Martial Mathers:
I was getting ready to launch off the beach on Sauvie's early Sunday morning to anchor up in 50' and try for a King. Fortunately I left my hatch open after plugging the ff into a fully charged, 12VDC, 7ah battery. I was tying up my rig and saw smoke coming from the hatch. I first thought it was was steam from warm air in the hatch meeting the cool morning air. I waved my hand over the hatch and it was like an oven. I reached in and burnt my hand. Luckily, my wits stayed with me. I immediately grabbed the battery by its base, brought it on deck, and disconnected the ff from the terminals with a Leatherman. My kayak is alright, but the casing on the power cable melted from the battery almost all the way to the head unit. This is troubling because, if I had closed the hatch; it's very likely that it would have quietly burned a hole through my hull and sunk me in 50'. I would have needed a powerboat rescue, and become a running joke on ifish. What happened is a total mystery to me. I'm fairly experienced with low voltage wiring and devices. No, the leads weren't crossed, and that wouldn't have done this anyway, there's a diode in the ff. Anyway, fuse your fishfinders for safety. That's what I'm going to do (if it still works). Humminbird is sending me a new power cable, so we'll see if I get a display again.
Kyle M:
Sorry to hear about your meltdown. I'm sure you weren't entirely literal on your rescue comment. But in case you were, let's agree that most of us are fully capable of swimming to shore in that part of the river. I think it's important that we as kayak fishermen assume we'll perform self rescue in most situations. We should always promote that we are an asset on the water, rather than a liability. Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread. Now back to that battery.... I wonder why it didn't just fry your ff? Must have been a short somewhere.
Lee:
Can a mod sticky this and/or the other one? Seems to be a continuing issue, and also one that many people think can't happen.
Martial Mathers:
--- Quote from: Waterman on September 09, 2014, 07:16:45 AM ---Sorry to hear about your meltdown. I'm sure you weren't entirely literal on your rescue comment. But in case you were, let's agree that most of us are fully capable of swimming to shore in that part of the river. I think it's important that we as kayak fishermen assume we'll perform self rescue in most situations. We should always promote that we are an asset on the water, rather than a liability. Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread. Now back to that battery.... I wonder why it didn't just fry your ff? Must have been a short somewhere.
--- End quote --- I wouldn't have been in danger. I'd have a pfd on, and am quite capable of swimming to shore, especially in 70degree water. I just meant with all the boats around, someone would have scooped me up and had a good laugh about it. I don't know what part of electrical theory explains what happened, but it think it was caused by condensation in the plug part of the power cable (that plugs into the fishfinder). I'm going to reread the other post about a fishfinder fire. I wonder if that was also a hummingbird.
Mojo Jojo:
Never done marine electronics but fuse everything added on a car. Lawrence Mark 4 dsi 12v 7a batterie , what size inline fuse ? I was thinking 10 amp. All input appreciated.