Water Witch Bilge switch

[Ryeandwater]

I have two bilge pumps, one is automatic, that can be turned on from a switch on the dash, or is activated by the "Water Witch" sensor. The other pump is manual only. Yesterday I noticed that the automatic bilge pump was running continually, turns out the float switch thing was stuck on. Tried whacking it with my trusty screwdriver, but no luck. Finally ended up cutting the wires to the switch. I was still able to turn it on from the dash. So the Water Witch sensor has three wires, but any other float switches I can find only have two? To replace the Water Witch is going to cost me about 100 bucks Canadian. How would I wire a new float that only has two wires? Or maybe I would be better to buy a new bilge pump with a built in float.

 

[GA_Boater]

Buy a real float switch, not a water sensing switch. One of the benefits is you can easily test by lifting the float if it isn't a covered switch. Any of these will do what you need.

http://www.iboats.com/Boat-Parts-Ac...ched.1--filter.prod_name?q=float switch&s=sol

 

[Ryeandwater]

That's what I've been looking at. Just wonder about the wiring? Like I said the old one has three wires, all the ones I've been looking at have just two.

 

[bashr52]

Wiring it easy. One wire goes to battery, the second goes to the + side of the bilge pump. If you have a switch on the dash as well, wire the switch together with the wire from the float. That way the pump will run either on the switch or the float.