On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 10:10:51AM -0400, SteveW wrote: > That's waaaaaay to much to think about, Ben <g>! > > Besides, given the size of our boats compared to Norm's, I'm sure you > couldn't fit a milk jug float into your bilge as I certainly couldn't!
Sorry, I should have been clearer. What I meant was the general principle of removing the switch from the wet, possibly oily, etc. muck in the bilge, which solves a large number of reliability problems *and* lets you use better quality, industrial-duty switches (instead of whatever the float switch manufacturer sticks you with.) Shallow bilge? No problem: use a long lever - say, a piece of SS TIG welding rod - and solder a carburetor float (or even glue a ping-pong ball) to it. Twist a single loop into the other end of the wire, about an inch from the end, and put a screw through it and into one of your frames right above the bilge. Float rises, back end of your "see-saw" comes down... fairly obvious how to proceed from there, right? Bonus: if you use the after-run circuit as I'd suggested, you already have a high-gain "switch" in place - the MOSFET. This means that you can use a low-power switch on the above float - a standard magnetic door sensor, with a sealed reed switch. No moving parts to wear out. All that's left is using a good-quality pump - say, a Johnson, with one of those nifty "run-dry" neoprene impellers. There ya go, a free engineering session for your dream bilge pump. :) Ben -- OKOPNIK CONSULTING Custom Computing Solutions For Your Business Expert-led Training | Dynamic, vital websites | Custom programming 443-250-7895 http://okopnik.com http://twitter.com/okopnik _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list Liveaboard@liveaboardonline.com To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to liveaboard-j...@liveaboardonline.com To unsubscribe send an email to liveaboard-le...@liveaboardonline.com The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/liveaboard@liveaboardnow.org The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html