Wiring bilge pumps and other electrical questions.

[Sprig1]

Hi my work continues. I have a Albin 27fc 4d61 I'm up to wiring the bilge pumps. I wondering the best place to take the hot all the time 12 volt from. I would guess the house battery. Should I run from the battery or should I go from the battery switch? Other question when running 12 volt DC and 120 volt AC can the wires go through the same chase. I would say no. The wires are all marine grade. I'm going to hopefully splash the boat next week. It will not be done but it will be useable. I'll do the rest when I get a chance. It's been a long saga to get to this point. The boat doesn't leak except around the middle forward opening window. I don't know what to do about that any suggestions? Thanks you everyone who has helped. I'll post some pictures later thanks again. Chris

[Beta Don]

I prefer to run the lowest (everyday) bilge pump directly off the engine battery with its own inline fuse in the positive wire as close to the battery as possible. IMO, the factory wires that come on most bilge pumps are much too short - I don't like having any wiring connections low enough in the bilge that they might get wet, so I run the wires from the pump and it's switch as vertically as possible to get them as high as possible and mount a terminal strip to make the connections to any convenient bulkhead and then run to the battery from there. If you have a secondary bilge pump (which I highly recommend) mounted higher in the bilge, I would run that one directly off the house battery, again with it's own inline fuse - A belt and suspenders approach with everything wired and powered separately so if one system goes down, the other is less likely to

If you want a switch on the dash to 'test' the pumps, you can get power for that switch from any convenient source. That same wire will illuminate a light on the dash to let you know that the pump's switch has turned it on - If you see that light flashing more than once every few hours, you'll know you have a leak somewhere. If the light for the secondary pump ever comes on, you know you have a pretty serious problem

With marine grade wire, there's no problem with 120 volt and 12 volt wiring in the same chase. I do it all the time and I've seen many high quality boats which come that way from the factory too

Don

[Sprig1]

Once again thank you Don for the quick response and detailed explanation. I Iike that hooking to two separate batteries I hadn't thought of that. What's the point of being able to start your boat if it's sunk. Thanks again