the house bus bar. This bus bar would in turn be connected directly to the house battery bank by a 1 AWG cable. It is standard practice, of course, to connect the bilge pump switches to the house bank, instead of connecting them to a DC distribution panel. This direct link to the battery bank ensures that the bilge pumps are always ready for action . . . assuming, of course, that the house battery bank is itself alive and ready for action, or at least has enough of a charge to support both pumps working non-stop for an extended period of time. On the Ericson Forum, some time ago, I floated the idea of wiring one of the bilge pumps to the house bank and one to the reserve bank, just in case one of the batteries failed. Maine Sail, whose advice I do not take lightly, urged me to stick with the standard practice of wiring both bilge pumps to the house bank. For this reason, I stuck with the status quo. I do still wonder, however, if there might be some value in distributing the bilge pumps in the fashion I described.

It is difficult to see in the picture above, but there are three other wires in that black conduit aside from the two positive wires. Two of these three other wires are red, and one of them is gray. The two red wires are for the primary bilge pump switch. One is for the manual switching of the pump, and the other is for the pump's float switch. The gray wire is for the emergency bilge pump switch. The reason why there is only one gray wire and not two, is because the emergency bilge pump does not have a float switch. There is only the pump itself. Why did I not want a float switch on the emergency pump? Because this was an emergency pump - one that I, or someone else, would activate by hand (in other words by throwing the Blue Sea Systems switch in the galley) when necessary.

Seeing this picture of the back of the primary bilge pump switch might be helpful.

Likewise, it might be helpful to see this picture of the back of the emergency bilge pump switch. Notice how the blade for the float switch has no wire on it.

Before we leave the lazarette, let's take a look at the main negative bus bar. You'll see a black wire and a yellow wire connected to it. The black wire is the negative for the primary pump. The yellow wire is the negative for the emergency pump. These negatives are different, of course, from the negatives that I earlier discussed. Those were the LED negatives for the switches. These are the negatives for the pumps themselves.

Now let's go to the bilge. During the planning stages of this complete rewiring of Oystercatcher, I had slowly purchased the various components that would be necessary for this major project. Two of these components were the bilge pumps. Knowing the physical dimensions of these pumps was a big help. It enabled me to construct, in advance of the rewiring project, a shelf for the emergency bilge pump. This shelf would keep the emergency bilge pump high and dry, while allowing the primary bilge pump, which would reside underneath it, to do the regular, day to day work. For more on all of this, see my article, "Plumbing, Bilge Pumps, Electrical."

In terms of the installation of the emergency bilge pump, I began by screwing the base of the pump into the shelf.

This was a Rule brand 2000 GPH (Gallon Per Hour) pump. The installation of this pump was a snap. Pardon the pun, but yes, all I had to do after I had installed the base was snap the pump itself into place.

Next, I grabbed the primary bilge pump - a Whale brand Supersub Smart 650. I removed the filter screen assembly from the pump itself to remind myself of how it would fit underneath the shelf.

The hole in the shelf was intended for the hose that would join the bilge pump.

While I had the Supersub 650 broken into two pieces, I thought it would be a good idea, for the sake of future reference, to take a picture of the impeller.

The Whale brand pump came with long leads. One was black, another white, and the third, brown. The leads were long enough for me to route them through the bilge (underneath the cabin sole) and into the lazarette. In the lazarette, I joined the white and the brown wires to the two red wires that I had previously routed downward into the lazarette from the primary bilge pump switch in the galley. The white wire was for the manual operation of the pump. The brown wire was for the automatic float switch. I joined these wires using adhesive lined heat shrink butt connectors. As far as the black wire was concerned, after terminating it with an adhesive lined heat shrink ring terminal, I routed it directly to the main negative bus bar on the backplane of the lazarette. I just described this wire and that bus bar in one of the recent pictures above.

As far as the emergency bilge pump was concerned, the leads on it were not long enough for me to route them all the way out of the bilge. Therefore, I decided to use a terminal block to join the necessary wires.

