Re: auto bilge pump
I hate to dissagree with someone..But....do not ever put a fuse in the negative lead to any electrical device, put it inline with the positive lead as close to the power source as practical. Every piece of electrical and mechanical equipment is grounded (engine,trim pumps, battery chargers, etc) if an unfused positive should short to one of these you are looking at a fire or at least a meltdown of wiring. With that said, Look at the manufacturers spec to see what the MAXIMUM current draw of the bilge PUMP is, in amps. Select a fuse slightly larger ( if the pump says 3 amps, use a 3.5 or 4 amp fuse, not any larger). Make sure your wiring is even more "robust". A simple auto bilge pump installation would be to run a ground wire from the pump to the negative battery terminal. Next connect an inline fuse from the battery positive(or if you wish from the battery switch) to one wire of the float switch. The other wire from the float switch would connect to the positive terminal of the bilge pump. If you want to also have manual override of the float switch, connect a manual switch "across" the float switch (manual switch wires are connected to the same wires as the float switch).
