Main DC inline fuse and/or holder is melting
My Weekend Warrior toy hauler main DC power line has an inline fuse about foot away from battery and the fuse holder is getting really hot and starts to melt. It wont actually trip the fuse for a whil...
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Finally got back around to this and some time to play with my Infrared imager.
Did a week long trip and first two days my fuse was not getting hot at all and voltages were good to reflect this.
On the third day started to notice voltages dropping off so knew it was likely happening again and it sure was .. wow that is hot:
This is combo IR and visual image blended. You can see the orange colored fuse is not the hottest, its down in the body of the fuse holder that is really hot. Its a little deceiving to determine actual temps from the colors as the fuse was hot to the touch where looks "cold" in the image but still lets you know where the source is. The blue leg going down towards the bottom is the DC line so it has some heat in it too but it fades off with distance from the fuse holder.
Here is IR only:
To me this just further confirms the source is in the fuse body. If I were able to get to it before it heat soaked I think it would probably better pinpoint the problematic area in the body.
There was nothing different between the first two days and the third except time. In other words nothing different that I turned on, etc. or used for a longer duration that I think would be significant. This is also what I observed last trip ... no issues until some time had passed.
For some reason I could not get my new amp clamp to read DC amps or voltage on this line. Would have liked to have seen this info to see what was going on with it too. Single conductor + DC line so not sure why nothing read.
Scanned all my electrical system with the IR imager and nothing else was getting hot. Still went ahead and tied some of the main lines connected with twist connectors to nice bus connector for further confidence and mounted them properly to hopefully ensure nothing ever shorts them out.
Installed the new circuit breaker and no problems the remaining 3-4 days and could even see an improvement in charging voltage in general.
Hopefully this is the end of this problem ;)
Did a week long trip and first two days my fuse was not getting hot at all and voltages were good to reflect this.
On the third day started to notice voltages dropping off so knew it was likely happening again and it sure was .. wow that is hot:
This is combo IR and visual image blended. You can see the orange colored fuse is not the hottest, its down in the body of the fuse holder that is really hot. Its a little deceiving to determine actual temps from the colors as the fuse was hot to the touch where looks "cold" in the image but still lets you know where the source is. The blue leg going down towards the bottom is the DC line so it has some heat in it too but it fades off with distance from the fuse holder.
Here is IR only:
To me this just further confirms the source is in the fuse body. If I were able to get to it before it heat soaked I think it would probably better pinpoint the problematic area in the body.
There was nothing different between the first two days and the third except time. In other words nothing different that I turned on, etc. or used for a longer duration that I think would be significant. This is also what I observed last trip ... no issues until some time had passed.
For some reason I could not get my new amp clamp to read DC amps or voltage on this line. Would have liked to have seen this info to see what was going on with it too. Single conductor + DC line so not sure why nothing read.
Scanned all my electrical system with the IR imager and nothing else was getting hot. Still went ahead and tied some of the main lines connected with twist connectors to nice bus connector for further confidence and mounted them properly to hopefully ensure nothing ever shorts them out.
Installed the new circuit breaker and no problems the remaining 3-4 days and could even see an improvement in charging voltage in general.
Hopefully this is the end of this problem ;)
