Not a call I wanted

[RUGER]

So I'm sitting here at work and my wife sends me a text that says, "Call me"
She does this because my cell reception in my office is almost non-existent.

So I call and she says,
I looked out the garage door earlier to make sure my welcome sign is still on the house (been having hard rain and high winds all morning) and there is smoke coming out from the front of your boat.
I'm like WHAT???
I tell her I am on the way and to keep an eye on it and if she sees flames call the fire department.

I get there like 15 minutes later and as soon as I open the truck door in the driveway I can smell it.
Luckily the wires burned into before it caught the wood or carpet on fire.

No clue how or why but somehow the wires shorted out.
I have two wires going from the battery to my trolling motor plug in (it was unplugged) and two more wires for the power to my depth finder.

I used a heavy extension cord as the wire to go from the battery to the trolling motor plug and just put ends on the wires that came with the depth finder to attach it.

I didn't do an in depth investigation but I didn't see any mouse turds or anything so I really don't know how it happened.
Boat has been sitting since June.

I snapped a couple pics just because but not very good ones.
The wire burned enough that it melted down into the top of the battery and is burned through the cover all the way to the plug for the trolling motor.
Very very strange.
Just super glad it didn't catch everything under the front deck on fire.

 

[Sniper]

Whoa. Could have been really bad.

 

[NAjoe]

dannnnngggggggg. that coulda been really bad.

 

[WTM]

that extension cable is probably half the size of the conductor you needed to run. my guess is the current heated those conductors up while you were using it and melted the insulation just enough to cause an eventual short between hot and ground.

#8 is about the smallest guage conductor to a small 30 amp head. depends on your trolling motor current rating it can be all the way to a #2.

id put a battery tester on that battery and make sure it didnt damage it before i charge or use it.

 

[Kirk]

Shotgun will fix it.

 

[RUGER]

that extension cable is probably half the size of the conductor you needed to run. my guess is the current heated those conductors up while you were using it and melted the insulation just enough to cause an eventual short between hot and ground.

#8 is about the smallest guage conductor to a small 30 amp head. depends on your trolling motor current rating it can be all the way to a #2.

id put a battery tester on that battery and make sure it didnt damage it before i charge or use it.

May be. Strange after 7 years though.
I will be buying a new battery for sure.
Seen one explode in my life and that is one too many. I hate messing with them.

 

[Dbllunger]

Very odd and very scary. Glad it wasn't any worse. I'm interested to see other thoughts on what may have happened.

 

[blueball]

Probally not heavy enough gauge wise for the trolling motor and i always fuse at the battery just to be safe.

 

[BetterDaniel]

Thats just an ultra slow-blow fuse with smoke signal indication. Works everytime.

 

[Safari Hunt]

Could have been worse. Tell the wife you will need a new boat.

 

[RUGER]

Could have been worse. Tell the wife you will need a new boat.

LOL heard that.

 

[Specializedjon]

Man...that's not a fun call to get. Impressive "office to home" response. You'd have beaten the FD and PD by like 15 min. Glad it worked out to only be a close call.

Two places you don't ever want to see smoke coming from....your nuts and your boat.

 

[RUGER]

Man...that's not a fun call to get. Impressive "office to home" response. You'd have beaten the FD and PD by like 15 min. Glad it worked out to only be a close call.

Two places you don't ever want to see smoke coming from....your nuts and your boat.

I got a call one day that my son got hurt.

It was when I had my motorcycle.
I made the same trip in 8 minutes lol

 

[BetterDaniel]

I got a call one day that my son got hurt.

It was when I had my motorcycle.
I made the same trip in 8 minutes lol

I hope he was ok!

My luck would be i would slide or something on my way and wind up more hurt then my kid.

 

[Lincoln Co Archer]

Man Ruger you are living right for sure. That is just about best case scenario in that event.

 

[RUGER]

I hope he was ok!

My luck would be i would slide or something on my way and wind up more hurt then my kid.

Yeah he was fine, turned out to be pretty much nothing. Just an overly dramatic mother in law.
99% of the ride was on 4 lane with only a couple turns.

 

[TNReb]

Odd. Had you used the boat lately? Couldn't have been too much voltage could it?

I was in my jon boat once with nothing but a trolling motor. I didn't have the right fuse, and my trolling motor wire melted in half at the battery terminal. Luckily I wasn't too far away and I could paddle back to the truck.

Glad it didn't happen on the water!