Hi I am changing my manual toilet to an electric quiet flush and have noticed a black switch/knob below sink on some pictures of US boats (see pic below).
See round black knob below sink to the left of the grey toilet controls.
Could someone tell me what this is?
Also is the rinse pump normally located under sink? and
Is the dischasge pump at base normally located on the forward or stern side of bowl? Thanks David
Hi David,
My B40 has a Jabsco Quiet Flush toilet, factory installed, so I can answer your questions. The rubberized black switch triggers the optional macerator pump, which is mounted inside of the sink cabinet, tucked up high. The toilet has its flush pump attached to the bottom of the bowl, projecting out at an angle, aiming forward and to port. In your picture, it would be aiming roughly in the direction of the shower drain. The toilet "fill" pump is installed under the sink.
Not that you asked, but I made a few modifications to the factory setup that I think worked out well. I switched to fresh water flush by disabling the fill pump and installing a fill solenoid from Jabsco instead. I then connected the fill solenoid into the fresh water supply by re-using the plumbing line that runs forward for three-cabin boats with two heads (mine is the two cabin layout). With fresh water flush the whole setup is much less smelly, and since I also installed a variable speed fresh water pump, quieter.
This done, I then re-used the former toilet fill thru-hull as the new sink drain. Whomever designed the original system, which sends sink water to the shower drain to be emptied by an incredibly loud sump pump, must have been deaf and therefore immune to being woken up at night by the wah-wah-wah-wah sound from the sump pump.
Lastly, I installed a level sensor in the black water tank so that didn't have to "count flushes" to figure out how long until I have to pump out.
Jeff
Hello,
Could you give more details or pictures of you black water tank level sensor ?
Thank's
Denis
Taking pictures would require disassembling things, but I can describe what I did and what I found.
The aft waste tank is in the shower compartment, against the hull. You can see the bottom of the tank by opening the sink cabinet and looking left and up.
To gain access, I first removed the fiberglass cover directly over the tank by removing the eight or so screws that hold it down. I was very happy with what I found. The tank was thick polyethylene, had a nice flat top with plenty of room to drill a new hole for a sensor, and there was plenty of room above the top of the tank for wiring, etc.
The tank was further held in place by a rather thin horizontal wooden bar. The bar was merely screwed in place, so I removed this as well. At that point I was able to tilt the (of course empty) tank forward to provide better access to the top.
With the covers off, it's quite easy to install any kind of sensor you wish. Since I've standardized on NMEA2000, I selected an Offshore Systems sensor. Had I not, I would probably have used one of those sensors that installs on the outside wall of the tank and "reads" through the tank wall with no drilling required. The SCAD Solo is one such sensor. Either would be easy to install in the B40/B43.
The Offshore sensor comes with a "5-bolt" adapter plate that installs first, directly onto the tank. I used the plate as a template and drilled the main hole and the five securing holes. The tank has an "inspection port" and by removing this I was able to get a gloved hand into the tank to hold the washers and bolts when screwing things down. I won't describe the details of installing because they are unremarkable.
The easy access, large flat tank top, and room to spare are the important details to convey. I'll add just one more detail specific to the Offshore Systems sensor: The sensor has a very bright blue LED that flashes every 10 or so seconds whenever the sensor is powered on. It's bright enough to shine **through** the fiberglass cover over the tank, turning the aft head into a slow-motion disco at night. I was forced to remove the tank cover, place a slug of black sealant over the LED and then re-assemble.
Jeff
We too switched to fresh water flush on our 43 and love it. I thought we'd go through a lot more water but that's not the case and of course the odors from salt water sitting in the hoses are gone. On the list of futures enhancements is a tank monitor for the aft head. It's difficult to tell when it's full other than the vent begins to spew noxious fumes.
Mike
At first, I hooked into the unpressurized water system, using the (otherwise unused) third valve located on the water manifold. The manifold is the valve set located next to the hot water heat. The top two values are the ones you use to switch between the fore and aft water tanks. The third valve is unused on my two cabin boat.
I hooked the output from this third valve to a length of new blue water piping and ran this to the fill pump on the quietflush toilet. I added a small inline one-way value so that the water wouldn't flow back to the tank - not that this is likely if you know how the quietflush works.
Poking the toilet fill button causes the fill pump to "suck" water from the tanks into the toilet but instead of sucking salt water from the thru-hull, it sucks water from your water tanks.
The above took mere minutes and worked just fine but isn't optimal. The toilet can, in theory overfill if your water tanks are very full and the quietflush input pump allows some flow-through leakage. In addition, it's still theoretically possible that you'll get some backflush. Lastly, and importantly for me, it's just as noisy as the original saltwater flush toilet. I used this temporary setup for only a week while I waited for parts. Version two of my setup was much better.
For version two, I duplicated the setup you'd get if you ordered a complete quietflush toilet with freshwater flush from Jabsco. I bought a (very expensive) Jabsco solenoid valve and connected this to the *pressurized* side of the cold water system instead of the unpressurized side. The full path for the water is: 1) Pressurized cold water line 2) Jabsco solenoid 3) QuietFlush toilet input. The solenoid wires to the existing flush switch and the existing (salt water) input pump is disabled or removed. When you poke the fill button, the solenoid opens and fresh water flows into the toilet, pushed by your water pump. If you have replaced the noisy standard water pump with a variable-speed, no expansion tank water pump, and I highly recommend them, what you get is a *very* quiet fill cycle. Flushing is still just as noisy, but fill is nearly silent.
Jeff
great replies, many thanks for this. Will get the bits ordered this week and see how we get on. I like the idea of the variable pump too.
Mark
On a previous Beneteau that I owned, I was able to take the saltwater inlet hose for the head and connect it to the sink's water drain hose using a "T". By closing the sink drain seacock, I was able to fill the sink with freshwater and the head would pull freshwater from the sink filled with freshwater. The old salt water seacock that was originally used for the saltwater intake was permanently closed. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could also install a "Y" valve and have both the freshwater from the sink and the saltwater intake hose connected to the Y valve, you can switch from freshwater or saltwater allowing you to conserve your freshwater.
Of course this is not as fancy as buying and installing the correct equipment as described by my fellow colleagues but it works fine and is fairly simple. However, I did feel comfortable at the time that there was never a connection between my head and freshwater lines.
I have not looked at this set up with my existing B43 yet as the sink drains into the shower sump. I may just close this off all together as I really don't like the Beneteau sump set-up anyway. I would prefer to have the fresh water drain from my sink into my head and then discarded. I find that water from the sump spills out when using the sink and the boat is heeled over. Will see and report on this later. I have too many other things to do like trying to figure out where a tiny amount of water is coming into my bilge...will post separately.
Alan
s/v Plan B
Just completed the fresh water conversion on both our B43 heads. Was not outrageously difficult though I will say it was made easier being able to consult another B43 owner who has done the conversion (Thank you Mike!!). Picked up two new Jabsco solenoid syphon valves from Dons Marine at $75 each via ebay (copy and paste link below if need be).
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_n...
Couple check valves,tee's etc and done. No more fresh water cup dumps!
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