Getting Rule-Mate Pump Back to Regular Mode vs Safe Mode

Mike: Hi, I'm Mike Irving.

Paul: And I'm Paul Campagna.

Mike: Today on jabscotech. We're talking about Rule-Mate bilge pumps. Was it late last year? We instituted a new feature in the pump, and you might not have seen it. But we want to make you aware of it.

Paul: So inside the pumps, there is a circuit board and there are some sensors. What could potentially happen with these pumps is if the sensor area gets fouled, then the pump can potentially keep on running.

Mike: What's foul?

Paul: Well foul can be with some debris, some oil, some diesel. Even just a rag. And if they get fouled, that can potentially keep the pump running. And if the pump is running it could drain down your batteries.

Mike: What we did is in the circuit board we changed the programming a little bit. If the pump turns on and it doesn't sense the amp load and the amp drop, it means it's not pumping water, so it will run for about 15 seconds and then shut off. That way it protects the vessel and the vessel battery. But what the new part of it does is it will turn on every 2 1/2 minutes to sense for water. If it senses that water on the impeller, it stays running. Now to clean it off, we're going to go back into the level sense mode.

Paul: First of all, if working on the bilge pump, please disconnect power, remove the fuse. Basically what you need to do if it’s in sense mode where it's operating every 2 1/2 minutes, you need to clean this sensor area which is the same on both of these pumps, and then you will have to remove the base from the pump. And you'll see that the area up inside there or in there is the actual sensor board. So basically you need to get up in there with a rag. Get up in there with a rag around there, even a toothbrush and clean that whole entire area. Once that area is all cleaned, you can put it back in the base, connect up the hose again, put the power back to it and the pump will go back into its normal level sense mode, waiting for water to come back in.

Mike: Now in the 2 1/2 minute mode, the vessel is still protected, the batteries are still protected because they're not going to be run down.

Paul: In the 2 1/2 minute mode, when this pump is operating every 2 1/2 minutes, that only draws .25 amps per day. So that's minimal amp draw because all it's doing is spinning the impeller for half a second every 2 1/2 minutes.

Mike: Yeah, every 2 1/2 minutes. It's pretty simple to clean up the sensor to get it back into level sense. We hope this helped you out. We made a couple of key points, clean the sensor, disconnect power and now you really only need a rag and a little bit of soapy water.

Paul: That's right, soapy water cleans it up.

Mike: Did we miss anything?

Paul: I think we covered everything there, Mike.

Mike: Alright. Well, thanks for watching this episode of jabscotech.

Paul: See you next time with jabscotech.