Long story short, on the way home from a tournament yesterday (rained all day) buddy following me calls and says man it looks like your console is smoking. i get to the house and notice the smoke immediately. i dive under the dash to see a pile of smoke up under neath the dash. I open the back battery compartment to see nothing but a wall of smoke. I start feeling around and notice the two wires running to accessory 1 switch were smoldering. The wires ran from my power pole lights up to the lights rigged under my console and into the access 1 button. the panel was off. Somehow the access 1 switch shorted out or the panel shorted and did not kick a breaker and it smoldered the wires all the back to the power poles. melted my hydraulic steering cables and who knows what inside the gunnel. the gunnel was hot to touch on the back starboard side, so I'm sure the wires inside the pvc pipe are a mess. Looks like a total rewire job and new steering cables. been on the phone with ranger today and they agreed it should've never gotten to that point and the panel should kicked a breaker. the way i see it, the panel was dead and should've never had power to the button anyhow. i don't use the lights, so they lights weren't on. what a mess….suppose to leave for erie on monday, doesn't look like I'm taking my boatthankfully it wasn't worse with the hydraulic lines and the fuel lines being close by.
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Originally Posted by jseasor
I usually check the main breaker twice. I had an engine fire once, voltage regulator failure, but what OP is describing is a lot worse.