Whereas the brown wire for the Whale brand pump was for the automatic float switch, the brown wire for this Rule brand pump was for the manual operation of the pump. As I said earlier, this Rule brand pump did not have an automatic float switch. At any rate, in the picture below, you'll see that, after terminating the wire with an adhesive lined heat shrink ring terminal, I installed it in the far right position. Next to it, I installed the gray wire that I had previously routed downward from the emergency bilge pump switch in the galley. By installing a terminal jumper underneath the screws for these two wires, I essentially joined these two wires together. You'll also see two other wires. The black one is the negative from the pump. The yellow one is the one that I had routed down from the main negative bus bar on the backplane in the lazarette. I discussed this main negative bus bar and yellow wire above.

On both sides of bilge access there were small fiberglass tabs. It appears that Ericson had designed these tabs to be used as mounting blocks of sorts for wire hangers. To port we see three black conduits. One of them is for the transducer cable; another is for the AC grounding cable; and the third is for the main DC grounding cable. Later I would route two more grounding cables through here - one for each of the two backstays.

On the tab on the starboard side of the bilge access I mounted the terminal block.

Having completed the wiring of the switches and the pumps, I now needed to figure out how to protect the back side of the switches. The wires for these switches projected into the cockpit locker, and I didn't want any objects that might move around inside of the locker to damage them while the boat was under way.

Normal AC electrical boxes would not work for these switches. The boxes were wide enough, but not deep enough. At first, I thought I would use two separate one-gang AC electrical boxes, and that I would make room for the wires by cutting the backs out of the boxes. Eventually, I settled on a three-gang "old work" box, deciding that one large box would be easier to install than two separate ones. Also, I figured that one large box would provide better strength and protection.

Using my Dremel with my incredibly useful, fiberglass cutting bit attached, I quickly cut two holes in the back of this three-gang box.

Installing this box was not easy. A got a helper to reach through from the galley and hold the box against the bulkhead while I drilled four small pilot holes with my left hand. Then, using a magnetic tipped screwdriver, I installed the four screws. How many times did I drop the screws? I lost count.

The three-gang box appeared that it would provide good protection for the backs of these switches, so I was glad that I had invested the time and effort into coming up with this solution and then following through with it.

My next task was to shorten the wires that I had run from the switches in the galley. Initially, I had left lengthy service loops in these wires, not knowing for sure how much wire I might need as I routed each downward into the cockpit locker and lazarette. Now I knew that I had too much slack in these wires, and that I needed to remove as much as 1 or 2 feet from each of them. I do not have a picture of what these wires looked like before I trimmed them. What you see below is the way they looked afterwards.

In this trimming of the wires, I made sure to leave enough for me to install the switches. This was also just enough wire for me to stuff the excess into the back of the three-gang box. This prevented the excess from drooping downward into the cockpit locker where it would be a hazard.

In the close-up below, you can see that I have labeled all three wires for the primary bilge pump. It was especially important for me to indicate which of the two red, 14 AWG wires led to the white wire (for the manual operation of the pump), and which of the two red wires led to the brown wire (for the automatic float switch on the pump).

Earlier, I had installed an AGC/MDL Blue Sea Systems in-line fuse holder (PN 5060) on the red positive wire for the primary bilge pump switch. This fuse, of course, would protect the wire, not the switch.

Also I had earlier installed an in-line fuse holder on the gray positive wire for the emergency bilge pump. Since this wire was 10 AWG, it needed a heavier duty fuse holder. I used an ATO / ATC Blue Sea Systems fuse holder (PN 5064).

With all of the wires ready to go, I grabbed the bilge pump switches and simply plugged all of the female terminals onto the male blades on the backs of the switches.

I would later come back and install the fuses, just before installing the batteries and powering up the new electrical system for the first time.

I thought it would be good to include this close-up picture in this article for the sake of clarity at this moment, and for the sake of future reference.

Satisfied, I slowly stuffed the excess wire into the three-gang box and then I screwed the switches into the holes - the holes that I had pre-drilled before I had ever started this rewiring job.

Finally, I used a zip-tie to pull the black plastic conduit for the bilge pump switch wires out of the way. Now, at last, I could consider this job complete, and I could begin to focus on connecting these hoses to the bilge pumps.

This ends this posting on how I wired the bilge pump switches and the bilge pumps on Oystercatcher, my Ericson 25.

