nick2120":3l2r7pwe said:
We could not have had some of the info related to this topic come up at a better time!! .................. I crawled under the helm area and saw the diode piece on the floor. I suspect it dropped off after many trips in rough weather. I think I can plug this back in but I don't want to toast anything if I do it backwards. Is this how to put mine back ?
Nick, I never thought in a million years that someone could put this info to use so quickly after posting it. Anyway, I'm glad it is of use to you. Did you go buy another diode? If not, you will need a silicon diode rated to handle maybe 6 amps. My Rule 1500 gph draws slightly over 3 amps. You can't possibly go too big. For convenience sake, you can mount a "full wave bridge rectifier" cube, which is 4 diodes mounted and wired inside one epoxy package, often with 4 spade-lug terminals coming out of it. They are usually rated for 25 amps, and cost a few dollars at radio shack. The only benefit of this approach, is a mounting hole in the center of the cube, and the 4 leads coming out with spade lugs, ready for your wire with crimped-on female (mating) spade lugs. BTW, you would only need to use the CORRECT 2 wires out of the cube, accessing 1 of the 4 diodes. Now back to the original configuration in my boat's pic:
The diode shown has an insulation sleeve placed over it's bare leads in order to prevent touching something it shouldn't. Since the breakers and rocker switches have male spade lugs coming out of their housings for making connections, the diode probably has female spade lugs crimped (or soldered) onto the 2 diode leads.
Think of the diode as a check-valve for gas or liquid, that only passes fluid in one direction. In my pic that you have "Accurately" marked up, the source of continuous "positive" comes from the breaker to the left. It comes out of the breaker and feeds into the diode's anode wire (non-banded) on left of diode. Positive polarity is allowed to flow into the anode and out of the cathode (banded lead) feeding the switch's continuously-powered male spade-lug with the cathode (banded) lead coming out of the diode. The "switched/intermittent" output side of the auto/manual bilge-switch, is shown coming out on the switch terminal "under" the diode, via the brown wire going to the bilge pump. These are two separate switch terminals, just hard to see that they are separate. The diode does not wire directly to the bilge's brown wire.
If your bilge-pump float-switch is hard wired directly to battery #1 like mine is, and you have your large battery selector switch selecting battery #2, then the breakers at your helm are fed with battery 2. Without the diode, when your float-switch comes on, it will backfeed battery-1 positive through the float-switch, into your battery-2 via the bilge switch, through the bilge breaker, and into battery #2, trying to charge it (or help crank your outboard starter). This would happen only if the float is on & manual pumping is on. This is what the diode prevents, or "blocks", as the float switch is only rated for 14 amps, and your battery-2 charge may be lower than battery-1, causing high amperage inrush, or charging. The float-switch is only meant to carry the load of a 3 or 4 amp bilge pump. This would cause repeated bilge fuses/breakers blowing, skinny bilge-wire to overheat, and over-amp your bilge-switch. Also, my rocker switches have an extra terminal on them that gets a negative polarity ground-wire. This is only used to provide the opposite polarity needed to light the switch's built-in indicator lights. Be sure to connect nothing to that terminal. The switch "feed" should only get one wire.... the diode's banded cathode wire. The bilge pump wire should still be connected to the switch's "manual" terminal.
I hope I didn't leave anything out, or muddy the waters even more.