Matt Phillips
Jetboaters Captain
- Messages
- 1,076
- Reaction score
- 701
- Points
- 217
- Location
- Lake Tahoe
- Boat Make
- Yamaha
- Year
- 2017
- Boat Model
- 242X E-Series
- Boat Length
- 24
Hi all,
I'm a new member to Jetboaters.net but thought I'd share one solution I've devised for keeping my house battery charged while the boat is stored in the skip at the lake. Here's the general problem this solves: As you know, our "automatic" bilge pumps cycle every few minutes looking for water in the bilge and can quickly drain a battery. At my slip, I do not have the option for constant electric use, so I've developed the following system over the past couple of seasons.
1.) I wired a direct switch to the stock bilge pump from my house battery. I bought the supplies from a local Radio Shack (total cost about $15), tapped into the hot side of the bilge pump switch at the top of the transom. In the picture below, the brown wire comes up from the bilge pump and the red one I ran over to the house battery:
2.) At the battery switch, I added a secondary bilge pump switch where I can turn the pump on independently from the dash. The benefit of this is that even if someone turns off the switch at the dash, the bilge pump is still "on". I've also noticed that the light on the dash stays on all the time. Since the switch is right next to the battery switches, it's easy for me to remember to turn on prior to launching. I also placed an inline fuse between the switch and the battery:
3.) While not using the boat, I use a 15w solar charger mounted to a homemade board that I subsequently attach to the tower tow point. I like the battery Tender charger as it comes with a builtin protector for the battery. I did need to purchase an additional 12' of cable so that I could have enough to get to the quick disconnect on the battery. Here are links to the Battery Tender site for the components I purchased in this set-up:
15w charger: http://batterytender.com/products/solar ... arger.html
12.5' extension: http://batterytender.com/products/acces ... -lead.html
Battery Quick Disconnect: http://batterytender.com/products/acces ... rness.html
Here's what the overall panel looks like mounted to my homemade board. I this case I made the board slightly longer to protect the built-in voltage regulator:
4.) From there, it's a simple matter of placing the board over the tower tow-point and bungee cording it to the tower as shown:
5.) Finally, here's what the set-up looks like with the cover on the boat:
I hope this helps.
I'm a new member to Jetboaters.net but thought I'd share one solution I've devised for keeping my house battery charged while the boat is stored in the skip at the lake. Here's the general problem this solves: As you know, our "automatic" bilge pumps cycle every few minutes looking for water in the bilge and can quickly drain a battery. At my slip, I do not have the option for constant electric use, so I've developed the following system over the past couple of seasons.
1.) I wired a direct switch to the stock bilge pump from my house battery. I bought the supplies from a local Radio Shack (total cost about $15), tapped into the hot side of the bilge pump switch at the top of the transom. In the picture below, the brown wire comes up from the bilge pump and the red one I ran over to the house battery:
2.) At the battery switch, I added a secondary bilge pump switch where I can turn the pump on independently from the dash. The benefit of this is that even if someone turns off the switch at the dash, the bilge pump is still "on". I've also noticed that the light on the dash stays on all the time. Since the switch is right next to the battery switches, it's easy for me to remember to turn on prior to launching. I also placed an inline fuse between the switch and the battery:
3.) While not using the boat, I use a 15w solar charger mounted to a homemade board that I subsequently attach to the tower tow point. I like the battery Tender charger as it comes with a builtin protector for the battery. I did need to purchase an additional 12' of cable so that I could have enough to get to the quick disconnect on the battery. Here are links to the Battery Tender site for the components I purchased in this set-up:
15w charger: http://batterytender.com/products/solar ... arger.html
12.5' extension: http://batterytender.com/products/acces ... -lead.html
Battery Quick Disconnect: http://batterytender.com/products/acces ... rness.html
Here's what the overall panel looks like mounted to my homemade board. I this case I made the board slightly longer to protect the built-in voltage regulator:
4.) From there, it's a simple matter of placing the board over the tower tow-point and bungee cording it to the tower as shown:
5.) Finally, here's what the set-up looks like with the cover on the boat:
I hope this helps.
