vexilar venting

[kb1965]

Well out fishing this weekend my vexilar smoked on me. I was sitting in a bay fishing sunnies with 2 buddies when I smelt wires burning. Looked at the guys I was with and than I noticed it. My FL 18 was smoking. Thing was shut off. Disconnected the power line and tried to disconnect the tansducer, but the connector was hot and burnt my fingers with an nice checker board design. The outer casing is melted also right above the connectors. When I installed it in my boat last year I made sure there was a fuse link on the hot wire. The fuse never blew. Called vexilar today when I got home and all they said was it has a 2 year warranty on it, and they never heard of a vexilar burning like that. If I want I could send it in and they can look at it and tell me what happend. I bought it Feb. 03. 2 year warranty is off of it. Sorry all but just had to vent. Spent $400 2 1/2 years ago and now it is toast.

[Gissert]

The transducer is what was hot/burning??? That is really odd.

If it is something out of the ordinary, I would not be surprised if Vex takes care of you. Their customer service is well known for being very very good.

[Remy]

Something similar happened to a friend of mine last fall. It was in the back of his explorer and he stopped at a store to get some bait. As he was getting out of his car his phone rang and he sat in his car for another minute. During that minute he started smelling smoke and he looked back and his carpet had caught on fire that his vexilar was leaning up against. Luckily he got that phone call or who knows maybe his whole explorer would have caught on fire with all his fishing gear inside.

[kb1965]

Sorry, not the transducer but the connector was hot when I unhooked it from the unit. The unit it self is melted down.

[Down Deep]

The only thing that I can think of that would cause this would be a dead short of the power wire. Something may have worked loose on the inside. If the fuse was over amped that may have been the reason it didn't blow. Things heat up very fast when a dead short happens and other parts can ingnite. That might be why the unit got smoked. I'm sure Vex will at least look at the unit.