Northwest Dive Club

So on my last dive on the Sierra my scooter died. At the time I thought I may have just used up the battery, but tonight found the fuse was blown. To be more specific the fuse assembly had melted.

What would cause this? After I removed the fuse from the old assembly I did a resistance check from load side to line side of the fuse holder, and found no short.

I replaced the fuse assembly (let's just say I'm not an electrician), and it does work now. But I would like to find the cause rather than just treating the symptom.

It's because she knows she is supposed to be with me. You're screwed.

D

Maybe corrosion in the holder increased resistance across it-creating heat. What was the fuse rated at?

If this is Chad's old scooter, that is probably a fuse holder I installed years ago. Soldered and shrink wrapped in place?

dsteding wrote:Maybe corrosion in the holder increased resistance across it-creating heat. What was the fuse rated at?

If this is Chad's old scooter, that is probably a fuse holder I installed years ago. Soldered and shrink wrapped in place?

I think we may have discovered the problem.

defied wrote:It's because she knows she is supposed to be with me. You're screwed.
D

dsteding wrote:Maybe corrosion in the holder increased resistance across it-creating heat. What was the fuse rated at?

If this is Chad's old scooter, that is probably a fuse holder I installed years ago. Soldered and shrink wrapped in place?

it is your old scooter, and it is the fuse holder you installed, your craftsmanship is better than mine. It was a 30 amp fuse.

dsteding wrote: If this is Chad's old scooter, that is probably a fuse holder I installed years ago. Soldered and shrink wrapped in place?

Perhaps the scooter liked Florida better and is just protesting being dunked in our cold water.

On the corrosion front I would suggest filling the new fuse holder terminals with silicone grease to exclude water and prevent a new corrosion/resistance/heat cycle.

Man, sorry to hear that. I have had any issues with the fuse holder that was installed when I bought it other than the cap popping off from time to time... but thats just the cap.

As you know, the wires running to the motor are long so you can get the tail off and disconnect the battery. Long enough that is you are not careful, they could very easily get pinched where the o ring seats when you are putting it together. I would check the wires real good to make sure that has not happened... although if it did, you would think the bad seal resulting would have allowed flooding.

Not that it should matter, but which battery were you using? Did the fuse blow at the beginning of the dive or the end?

kitsapdiver wrote:

dsteding wrote:Maybe corrosion in the holder increased resistance across it-creating heat. What was the fuse rated at?

If this is Chad's old scooter, that is probably a fuse holder I installed years ago. Soldered and shrink wrapped in place?

it is your old scooter, and it is the fuse holder you installed, your craftsmanship is better than mine. It was a 30 amp fuse.

It is close to five years old then. All things considered, I'd expect it to be the holder.

If it is still with the scooter, I had a Watt's Up meter wired so you could have it in the scooter. It should measure peak current, so if the motor was shorting and pulling too much current or something, you may see it using that meter.

That scooter was good to me for a long time, I traded it for a couple kiddos, I guess. Enjoy it.

dsteding wrote:

kitsapdiver wrote:

dsteding wrote:Maybe corrosion in the holder increased resistance across it-creating heat. What was the fuse rated at?

If this is Chad's old scooter, that is probably a fuse holder I installed years ago. Soldered and shrink wrapped in place?

it is your old scooter, and it is the fuse holder you installed, your craftsmanship is better than mine. It was a 30 amp fuse.

It is close to five years old then. All things considered, I'd expect it to be the holder.

If it is still with the scooter, I had a Watt's Up meter wired so you could have it in the scooter. It should measure peak current, so if the motor was shorting and pulling too much current or something, you may see it using that meter.

That scooter was good to me for a long time, I traded it for a couple kiddos, I guess. Enjoy it.

Yeah at this point I think it was the fuse holder. I got the scooter out for a dive today, and was on the trigger for 35-40 minutes of it probably, and it didn't seem to give me any problems, although it's still doing a freshwater soak, so in a few here I'll have to open it up and check the fuse holder.

If it was a short in the motor I would suspect the fuse would have blown today. My dive buddy today did say he was in second gear to match me, but I had a stage bottle and deco bottle to just his deco bottle. And he's on a Cuda so it's hard to compare the two.

P.S. I'm not interested in making the trade for kiddo just yet. I'll have to stock up on Strawberry Condoms.

Strawberry condoms obviously don't work at all.

Fishing line or other junk around the prop (inside the hub) can lead to excess amps and blowing the fuse.

