Yep that was a day!! no pumps at all that day, but she floated still with a **** pit full of water!
after that my next boat had 3 pumps! I had two auto one manual, I also put the 2 autos on seprate batterys with the 2nd float a bit higher. This way if it started to leak at the mooring it would kill the first battery then the water would get the 2nd flot and have a full battery for the 2nd pump. hopefully it would give enough time that someone would see something was wrong before it sank!

My recommendation is buy a new lighted 6 or 8 switch panel. Cut a hole right where the switches are now & mount it there. Replace any questionable wire with MARINE GRADE wire. Don't skimp!

NAV&Anchor/off/Anchor (I'm assuming you have an AllAround white light.)

Horn (momentary ON) get a red switch cover for that one

Bilge1ON(manual)/off(both will be Auto)/Bilge2ON(manual) (wire them both AUTO to electronic sensor switches to the battery with in line fuses)

Wiper on/off

Deck lights on/off

Electronics On/off ( you want to be able to switch off the power to FF/GPS/VHF cables to prevent corrosion, ask me how I know...)

The Compass was probably originally connected to the Engine Key On power. If not, connect it to your Anchor light.

You didn't mention Fuel Gauge. They usually came with a momentary switch but an on/off is better for when you're by yourself...

SO...

The new question is "How is 12V power fed TO your switches?"

Do you have separate 12V feeds from battery, thru an inline fuse, to each switch or is there a fuse block fed by a heavy (8 gauge) wire from the battery?
Is the main feed fused at the battery?

Smoke, the switches I use are the on/off/on type you mentioned. Up position is manual on, off in the middle position and automatic in the down position. I also have a bright red LED light wired to the switch. When the pump on, it also turns the LED on, signaling me that the pump is running. That way if I have it in manual mode and I forget it's on, it reminds me to turn it off (so I don't run down the battery), and if it (the light) is on in auto mode it tells me to check and see why the pump is running.

An indicator is a good idea...
Another idea, especially if you plan to moor or sleep on a boat is to hook up a horn or siren to a float switch mounted higher that the normal one and on a second battery... That way, if the maintenance pump doesn't keep up you get warned or woke up when things get serious.

Thats great idea, never thought of adding the horn as a alarm!:fam:

Done. You know, I was just going to do toggle switches until I read this...then it dawned on me how much sense it made! I'll know at a glance if a device is getting power, or not.


Yup! I have fuel, tach, water pressure, voltage and trim (I think I can do without trim). And I didn't even consider including them in my wiring schematic....told ya I was green!

I have two batteries with a battery switch....please see the pics below of the cluster I'm facing. Disclaimer: When I looked at this crap, I felt overwhelmed. Instead of trying to jump in and immediately figure it out, I instead took pictures to analyze at home with a clear head. I'm feeling good again.

http://www.vsu.edu/files/images/univ...ber-12/W2.jpeg

Connectors at the pos and neg with missing wires, more positive wires than there are negative wires!!!. That cream colored wire at the pos is going into the cabin....could be the lights...could be the stereo. Obviously, removal of the empty connectors, tracing all those positive wires and figuring out where the negatives are going is in order.

http://www.vsu.edu/files/images/univ...ber-12/W3.jpeg

That little harness....:sad: That large black cable is the steering cable. I believe my first and easiest traces will be to identify all the thick black cables, as they SHOULD be steering, throttle and trim tab controls.

http://www.vsu.edu/files/images/univ...ber-12/W1.jpeg

That thick white cable is coming from the cabin and running ALLLLL the way to the battery...nice...real nice.

http://www.vsu.edu/files/images/univ...ber-12/w4.jpeg

The creme de la creme. And I have yet to find any busses near the battery. :oh:

Any input, comments, questions or jokes are welcomed!

nice!!!!

Looks a lot cleaner than mine did when I got her, Mine was part birds nest, part beaver dam.

looks to me like that big white wire contains the red & black feeds to the fuse panel? Maybe 12 gauge wire?(too thin in my opinion) Also, there are other wires connected to the + terminal. Are they coming from the battery also?(why) or are they feeding power TO devices?(wrong, should not feed From that terminal)

I would feed the panel from the battery (battery switch) with 8 gauge red & black wire. You should use a 30A Terminal fuse at the +battery post(or battery switch)
You should not run UN-Fused +12 feeds to the battery.

Remove all other feeds from the battery and use the Fuse panel to feed everything thru fuses. All Neg returns go to the Neg bus.
You go from fuse panel to center post on switches.


An exception is Bilge float switch +Brown and -Black. If the bilge pump is near the battery, power the float switch (with in line fuse) directly to the + battery and connect the Black bilge pump wire to the -battery. The Manual switch wire connects to the brown wire between the float switch and pump


here's a quick sketch

Oh and those are some heavy fuses in that panel. your circuits need 5A, maybe 10A for a VHF. Maybe 15 for the cigarette lighter socket.

Those wires will melt before that 25A fuse pops

Thanks for your input Skunk!

It's going to be a slow go, but between all of your input and the 12v Bible, I honestly feel like I can do it!:sun: