After years of having to get under the aft bunks to view the levels in the tanks, I thought I’d treat myself to some gauges.. To be fair they are only cheap Chinese stuff and only read full three quarter, half, quarter and empty, but there again do you need more.
As all boaters try to keep their batteries as charged as possible all of the time and as the gauges are just another drain on the battery, I have put a switch in the circuit. This means if we need to know what the water capacity is at any time its just a flick of the switch. All the rest of the time there’s no drain on the battery.
There was a small debate as to where to site the gauges. It was decided to place them where I could see them when filling the tanks, so they ended up in the cockpit.
This worked out nicely as the other conundrum was where to get the power from. In this case I was able to hook on to the permanent power to the ignition. This means if the battery is on, I have power to the gauge switch. During installation of the wiring I managed a momentary short, which because we have taken the feed from the engine circuit popped the circuit breaker on the engine. Took a wee while to find that!
Now have new job on list to modify circuit so that only gauges fuse if there is a problem or that feed from elsewhere
Hmm. must also clean that shelf!
4 Kidneys and a Wonky Leg 