I wish someone would invite me to scooter.. Mine just gathers dust.. Sniff .. Sniff..

dsteding wrote:Maybe corrosion in the holder increased resistance across it-creating heat.

This

Replace the fuse holder & fuse, slap a little lithium grease in there, and go diving.

I've found differences in fuse holders. You want one where it's a bitch to get the fuse in.

One of these days I'll post a burn test showing the difference between an old fuse holder and a new one. It's pretty interesting, in a scooter geek kinda way.

We had this problem once with Barb's scoot. Replaced the fuse and it hasn't happened again. At about the same time, Matt was going through fuses in his Seirra pretty frequently. I think it turned out to be a bad control module.

If you start running into the problem often, I'd call/email, or bring it up to Ray at Dive Xtras. He has been super helpful to me and many other local divers. They stand behind their products and are always willing to help out.

Good luck - Lauri

What Lauri said. In my case it began happening more and more frequently, and ended up requiring new electronics. Hope all it takes for you is a new fuse.

Mattleycrue76 wrote:What Lauri said. In my case it began happening more and more frequently, and ended up requiring new electronics. Hope all it takes for you is a new fuse.

Where have you been all my life? I even made a trip over to the N. side a few weeks ago, and there were rumors of you, but no you!

There have been a couple scooters lately that kept blowing fuses due to the failure of the electronics. That's pricier than a new fuse so hopefully it's not that.

Mattleycrue76 wrote:What Lauri said. In my case it began happening more and more frequently, and ended up requiring new electronics. Hope all it takes for you is a new fuse.

ldevore wrote:We had this problem once with Barb's scoot. Replaced the fuse and it hasn't happened again. At about the same time, Matt was going through fuses in his Seirra pretty frequently. I think it turned out to be a bad control module.

If you start running into the problem often, I'd call/email, or bring it up to Ray at Dive Xtras. He has been super helpful to me and many other local divers. They stand behind their products and are always willing to help out.

Good luck - Lauri

It sounds like he was going thorugh fuses. I hope the fact that the fuse holder melted means that it was the corrosion in the fuse holder.

kitsapdiver wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:What Lauri said. In my case it began happening more and more frequently, and ended up requiring new electronics. Hope all it takes for you is a new fuse.

Where have you been all my life? I even made a trip over to the N. side a few weeks ago, and there were rumors of you, but no you!

Well, what can I say? A Job finally found me and now I'm stuck at work 50-60 hours a week. I was going to go to MMM last week but I had just about all of my gear in for an anual service/vip/hydro etc.

As far as the fuse holder goes, mine was melted too. Probably due to the high draw from the defective electronics. My advice would be not to do any scooter dependent dives until you're sure you've resolved the issue. It would suck to be stuck out at alki reef with a dead scooter.

Mattleycrue76 wrote:My advice would be not to do any scooter dependent dives until you're sure you've resolved the issue. It would suck to be stuck out at alki reef with a dead scooter.

Or the Bomber

BDub wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:My advice would be not to do any scooter dependent dives until you're sure you've resolved the issue. It would suck to be stuck out at alki reef with a dead scooter.

Or the Bomber

That was the Valiant, but yes that's how I know.

Mattleycrue76 wrote:

BDub wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:My advice would be not to do any scooter dependent dives until you're sure you've resolved the issue. It would suck to be stuck out at alki reef with a dead scooter.

Or the Bomber

That was the Valiant, but yes that's how I know.

The was directed at Austin. He learned it on the Bomber

BDub wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:

BDub wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:My advice would be not to do any scooter dependent dives until you're sure you've resolved the issue. It would suck to be stuck out at alki reef with a dead scooter.

Or the Bomber

That was the Valiant, but yes that's how I know.

The was directed at Austin. He learned it on the Bomber

Monkey see, monkey do, just like you on the Dawn

Brian's got a whole army of trained monkeys diving all over the Puget Sound. Kinda like the wicked witch of the west but underwater.

BDub wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:

BDub wrote:

Mattleycrue76 wrote:My advice would be not to do any scooter dependent dives until you're sure you've resolved the issue. It would suck to be stuck out at alki reef with a dead scooter.

Or the Bomber

That was the Valiant, but yes that's how I know.

The was directed at Austin. He learned it on the Bomber

Well I had never had the problem before the bomber, and it crapped the bed in 20ffw. However as the scooter was building up to it's non-cermonious crapping of the bed it was traveling at half the speed of smell....

Lesson learned Brian! So I was going to try to transverse from Harper's Pier to Blake Island this weekend wanna come along?