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Old 15 November 2006, 19:30   #21
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One of the drawbacks of living in Wales no sun
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Old 15 November 2006, 20:11   #22
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Originally Posted by codprawn View Post
No I meant it uses 4 to 5 amps of current per day in total or to put it another way 48 to 60w -
Eh? I thought you were a physicist? "A per day" would be the rate at which a current changed (and whilst it is a legitiamite unit - it essentially has little to with battery drain). Likewise watts are measurement of "instantaneuos" power consumption.

If you are saying that the pump uses 60 watts of power when working, and when it is wet it is working 24hrs a day - then you are saying that your (12V) pump draws 5 amps of current when it is turned on. That is 5 Amps, 24 hours a day - i.e. 120 Ah = given that a 120Ah battery will be nackered after reaching 50% discharge - you can only run this pump for 12 hours on battery power.

Even assuming its not pouring constantly and your pump only comes on for 2 hours in total each day. And assuming you over estimated the current/power consumption - and it is say 1.9 A as per the manufacturers spec for the cheap rule 500 GPH pumps then you will be using 3.8 Ah per day then you MIGHT get away with leaving the boat like this for a week or two at a time. BUT this is going to be really cycling the battery hard - and assumes that you can run the engines hard enough to completely recharge the battery every time you are there.

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of course these are very approximate figures as rainfall is rather erratic to say the least!!!
not here its not - its just heavy and constant!
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Old 15 November 2006, 20:20   #23
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It is NOT working 24hr a day flat out even when it's raining!!! When the pump had stopped working the heaviest rain we ever had took about 40mins to pump out the following day. So you can say it runs for no more than 40mins a day in total.
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Old 15 November 2006, 21:00   #24
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Slight problem is the only time you need one is when there's lots of rain - bilge pumps don't work very hard on nice sunny days.....
Solar cells generate a certain amount of power on even dull days - the rural telephones here are powered by solar cells and they are running a transmitter all the time! It is just a case of doing a few sums to figure out how much juice is needed - the solar cells we use on the farm fence energisers are 30w and I bet that would keep the battery topped up even in a monsoon
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Old 15 November 2006, 21:05   #25
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Today we had about 3 hrs of proper daylight.....

I bet in Iceland they wouldn't be too good in the winter!!!
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Old 15 November 2006, 21:55   #26
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Today we had about 3 hrs of proper daylight.....

I bet in Iceland they wouldn't be too good in the winter!!!
I bet in Iceland you wouldn't go out in an open RIB too often in the winter

Also if the water in the boat is frozen, you might find the pump struggles a bit

Another option would be a small wind turbine like you find on a yacht, though I don't know how RIB-proof it would be when on the move.
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Old 16 November 2006, 01:41   #27
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I was thinking of getting one of the vertical type wind turbines - no shore power on our pontoons.
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Old 16 November 2006, 07:32   #28
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One of the drawbacks of living in Wales no sun

Is that the only drawback that you can think of?
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Old 16 November 2006, 11:55   #29
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Is that the only drawback that you can think of?
Well considering how many English people have invaded us lately there must be something going for Wales - most of them swear they will never return either!!!
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Old 16 November 2006, 16:05   #30
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From the Rule website: Auto function pumps, current draw while sensing:

AMP HOURS PER DAY
0.20 (500)
0.25 (1100)
0.35 (1500)
0.60 (2000)
0.67 (3700)
0.76 (4000)
1.52 (8000)

They apparently have 2 wiring schemes; fully auto pumps which require power and ground only (I assume switching it on puts it into auto mode; no manual on mode available), and one with a 3-wire setup (manual on/auto.)

On the 2 wire setup, there is no way to disable the auto function except by removing power to the pump.

On the 3-wire setup, well, if the pump works, it has to have 12V and Gnd, so the third wire will be your culprit.

www.Rule-Industries.com willhave the info you need (though it's not exactly easy to find...)

jky
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Old 16 November 2006, 18:06   #31
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I looked for those figures - obviously not hard enough!!!

