Dashboard fire whilst replacing dash lamps with LEDs

Hi Guys

Ok Maybe my fault or not but, i was replacing the discos dash lamps with leds whilst it was live. I was doing this to see if i had the led in the correct way round. All of a sudden clouds of smoke which turned out to be the circuit wires melting on the back of the dash panel.

What happened? was it down to my stupidity again?

Err.....

Yes. Why do do it and work on live circuits when u lack the skills to do so anyway how did u stop the melt down??.

Clearly something was shorting to earth!
That's kinda beside the point, though. Why didn't you disconnect the battery?
Never mind that 20 quid will get you a half decent digital multi-meter that you can keep and use for life.

Please be more careful in future. Playing about with cars is supposed to be a laugh - please don't take this the wrong way, but I doubt your nearest and dearest will be laughing if you manage to kill yourself in the process. If something is smoking you're potentially only a few seconds away from a fire, eh?

Stay safe, dude.

I usually work with live


But I know what I'm doing

so would disconnecting the battery putting the lamps in then turning it on have given a different response? if someone could explain what happened then understanding it would probably go a long way to me not making the same mistake again. All i was doing was takeing out the old tiny dash lamp and replacing each one with a low voltage LED.

Numptychucker said:

. All i was doing was takeing out the old tiny dash lamp and replacing each one with a low voltage LED.

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Therein might be the answer! Why a low voltage LED? Most LEDs run on 1.5v. You needed 12v LEDs. Where they LED replace by dash lights, or something else?

It sounds like you disturbed some other wiring or shorted out the dash panel, tho, and caused a short!

Yup, + 1 "It sounds like you disturbed some other wiring" which is easy to do, LED bulb changing is normally ok if you have the lights off, then turn them back on to check all is ok, then turn off and fit the next bulb etc etc.

U don't have to disconnect the battery for bulb changing, but working in close proximity to other circuits which are or could be live it would be a good idea to disconnect or just pull the fuse.

Any way most of us have been there.... once

Just how did you stop it from smoking/melting . Did you move the dash a bit more? Turn ignition off. Run and undo batt? Only cuz if it ent finished having its little melt down .you need to find out why . For that you need to pull dash apart and start looking and testing for shorts! And seeing what looks like its burnt.

The fact you don't know what you did wrong should be some indication that you are in above your head

if you dont try how else do you learn?

Did you find out what it was

no, i fitted a much newer dash from the scrap yard and that was fine. looking at the circuit on the back of the old one it was very tired and brittle so i am guessing an issue there. anyway all the leds are in now and the dash looks great so happy days.

Vanmancan said:

Did you find out what it was

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No, what vanman meant, I think, was did you find out what you'd fried ?and did you fix it ?might need it sometime.with Winter coming and all.

i think the old binnacle circuit was goosed and so when i moved it i think some things connected that werent supposed to.