Ahoy Ben, The pre-start lube oil pump is a $200 12VDC "Gear Puppy" brand pump. It works great - pumps up about 25 psi of lube oil pressure before I hit the start switch. If one forgets to turn it off right after the engine starts it will try to pump against the 30 psi of engine oil pressure stalling the pump. If one neglects to use a 15 amp fuse to protect the pump motor (as clearly shown in the installation instructions) it will cost about $120 for the rewind job. The wise sailor will put a 15 amp auto-resetting circuit breaker (the little ones that plug in to the common two-blade fuse socket) in the motor line.
Further to the spst main engine oil pressure switch. This switch is rated for 5 amps. Considering an alternator uses about 5 amps field current (wide open) I need to put a relay in the alternator control circuitry to turn on this 5 amps of current from the 12 volt supply. It's on my short list. I know what you mean about fishermen not paying enough attention to being sailors. They seem to be so focused on catching fish to them the boat is often simply an instrument to get them to the fish. On the TV show "Tuna Wars" about tuna fishermen out of Gloucester, our summer port of choice aired one episode where our heroes ran out of battery and were dead in the water with a rising wind and no way to start their engine. One of their fellows towed them to Provincetown. I still remember while serving on a tanker calling the Coast Guard to arrange a tow for a shrimp boat 200 miles west of Key West. They had a water-in-the-fuel-tank problem. (see Bandersnatch's Fuel System to prevent this situation) They had plenty of spare filters but the only way they could re-prime the fuel circuit was by turning the engine with the starter. They eventually ran out of battery doing this and were dead in the water. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Julington Creek FL 30 23.8N 081 25.7W _______________________________________________ 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
