Ballast Pump Mounting

[MJHKnox]

People have also mounted them inside the locker panels.

https://forum.supraboats.com/showthr...ty-III-Upgrade

[CJD]

Thanks for the thread and pics. I'm not sure why, but my boat doesn't have that much room for some reason. There is a cooler under the center seat, but it is directly over the V drive unit. Anything put there will make tranny and V drive annual MX a true pain. The current sprinkler valves are under the center seat and over the V drive, but a single 1-1/2" pump would take up more room than all the sprinkler valves.

Once I finish the wake plates I'll get serious and post some pics of what I am working with.

[MJHKnox]

Thanks for the thread and pics. I'm not sure why, but my boat doesn't have that much room for some reason. There is a cooler under the center seat, but it is directly over the V drive unit. Anything put there will make tranny and V drive annual MX a true pain. The current sprinkler valves are under the center seat and over the V drive, but a single 1-1/2" pump would take up more room than all the sprinkler valves.

Once I finish the wake plates I'll get serious and post some pics of what I am working with.

good luck.

[CJD]

Finally wrapping up the swim platform so I can get to work on the new ballast pumps. Here are some progress pics of the platform. The underside is a hyper alloy combat chassis, having 2 hydraulic wake plates and 2 wake shapers. The top is teak and will cover all the mechanicals. The pneumatic ladder will automatically kick back up and lock in place if forgotten before a run. I'll post a final once the teak is sealed and installed.








Back to the ballast pumps, this is the machining of the rear pumps mounting plate. It will mount the pumps, relays, breakers and controls...all fitting behind the muffler and under the aft line locker. You guys talked me out of just hanging the pumps on the thru-hull. Thanks, as the result will be much more elegant, although completely out of sight. I'll post some more pics once I get weather to work outside again...

[CJD]

Here is the final pump module, ready to drop in. The pumps are rated at 30 amps each, so I was worried about the draw on the dash switches. I used a couple 40 amp relays to take the load. The relays are triggered through 2 Wakemakers adjustable pump timers. Then, the relays are powered through 2 - 40 amp auto-resetting breakers that will be fed off the 8 gage hot wire to the alternator.







Here is the control panel for the wake plates. I installed the switches inverted, so the direction of the switch operation matches the direction the plates actually move (the "up" and "down" on the switch label refers to boat nose motion, rather than plate motion). I figured it would be confusing to have the plates extend when you press the upper switch. They also have an auto-retract function that I will wire to retract the opposite side plates when ever one side is extended.

[CJD]

The 4 wake plates take 2 Bennett pumps and controllers, so I had to make a couple modules for those parts to fit just forward of the rear line locker. I'll post pics showing the final mounting. I still have to figure out the front bag pump mounting. I'm hoping that once I clear out all the old pipes and sprinkler valves a solution will become evident.

[CJD]

Wakemakers told me they have not had anyone finish an installation with these Talula pumps at the time I am working on this upgrade. I did some math on the power of the Talula pumps. With 3 of them running the bags will add 750# per minute. The original aerator pump (single pump) took 30 minutes to fully fill the bags with 3200# total weight, or only 100# per minute. It will now take just over 4 minutes to fill the bags, and the new pumps can board 22,500# of water in the time it took the old pump to fill the bags...more than triple the base weight of the boat. In the time it used to take to fill the bags, or about one surfer run, we could sink the boat!

I considered skipping the pump timers, but once I looked at the math I realized the timers are important safety components. In fact, I may have to wire an alarm to flow meters in the bag vents. Forgetting to turn a pump off or bumping a switch on could be catastrophic. Anyway, thought somebody out there might be interested in some fun math.

[MJHKnox]

Wakemakers told me they have not had anyone finish an installation with these Talula pumps at the time I am working on this upgrade. I did some math on the power of the Talula pumps. With 3 of them running the bags will add 750# per minute. The original aerator pump (single pump) took 30 minutes to fully fill the bags with 3200# total weight, or only 100# per minute. It will now take just over 4 minutes to fill the bags, and the new pumps can board 22,500# of water in the time it took the old pump to fill the bags...more than triple the base weight of the boat. In the time it used to take to fill the bags, or about one surfer run, we could sink the boat!

I considered skipping the pump timers, but once I looked at the math I realized the timers are important safety components. In fact, I may have to wire an alarm to flow meters in the bag vents. Forgetting to turn a pump off or bumping a switch on could be catastrophic. Anyway, thought somebody out there might be interested in some fun math.

Do you have bigger vent lines - 1-1/2" hose?

[MJHKnox]

having 2 hydraulic wake plates and 2 wake shapers.

Have you done any testings on the plates to look at the output - the wave it creates?

Looks like a set of surf gates (outward) with a ram and a set of tabs (up/down) with another ram? I'm not sure I see the tab ram in the pic.

[Mischief IV]

Wow, that's some next level engineering you are putting in this boat. Looks great...just mind blowing actually. I can see you are way overqualified to work at Skiers Choice. Is it bad I like the teak platform the best? I mean, it's hard to get excited by looking at pics of water pumps.

Not feeling bad about mine but think I'm gonna just stick with the $140 suction cup wakeshaper and 8 minute ballast fill time.

Great job! Keep the pics coming.