The bilge rocker switch seems way over complicated

[jkallen21]

Granted I'm brand new to Nautiques, but not new to boats. Mine is a 2006 SAN. This bilge switch seems way more complex than it needs to be. This is not something I even think about in other brands and the forum seems to have many posts regarding battery drain due to this. I learned this the hard way - dead batteries - and Luckily this forum saved my weekend!
in every other boat I have had, the bilge is always activated via a float switch. Power is always there and it just works when water is present. If I want to run it manually I hit the button on the dash.
Why is this so different on SN? If I leave it in bilge-only, will the battery be ok? Is this the same setting as what I describe in other boats?

thanks guys!

[AirTool]

How complicated is: everything on - everything off - only bilge on

The "bilge only" bypasses the keypad which is a soft output so that you can have the bilge pump available when everything else is off.

Older CC's may have had a float...to prevent the pump from running all the time...closing the circuit only when water was in the bilge. (of course power is needed through the switch or dash)

In modern time (maybe 20 years)? we now have "automatic" pumps that run for for 2 or 3 seconds every minute or so. The circuit in the pump can detect if water is being pumped. If water is being pumped, the pump runs until no water is being pumped. If no water is being pumped, the pump shuts down and the timer resets.

How hard is that? ...and much more reliable than a float switch.

[robertsmcfarland]

your toggle switch switch should cut everything off, unless you are Mooring then switch to bilge only, then your bilge will cycle, I think, I know the 2010 an up will, if you have good batteries it will be good for weeks, if I remember correctly my 2005 did not cycle when on and only activated by float only must have change in 2006.

[jmo]

My boat is a garage queen 50 weeks a year, the other two weeks are up at a lake tied up at the dock, I used to flip my toggle switch to 'off' to not wear the battery overnight, that was until the morning after a major thunderstorm with a new cover, that turned out to be DEFECTIVE! I had 6 inches of water in the bilge and was lucky the rain stopped overnight when it did. Sure wish I had left the toggle on bilge only...

[scottb7]

I thought it was bad too til I got over it. I think like above I was worried about wearing out battery. But that is the point of the bilge only position. No power to the keypad. Just the pumps. I would argue that there is no way to prove the "more reliable than a float switch comment."

[AirTool]

I would argue that there is no way to prove the "more reliable than a float switch comment."

The only way to prove it would be for all boats to have both.

I only say that because for decades folks I know that have big boats that stay in the marina have bitched about the float switches. They carried spare switches on the boat and one guy I know even wired two in parallel and staggered their replacement so one was always fairly new.

Some were industrious and put in a two position switch on/float so they could bypass the float.

I remember going fishing one time and the boat across from my buddies...the guy stopped us before we left and told us how much water was in is bildge and asked my buddy if he happened to have a spare float switch. My buddy did...and in the package.

Now...this was seawater service.

The part I don't like about the auto's we have is that it is difficult to pump the boat dry. With a switch..at least you could reach down there and pull the float up.

OT: I changed my aft pump out to be manual (I never leave it in the water) and was about to change my forward pump out also. But then I got a new keypad and the keypad logic was changed so that the bilge pump switch is activated just as soon as you key in the code. My original one wasn't that way. So then my aft pump was coming on immediately....so I disconnected it and need to go back with an automatic. Its too much work for my feeble old brain to remember to turn the pump off every time. But it was nice to be able to force the pump to run.

What we really need is two circuits to the pump...run no matter what and auto.

[scottb7]

The switches went bad. The pumps go bad. Mine was under 5 years old...These days everything goes bad....Oh well...Can't complain too much can we?

[AirTool]

The switches went bad. The pumps go bad. Mine was under 5 years old...These days everything goes bad....Oh well...Can't complain too much can we?

Agree. My aft pump wasn't running the second year so I:
1. got a new manual pump
2. carefully cut as much wire I could off the old one because it had a factory plug
3. then soldered a 2 wire trailer connector onto the new pump
4. then soldered the other 2 wire trailer connector onto the end of the harness I cut off the old pump
5. then installed the new pump and plugged it all in
6. then turned it on and nothing happened.
7. then effed around with the original plug to find a pin loose
8. jiggled the pin and then the new pump came on.
9. tested the old pump on a battery and it ran immediatly.
10. For a very smart, energetic, and resourceful dude, ...sometimes I'm just an idiot. Or maybe I didn't drink enough beer that day.

[scottb7]

Sounds like me...Thanks for sharing. I am thinking I should go ahead and replace the other pump...Maybe not too far behind the first one going out.

[vision]

I am with the OP on this one. The intermittent running of the bilge pump when it is in normal mode is, well, annoying. There is no question it can drain your battery if left on long enough. But just the noise every few minutes is annoying. Perhaps I have just been fortunate that in every other boat I have owned where the the pump is float activated in normal mode (versus off or on) that I have not had any problems with the float switch. I am sure in a dirty bilge the float activation could become problematic. But I am not convinced that a bilge that constantly samples the environment is better than a sensor based operation such as a float switch.

[xrichard]

Besides the claim that the new style is more reliable than the old style (which makes sense to me since you're not relying on a mechanical switch), the other problem that occasionally cropped up with float style was having the float impeded by debris. If something floated / shifted / sucked under it, it could get stuck on. If something got positioned on top of it, it could get stuck off.

Nevertheless, no free lunch. You need to be more aware of your battery condition with the new style. Overall, I like the Nautique set up v. the old float style setup.

It's a bit of a pain, but if the non-float pump is causing a problem for you re: batteries, noise, etc., you can always convert it with a separate float switch...insert it in series with the pump. Or just replace the pump with a float style.

[scottb7]

I guess you could just switch out the "fully auto pump" to one with float switch. Annoyance gone... So when you are on bilge only it will be activated by float switch instead of the sampling. I got used to it. And the one that went out was clearly due to freezing up of motor due to water penetration not the brains of the unit.

[Sac Surfer]

The bilge only mode has run for 2 weeks with pumping water out of my boat every 15minutes, not killing the battery and still being able to start on battery 1. I had a leak on the exhaust port, one of the screws was stripped caused the port to not seal and thus water coming in. After a year you won't even notice the annoying humm of the pump cycling. That's being said you could always modify it, but Nautiques are nice that you can all power off or everything on. My boat has a perko in the rear hatch as well 2010 210.

Not really sure what your gripe is about the pumps, unless it's the cartridge for the filter, (haven't gotten around to clearing that out yet)