How fast a bit of laziness can bring you trouble

[listo]

We went to Surat last night to visit my olds. I had a few beers with my old man & having just finished being on call, I had a thirst up.
This morning packing the camper up, I was pretty tired & hung over.

Our battery is currently sitting inside the camper, with a lead bolted to it going into a cigarette lighter plug, so all you have to do is plug it into the kitchen cupboard & it gets the lights & tap going.
I've just left it this way as I am planning on replacing the front toolbox with one that fits a fridge in it, then will move the battery in there & wire it all in properly.

Normally, I unbolt the lead completely from the battery, but this morning I just tucked the the lead up onto one of the tubs in there, thinking "she'll be right".
Sometime during the drive home, it's fallen down onto the battery & shorted itself out. When I got home, I opened the camper up & was greeted by black smoke & flames. I've just spent the last hour wiping the soot out of the camper, but thankfully that was the only damage done... other than a buggered 120ah agm battery.
If I wasn't being such a lazy ****, none of this would have happened

[Fizzie]

Wow Listo, you dodged a major bullet there!

[xcvator]

Lucky you've still got a camper mate   

[Troopy_03]

Yep could have been a lot more costly, you had luck on your side. Hope you don't make up any 240V leads though.... 

[Fathom]

Ohm. That sucks.

But could have been way worse.

Had similar happen to a mate.

On a trip up to Cape York a few years ago.
He left a pot loose he used for cooking crab.
Rolled around in his ute tray and shorted the battery.
Luckily we were just pulling over..everyone one the UHF... saying look at all the dust coming off your 4B....
Then we realised it wasn't dust...
It was on fire.
We then discovered our fire extinguishers still worked.
🤣

[Cruiser 105Tvan]

Lucky, lucky boy there Listo.
Don't buy any Lottery tickets for a while, you've used up a lot of your luck with this one.

[listo]

Ohhh don't I know how lucky I am. I'd even thought about just pulling up at home & going in for a kip, then unloading, but thought better of it.
I was too busy being thankful to still have a camper to be pissed off with myself

[austastar]

Hi,
   No fuse?


Cheers

[listo]

Nope, too much of a dick head for that...

[Cruiser 105Tvan]

We're s'posed to learn from our mistakes Listo.
Midi fuse in a fuse carrier, that would've been so easy, too late now.

[speewa158]

Popo down to your local CFA or similar & buy a dry chem extinguisher  to have in the Tug /CT /shed     Be Safe   

[austastar]

Hi,
   No fuse?


Cheers

Hi,
     You can now claim one dramatic lesson learned the hard way.  Extra kudos for that!
Cheers

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

[Patr80l]

Nope, too much of a dick head for that...

Thanks for sharing because it's a lesson for all of us.

[listo]

I was nearly too embarrassed to post it, but if I can help one person not make this mistake, it's worth the embarrassment

[corndog]

Goes to show that even with the small sized cable on the plug the damage that can be done by not having a fuse on it.

[austastar]

I was nearly too embarrassed to post it, but if I can help one person not make this mistake, it's worth the embarrassment

Hi,
    No embarrassment called for. It is a beaut example of what is needed and what can happen when smoke escapes from electrical wiring.
Cheers

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[Cruiser 105Tvan]

Hi,
    No embarrassment called for. It is a beaut example of what is needed and what can happen when smoke escapes from electrical wiring.
Cheers

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

Exactly, You let the smoke out of the electrics and they never run again.
Everyone knows electricity is really running on smoke.
Just like A/C. runs on coolant gas.

[Spada]

That's a great example of what can go wrong, and truthfully, we're probably all guilty of taking  the odd shortcut now and then with good intentions of "doing it properly" later on (I'll put my hand up for that).

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but as well as a fuse, if the female socked was wired to the battery instead of the male plug, there would not have been an exposed live contact to be able to short out ?

Thanks for being brave enough to share your misfortune, hopefuly we can all take something from it 

[austastar]

Hi,
   Well spotted, using a small screen I didn't see it was a male plug, just assumed it was female and the short was coincidence instead of inevitable.
Two lessons for the price of one;  bonus!
Cheers

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[trinityalyce]

Thanks for sharing because it's a lesson for all of us.

I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for being brave enough to not only learn yourself from doing this, but sharing it with the rest of us so we're not tempted to make the same mistakes! Very glad for your sake it wasn't any worse or more costly!!