smoking wiring

[pjwooly]

I rigged up a LED strip light to a switch and then to a spare 12v battery just to see if al worked ok.

When I connected to the battery the light came on...all good.
When I switched it off it started to smoke...not good.

Have put up pics to help and hope you can solve this as auto elec has never been my thing.
I am looking to run some lights from a "powerblock" which will be run from the terminals off the ArkPak.

Cheers.

 

[Cobez]

I rigged up a LED strip light to a switch and then to a spare 12v battery just to see if al worked ok.

When I connected to the battery the light came on...all good.
When I switched it off it started to smoke...not good.

Have put up pics to help and hope you can solve this as auto elec has never been my thing.
I am looking to run some lights from a "powerblock" which will be run from the terminals off the ArkPak.

Cheers.

Is that a relay connected to the switch? Id suggest using crimp type connectors to hook the wiring to the switch. That doesnt look too flash (the soldering). I have an LED light strip encased in a waterproof steel bar that i run straight off a battery box. All good so far.

 

[abouttogobush]

That looks like a simple 2 pole switch, it's incorrectly wired the switch appears to be wired parallel to the existing wiring. And no fuse

 

[Malicious]

umm yeah the switch is a direct short across the power source, it need to go inline of the positive wire,

 

[Malicious]

http://www.google.com.au/imgres?img...RVM66G-PNmwXKxoHgBg&tbm=isch&ved=0CC0QMygQMBA

 

[abouttogobush]

Also PJ a led light will only operate when correct polarities are used. A lamp ect will operate either way.

 

[andrew0]

Chuck an inline fuse in just after the battery on the positive side just to be on the safe side. Will stop you from melting any more cables.

 

[Old.Tony]

De-solder the BLACK lead from the light strip. Remove the wire connected to the switch coming from the BLACK battery clip. Now join these two directly together, so that black battery clip goes to its wire which goes to black wire on LED light strip. This is your negative (sometimes called 'ground' in cars) line. You usually don't put switches or fuses or anything on negative cables - you just join them all together. Makes that side of things nice and easy.

This also helps you keep negative separate from positive. The two can't meet at all, ever. That's a short circuit - blows fuses, melts insulators, causes fires.

SO, on to the positive (red) side. De-solder the two remaining wires on the switch and put either one on either post, as long as they're on separate posts. You can put a fuse in (you'd usually put fuses as close to the battery as you can manage but for testing, let's not worry for now).

The reason why it worked when you first connected it: the switch was in the 'off' position (which is how it is in the photo). Positive is connected to the red lead of the light strip and negative to the black lead - perfect. Unfortunately both positive and negative are connected to the switch, which when turned on, makes a circuit across the two metal tabs.

That created a short circuit. It wouldn't have damaged the lights, but if you'd left it on for longer the insulator may have caught fire.

And that's why we fuse things, as close to the battery as possible. Better to blow a fuse than switch something on and setting fire to your car.

Maybe we should have told Aido that.

 

[pjwooly]

Yeah thanks for the replies all and especially old tony.....good description mate.
ended up chatting with a sparky at a mates mechanical workshop and he drew a diagram similar to Andrew's.The tabs on the switches sometimes have me baffled.

yeah the soldering was rough but it was a trial run to see if I was on the right track...obviously I wasn't. lol

 

[Cobez]

Yeah thanks for the replies all and especially old tony.....good description mate.
ended up chatting with a sparky at a mates mechanical workshop and he drew a diagram similar to Andrew's.The tabs on the switches sometimes have me baffled.

yeah the soldering was rough but it was a trial run to see if I was on the right track...obviously I wasn't. lol

Thats how you learn mate. No one was born educated! The best way to learn is by making errors. At least you had the balls to ask for help.

 

[Rumpig]

"Maybe we should have told Aido that." Can I hear the rest of this story?

 

[Old.Tony]

Aido bought a D22 and all sorts of things went wrong with it. He threatened to set fire to it ... explaining how easy it actually is to cause a fire might have helped him!