timmaaah 0 Posted November 4, 2012 (edited) I was in the car with the missus and my nearly 3 year old daughter heading off to see some friends in Norwich yesterday. We'd had a nice drive in when all of a sudden we smelt a very acrid, burning smell. We then heard a Fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt noise, like a short circuit, and then a huge cloud of smoke came billowing out from the dashboard, near the radio!! I panic and slam the anchors on, pop open the bonnet and rip off the positive battery terminal, whilst my missus grabs little 'un from the back. After a few minutes it becomes clear that there is no fire. We gingerly tap the positive terminal on and off a few times, to see if I can hear any more short circuits. Nothing. I decide to leave the terminal attached and maybe move the car out of the middle of the road into a lay-by. I park up, and slowly try/test all the electric things in the car. Lights, wipers, spoiler, sunroof, heater etc all working fine - not a fault in sight. Most peculiar. It was then that I noticed that the heater controls were no longer illuminated - the knob lights were but not the surrounds. Then it dawned on me. Several years ago I changed all the switchgear/illumination to red. I did the dials by using el wire - this was no longer working. I managed to extract the radio and fish out the 12v transformer that powers the el wire to find this: It's a bit hard to see, but the whole unit has bulged, and you can see the hole where all the smoke came from. I usually carry a fire extinguisher in the car, but I took it out a few months ago as it was very much out of date. It was on my "I'll get round to it" list - it's now on my "First thing to do tomorrow" list. The car stinks of the acrid smoke smell, but I'm sure it will dissipate soon. Some of the foam and plastics at the rear of the dash are slightly melted too. Scary scary stuff! Make sure you have an up to date fire extinguisher in your car and don't buy cheap electronics from China. That is all /edit - I now need to work out how to re illuminate the dials! Edited November 4, 2012 by timmaaah Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Swompy 0 Posted November 4, 2012 That was a close call, glad all is well. Family and car wise Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Portent 0 Posted November 4, 2012 Close call. Glad it turned out ok. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stonejag 10 Posted November 4, 2012 Lucky escape! This is one reason I avoid all EL products - they need around 100V AC to operate and the cheap inverters you usually get are this kind of potted unit. They're hardly notorious for their reliability and even decent inverters can run quite hot so encasing the lot in a block of plastic isn't a great idea... Stone Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jim Bowen 1 Posted November 5, 2012 Just put two extinguishes in mine after some stories on here, got a foam one and a Co2 one. If i don't have a fire, i'm told they are good for scaring lions and polar bear etc Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