So basically the auto part only would take almost a year to drain a battery - not exactly worth worrying about!!! It's pumping the water that causes the probs - heavy stuff to move!!!
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Old 17 November 2006, 08:21   #32
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As mentioned earlier the current drain on a dry boat is minimal in practice as I have had no problems with mine, the battery trickle charger needs almost no time to top the battery up after long periods of (bilge pump) standby usage.

Perhapsl a 2nd (cheaper type) battery could be used for just the bilge pump activity to save the more expensive and crucial main battery.

Why would there be a build up of water in racked storage which would require a bilge pump and not just drain out of the bung ? A cover would also stop things nesting in the boat and remove the need for a guano pump
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Old 17 November 2006, 17:11   #33
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Originally Posted by codprawn View Post
I looked for those figures - obviously not hard enough!!!
Yeah; didn't come up on Google.


Quote:
So basically the auto part only would take almost a year to drain a battery - not exactly worth worrying about!!! It's pumping the water that causes the probs - heavy stuff to move!!!
Well, sort of. Your battery (assuming standard wet cell) would self-drain in a few months anyway, so you're most likely not going to make a year.

Bottom line is that the auto-check cycling is not going to do much to decrease battery life while idle.

If it *is* running often to pump out water, that's a different matter entirely.

jky
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Old 17 November 2006, 17:14   #34
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Why would there be a build up of water in racked storage which would require a bilge pump and not just drain out of the bung ? A cover would also stop things nesting in the boat and remove the need for a guano pump
Leaving the bung out is all that's needed on a boat out of the water - sadly mine is in it!!!
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Old 18 November 2006, 07:58   #35
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allthough pumps when running do use a lot of current the actule time spent working is small so the solor panel does charge it up again. This will be the third year my 8m will be in the water with only a small amount of use and the batteries have not gone flat yet
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Old 18 November 2006, 13:40   #36
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allthough pumps when running do use a lot of current the actule time spent working is small so the solor panel does charge it up again. This will be the third year my 8m will be in the water with only a small amount of use and the batteries have not gone flat yet
Try living in Wales - they keep on about a drought in the South!!!
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Old 26 November 2006, 13:03   #37
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does anybody have a ribcraft with a rule automatic installed.

I have looked at the wiring and can see a fused positive feed from the battery via the switch to the pump.

I cannot however find the live feed which goes to the brown (automatic feed)

would it be possible that this feed could have been spliced off another feed eg engine or something else.

Confused

Tom
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Old 26 November 2006, 18:50   #38
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the computerised rule pumps come with three wires:
Black = negative (or ground)
brown= live feed that runs the auto function.
brown and white striped =live feed for manual operation.

I've just (yesterday) fitted a 110gph pump to a 3 way switch (auto,off manual) the rule rocker type.
The striped brown and white at the pump comes with an orange sticker saying that this is the manual override wire and if not required tape up.

I set mine direct to one battery with the black from the pump straight to the negative of the batttery.

A live feed (positive) from the + battery through a inline fuse to the back of the switch where it goes through a built in fuse. (yes i know two fuses)
The other two wires from the pump (brown and brown/white) go to the other switch spades with the plain brown being auto and the brown/white manual.
This switch i've used you have to hold down the manual.

It seems to work so i'm happy.

I used a 3 core bilge wire to run from the pump through the conduit to the console (ribcraft) then made up a live feed wire from the battery.
I didn't fancy trying to connect into the battery isolator/changeover panel.
Also have an existing float switch operated pump that can be turned off at the console.

One thing i've found with this pump is as its a self contained pump/float unit (sahara) and with the bottom shape of the ribcrafts well, the pump doesn't turn off all the time as the float is lower than the pump end so the float never quite switches off due to the pump not being able to clear all the water.I can't turn it round due to the lead of the pipe so i may sicoflex in a small hard wood wedge to level the pump up???
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