Electrical, ACR (Automatic Charging Relay), Part 2: Installation of Secondary Wires

The ACR with its secondary wiring

It's easy for us to think of the ACR (Automatic Charging Relay) in terms of its primary function - joining the house bank to the reserve bank, so that both banks may be charged by a single charging source, for example an engine or a battery bank, at the same time. Likewise, when it comes to wiring the ACR, it's easy for us to think first of the large cables that join the house bank to the reserve bank via the ACR. It's important, however, for us not to overlook some other wires that serve an important function for the ACR. In this posting, the second part of a two-part article, I describe how I created and installed these small secondary wires for the ACR in Oystercatcher, my Ericson 25.

Let's begin by looking at the back of the ACR. Between the two red positive cables we see a Blue Sea Systems label. At the bottom of the label there are three abbreviations - GND (Ground), SI (Starting Isolation), and LED (which stands for the LED indicator light). In this posting I will focus only on the Ground and on the LED. I will not address Starting Isolation, a function which isolates the ACR from the battery banks when the engine is being started. After a discussion with a helpful tech support person at Blue Sea Systems, I determined that Starting Isolation was not necessary for my set-up. Starting Isolation, this person said, was a function that large sport fishing boats with large engines typically employed, not sailboats with small engines or motors.

First, let's talk about the LED indicator light. The purpose of this light is to indicate to the user that the ACR is recognizing a charging source (for example an engine or a battery charger) and is in the process of combining the two different battery banks for charging. I knew this would be helpful information, so I knew I wanted to make use of this LED function on my boat.

There are many LED indicator lights available on the market. When asked about these, the tech person at Blue Sea Systems told me that the Blue Sea Systems ACR needed a Blue Sea Systems LED indicator light in order to function properly. He said it all had to do with the milliamps of the Blue Sea Systems LED. Based on the numerous helpful conversations I had had with this tech support person at Blue Sea Systems, I took him for his word and did not experiment with other brands.

I was, however, tempted, because I knew that the Blue Sea Systems LED indicator light was quite small compared to other brands on the market. Just how small it was, I did not know for sure until I received mine in the mail from an online retailer. This thing was incredibly tiny. In the picture we see my Swiss Army knife beside it for comparison. Try to ignore the packaging and the wiring and instead focus on the small green bulb.

The instructions on the back of the packaging said that the light would fit in an 11/64 inch hole.

I began by drilling an 11/64 inch hole in a scrap piece of wood, just so I could see what this tiny light looked like by itself.

Are you squinting? Yes, it's that minuscule green dot at the center of the wood. Let's leave this problem aside for a while and talk about the next one.

Now I had to figure out how to route the wires for this LED. The positive wire, of course, had to begin at the ACR, but it needed to be routed upward, into the cockpit locker, and outward, into the galley, where most of the other major components of the electrical system were visible.

In the picture below, we see (L-R) the AC receptacle, the battery switch, the battery monitor, the DC main circuit breaker, and the AC distribution panel with the bilge pump switches above it. Somewhere on this bulkhead in the galley I needed to install this tiny LED indicator light. There was a small open space available to the right of the bilge pump switches, but putting such a tiny light in this space would have been silly. Besides, the backside of this area of the bulkhead was the least accessible from the cockpit.

After a fair amount of thought, I settled on the battery monitor. I decided I would install the LED indicator light on the mahogany panel, just beneath the monitor. Placing it here made the most sense to me, since the ACR, like the monitor, is related to the batteries.

With a center-hole punch I marked the spot where I needed to drill the 11/64 inch hole.

Slowly I drilled through the mahogany and through the two layers of the bulkhead, making sure that all wires that I had just installed in this space behind the bulkhead were not in the way of the drill bit. It helped that I could reach my hands through the adjacent empty holes.

Then I grabbed the LED indicator light and installed it in the 11/64 inch hole. Do you see it in the picture below? If you don't, you shouldn't feel bad. It's just a tiny green speck. I decided that this was unacceptable. I needed some sort of backer for this light in order to draw attention to it. In other words, this little fellow needed a lot of help in getting noticed.

I decided to use a small piece of 1/4 inch mahogany. This was a scrap piece from the mahogany I had used to create the decorative trim pieces for the battery monitor and other components of the electrical system in the galley.

I decided to use two finish washers for the screws. That way, this small piece of mahogany would tie in with the rest of the mahogany in the boat, almost all of which was joined with finish washers.

