Found an electrical short in the head lighting fixture.

[Mariner]

I'm anxious to see it for myself, but apparently an electrical short was found in the lighting fixture in the head of our 36' Express Trawler. It was first evident when the battery started dying quickly, going from nearly 13 volts to less than 8 in about an hour. Keep in mind this is an 8D battery. When the head light fixture did not work, it was disassembled and what was discovered was a red hot wire that had charred and burned the fiberglass around it.

It was fixed and the problem is gone. Scary though, as this could have easily led to a catastrophic fire. What scares me the most is that this short did not trip the breaker, but continued to burn for days before it was discovered.

[AlMar]

Good catch. Glad you got lucky at the right time.
AlMar

[JackK]

That is scary. I would probably take a look at the breaker on that circuit and replace it just because.

Glad it didn't turn into something worse. Hopefully the battery didn't take a hit too.

Jack

[DougSea]

Lucky! I'd sure like to know just how much current was flowing through that wire!

I started thinking about how many fixtures are on my "Cabin Lights" circuit and I think there may be 6 or more. If five are off there could be a lot more current flowing through that single light before the breaker pops. Of course the breaker is supposed to be sized to the wire feeding the fixture, was the melted wire a feed or part of the actual fixture?

Really glad you caught that!

Doug

[Mariner]

We actually have four breakers for cabin lights. For some reason, this one light is on it's own breaker all alone. That might be why it didn't throw the breaker. Perhaps, the breaker is sized to handle a much higher load. It's not labeled, so I don't know what it is. I'll be up there Thursday to see for myself, so hopefully I'll be able to figure it out then.