Sizzle-Poof!

[berjim]

With great hopes of actually being able to get out and sail yesterday afternoon, I hooked up the solar charger to the battery to make sure things were fully charged. When it became obvious that the afternoon thunderstorm chances were going to ruin our plans I went out to disconnect the charger and close up the hatch. To my shock I found black soot marks from an electrical issue with one of the cables melted in two. My problem is that I have no idea what the cable is for. I just bought this 2001 X a few months ago and I think the main wiring is probably standard from the factory. The burned wire is a stiff, two-conductor that runs aft from the battery compartment and looks like about 14 gauge, course strand. One conductor hooks to the negative on the battery and the other hooks to the center lead on the perko switch. There apparently was a heavy (stiffer than romex) outer insulation on the wire that is now melted. The conductor that ran to the battery is the one that burned in two.

Does anyone have any idea what that wire is/does? As far as I can tell, everything still turns on and works (lights, electronics, motor).

Thanks,

Jim

[Catigale]

Jim - I have got to push the safety button here.

Soot and funky things in your main electrical buss can really ruin your day with a fire on the water...you need someone to go through your system carefully and find out what is wrong..

[DLT]

I sure would want to know what that "burned-in-two" wire was for!!!

You say everything works. Well, something shouldn't...

Beyond finding that thing that no longer works, I'd consider the entire wiring highly suspect, and figure it all out NOW, before going back out...

[berjim]

I'm real comfortable with electrical stuff in general but this one doesn't make any sense. The only electrical thing back in that direction is the running light but that stuff is all wired with the small white two-conductor zip cord (lamp cord looking stuff). This is totally different from that and doesn't seem related to the motor. I don't know what else would be back there. If I were 5 or 6 feet shorter and weighed a couple of hundred pounds less I would just crawl in and follow it.

Jim

[berjim]

I guess some of the mystery is solved. That wire goes to the steering pedistal. That is easily replaceable but I still need to figure out what caused the problem to happen when it did. This boat is a lot easier to trace wires in than my older M25 was.

Thanks

Jim

[Chinook]

I'm wondering if the previous owner had a GPS mounted on the steering pedestal. If he did, and took it with him, that could explain a currently unused pair of wires running up into the pedestal, and also why nothing now on the boat doesn't work.

[berjim]

I would say that you are right about the previous owner having a GPS. I knew that he had removed some electronics before trading it in but I did not know what they were. I did get into the pedistal and found nothing that looked like it desired power wires to be connected. I cleaned out the power connection areas so everything is safe now. I'm amazed that someone would disconnect wires that were hot and just leave them sitting there. I thought sailers were smarter than the other boaters!

Jim

[March]

I agree with DLT. You can't rely only on the three flimsy fuses on the X's original pannel. A fuse should have blown out before the wires melted.

I have two fuse busses, three with the original overheadf one. One is next to the hosue battery, under the port seat, whhich feeds every circuit below deck (radio, coolbox, solar booster, panel, electric sinks, some outlets for chargers) and another one in the pedestal. fpor the gps, the light to the compass and another cigarette lighter outlet.

There's plenty of juice in the pedestal--if you have a tach, plus the motor cables to the motor control box are there too.

[berjim]

As it turns out, this burned wire was not fuse protected. It went off the perko switch and the battery. I guess that is another lesson in this fiasco. I wouldn't have a wire in my house that wasn't protected by a fuse or breaker....the same principle should apply to the boat.

Jim

[kevperro]

As it turns out, this burned wire was not fuse protected. It went off the perko switch and the battery. I guess that is another lesson in this fiasco. I wouldn't have a wire in my house that wasn't protected by a fuse or breaker....the same principle should apply to the boat.

Jim

It should... even if you don't have it hooked up to the panel you can get the in-line units that can go on any piece of equipment. Doing an extra panel is the right way of doing it but the in-line unit at least keeps you covered.

[bobmonroe]

If the wire's weren't shorted before you hooked up the solar
charger, but were discovered when you disconnected it a short
time later, maybe the solar charger has something to do with
the problem.

[berjim]

If the wire's weren't shorted before you hooked up the solar
charger, but were discovered when you disconnected it a short
time later, maybe the solar charger has something to do with
the problem.

That's seems like a logical conclusion but for the life of me I can't figure out why it would have caused the problem. If the charger caused some sort of over-voltage situation it shouldn't have fried the wires unless they were connected and caused the short. If they were connected, it would have caused the short with or without the charger. All I can figure is that it was a freak chain of events...wires slid together causing a short at the same time as I happened to have the charger connected.

Beats me