Next, I drilled an 11/64 inch hole and inserted the LED indicator light. Even on this small piece of wood this light did not stand out.

Therefore, I decided to use two differently sized stainless steel flat washers as trim pieces. Together they would look like one single finish washer, and they would help to draw attention to the LED.

This, I thought, looked much better.

Concerned that the finish washers on each side might be a distraction, I decided to get rid of them and instead drill countersink holes for flathead washers.

Then, I installed the whole thing.

I didn't like the way the flathead screws looked. They seemed out of place compared to all the other screws in the boat. Therefore, I went back and installed the finish washers. Below, we see them in place.

Now I needed to wire this LED indicator light. I had installed, as you will recall, the ACR in the lazarette. I needed run a 16 AWG (American Wire Gauge) wire up from the lazarette to the cockpit locker. In the picture below, you'll see that I have drilled a small hole and fed a red wire through it.

If you look carefully at the bulkhead, just to the right of the yellow wires, you'll see the small red and yellow wires for the LED indicator light. I needed to join the small red wire to the 16 AWG wire that I had just installed.

Before doing anything else, however, I needed to protect this red wire with some sort of sheathing. I chose white braided expandable sleeving. I had earlier purchased this from Genuinedealz / BestBoatWire in Brunswick, Georgia, USA.

In the picture below, you'll see that I have already installed the expandable sleeving on the ACR end of the wire. I should also point out that I have also already installed the quick disconnect terminal on the end of the wire. This heat shrink terminal I had also purchased at Genuinedealz / BestBoatWire. Same goes for the wire itself.

The braided expandable sleeving is easy to install, once you get the hang of it. When bunched up or wrinkled up, the sleeving wants to straighten itself out. Thus, by sliding your fingers over it and forcing it to wrinkle up, you can make it pass through small holes, just like the one that I had earlier drilled.

Next I focused on the ground wire for the ACR. For this I also used an adhesive lined heat shrink quick disconnect terminal. These female types of terminals are designed to fit over the male blades, just like the ones that Blue Sea Systems used on this ACR.

Over this yellow ground wire, I also installed white expandable braided sleeving. I routed this wire over to the grounding bus - the one on the far right of the picture. The black electrical tape on the end of the yellow wire does not protect some nick in the wire; rather, it protects the end of the expandable sleeving. In other words, it keeps it from fraying.

All I had left to do now was to deal with the small positive and negative wires from the LED indicator light. I needed to join the small red positive wire lead to the 16 AWG positive wire that I had routed up there. To join these two, I would use an adhesive lined butt connector. I also needed to join the small yellow negative wire lead to a 16 AWG yellow wire that I would rout to the nearby negative bus bar, yes the one with all of the yellow wires coming off of it.

Thinking that this was all I had left to do, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to install fuse holders in the wires coming out of the ACR.

I began by installing a fuse holder in the ground wire. Why in the ground, you might ask, since fuses normally are installed in positive wires? I asked a tech support person at Blue Sea Systems this question. He said that their computer modeling showed that in the event of a catastrophic failure of the ACR, it would be good to have a fuse in the ground wire. Fortunately, he added, there were no known instances of catastrophic failures of ACRs.

I also, of course, installed an in-line fuse holder on the positive wire for the LED indicator light.

Here's a close-up of both fuse holders side by side.

My final task, after joining the 16 AWG red positive wire to the small gauge red positive wire lead from the LED indicator light with an adhesive lined heat shrink butt connector, was to create a 16 AWG yellow negative wire for the small gauge yellow positive lead from the LED.

Routing this yellow negative wire was easy, since a bus bar for negative wires was nearby.

In the picture below you'll see what I'm talking about. Notice that by this point I have covered the red positive wire (sheathed in white expandable sleeving) with a black plastic split-loom conduit. I did this so that it might be held more firmly in place by the large cable underneath which it ran.

All in all, the installation of the secondary wires for the ACR was not very difficult. As was often the case in the completing rewiring of this boat, the most time consuming task was trying to figure out how to route the wires and how to make all of the different pieces fit together into a coherent whole.

This ends this posting on my installation of the secondary wires for the ACR in Oystercatcher, my Ericson 25.