Quote Originally Posted by dakota4ce View Post
This is for goose:

Regarding full bag sensors. With the 2018 auto wake equipped boat the computer doesn’t really care how much ballast is in each bag, is this right? It will continue to pump in or pump out in the appropriate spots in order to satisfy its sensors I assume. In other words when a ballast bag that is on timers reaches “100%“ does auto wake stop trying to fill that bag?

Fast forward to 2019 and bags with sensors. I would think this offers an advantage from the standpoint that once the bag is ful—auto awake will stop trying to fill it; and if it’s sensors are not satisfied yet at that point, it will tell you to move people. Because no ballast is available to affect running attitude.

What does the 2018 boat do in this scenario? What if you had your ballast timer set super long? Would it just pump water overboard trying to fill a bag that is already full in order to satisfy a sensor?


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I think this has already been answered, but in 2018 AutoWake would only fill until the gauge said 100%. If your timers were way off, then it would be possible that the bag was NOT full, but the system would NOT continue to fill because the system thought it was full. If you changed your timers so that it would always overfill, then you would eventually also have a problem because the system is NOT setup to overfill for long periods of time with 6 pumps. It is likely if you did that consistently, that your engine divider panels would bow or fall in and worst case it could pop off your fittings. Both of these are bad....

In 2019, on Moomba with the ballast sensors, you can run the timers a little longer to be on the safe side (you should still try and get them as accurate as possible), but once the bag is truly full, it turns off the pumps AND resets gauge to 100% so that you know it really is full. AutoWake always tries to fill first before draining so this should result in max displacement. There is also visual indicators on the dash that will give you feedback if the bag is really full or not. An example of this might be if you run all day with full ballast. As most of you know, if you run all day, it is possible that you can lose some water through the pump or if some air is in the bag. If the sensor originally said the system was full, then your gauge would still show 100%. But if you look on the screen and see a green light, that means you can still add more weight to the bag. Once the system sees full again it will again turn off pump and reset gauge again. It is a little hard to explain but I think as more people use this system they will love the added value of the ballast sensors.

Also, the sensors are NOT wireless. We actually have 2 designs based on the different needs and different boat designs. One is a true ballast sensor and it is almost the same design as our draft sensor. It is a separate tube located in the transom that measures water from the bag as the bag fills up. Once the bag gets to a certain height, the sensor knows the bag is full and turns off the pump. And I know it will be asked but the sensor is taller than the factory bag. I don't want to give away all secrets, but it works really well. The other design is more of a flow sensor. It measures water going through the vent line and as water enters the vent, it also turns off the pump. This design is used in some applications and will be the sensor used for the 2018 and 2017 Moombas. These do require a harness and software, but again they can be used with any size bag as long as you are still using the vent lines. Again, it is important to get the timers close, but it also has visual indication when the system sees water in the vent line and when it doesn't.

Lastly, the reason it is important to get the timers close is because when the system resets, it also resets the drain timers. If you always want your bags full, then you could set the timers to any time and the system would always get full and then reset. However, the pumps will still drain for as long as the drain timers are set. You would NOT want the pumps to overdrain for long periods of time if there is no water in the bags. This will wear the impellors and cause damage. The beauty is if the pumps do NOT completely drain, then with the sensors it still shuts off when full.