[Public-List] Bizzare electrical problem

[Mike Lehman]

Lightning?




~~~_/)_/)~~ Mike Lehman ~~_/)~~~


-----Original Message----- 
From: Glennb
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2013 8:51 PM
To: Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all
Subject: [Public-List] Bizzare electrical problem

Hello all,

Well today as I was prepping the boat for spring I happened to reach deep 
into the aft storage space aft end of the cabin,over the ice box, and 
noticed my aux VHF antenna cable was extremely hot, bubbling the plastic 
core in one one spot.  This occurred where five small coils of excess cable 
were tied off with a plastic electrical tie.  The run of cable from the five 
coils up to the vhf was hot as well, as was the back end of the radio where 
the ant cable plugs into the unit.  The cable connects to a new last year 
shakesphere emergency/backup antenna clamped to the aft taff rail.  The 
cable runs aft through the storage space, through the stbd locker thence 
into the lazarette where it connects up through the deck into the antenna. 
The cable  is not connected to anything else on board- and is not shorting 
to any other hot electrical wire.  There are a half dozen positive leads 
running forward, that cross the cable near where the five coils were hot, 
but they are two strand ar
e coated marine wire and were undamaged, not energized, and cold to the 
touch.

The radio was turned off.  The circuit beakers were turned off. Nothing 
onboard was energized except the bilge pump circuit, and the engine starting 
circuit.  I had just changed the engine oil and ran the motor for about 30 
seconds to oil the engine and check oil level, prior to finding the heated 
cable.

After discovering the heated cabling, I shut everything off and 
systematically turned on the engine, circuit breakers  and radio, but was 
not able to duplicate the condition.

What in the world could cause a near fire temp in a VHF antenna cable under 
these conditions??? !!!

Any ideas greatly appreciated!

Glenn
Dolce 318

Sent from my iPad
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