Interesting. I'll look into that.

One thing that I've been toying with is some sort of venturi pump. They
make something called a "Mermaid Condensator" and it's designed to go inline
with the raw water discharge for the air conditioner and it basically uses
the Bernoulli principle to create a vacuum and attach a small line to the
condenser line of the air conditioner and pump the condensate overboard. I
like the idea of this because it has no moving parts to fail and draws no
additional electricity, but I've heard that they have some filters in them
that are very prone to clogging. It would be neat to just run the small
hose down into the bilge and let it suck up any residual water when the air
conditioner is running.

My only concern is that if the raw water discharge were to become clogged,
it would be possible to pump water down into the bilge, but a check valve
would probably take care of that.

.....still thinking




wrote in message
oups.com...

Robert wrote:
Sure. I've considered one of those too. The smaller pump that I'm
looking
into is something that I'd like to be automatic as well. A float switch
would work, but I wish that I could find something that was better.


There are some alternatives. One of them is a switch built by Water
Witch (tm) that is basically just two exposed contacts on a vertical
mount. When liquid rises to a point where the upper contact is covered,
the circuit is completed and the pump activates.
Or so says the manufacturer.........

The problem, I have heard, with the exposed contact switch is that if
there is ever any oil or other dirt in the bilge....(what!? on *my*
boat??).....the contact might become dirty and the dirt will act as an
insulator to prevent the circuit from closing. A float switch will
float on anything, even oil. I try to keep a clean bilge, and always
have an oil absorbing "sock" floating down there just in case. No
matter what, you don't want to pump oil into the water, it$ a $uper
expen$ive fine and not nice to the planet.

When you shop for a float switch, and assuming you are going to use one
of the horizontal "level" models, you can choose between the old
mercury filled switches or
some where the circuit is closed by a metal ball that rolls into place
as the float lever becomes elevated. The metal ball units are more
environmentally benign.