cigarette lighter burned out!!!

[studleymick]

hi all went for a drive on monday to enjoy the glorious sun shine that happens almost never these days and was driving down road when smoke started coming from behind dash centre console so i pulled over as fast i could and switched the ignition off and dissconnected the batteries (i run 3 batteries for my big 110v inverter) i proceeded to rid the dash out around the centre to gain access to the wiring so i could disconnect the fag lighter socket safe to say the wiring is shot its melted that bad the insulation has dropped off the cable and now the wire is bare but why didnt the fuse blow??????? i checked the fuse and it was melted due to the heat and its a 20amp as is supposed to be in there and isnt just a cheap 50 fuses for £1 bag of s**t either so i'm now rewiring the fag lighter circuit and itting a 10amp fuse, the fuse only supplies the fag socket anyway and i only run my phone charger and satnav from it not exactly alot of load, anyone else has runins with melting wiring?

[raindog]

I just bought a mk1 and was looking over my fuses to find a fault (Air con) and my cig lighter socket fuse is burned out too.

[studleymick]

random as must be a bad design fuse size too big put a 10amp in will be fine

[andy-womble]

A bag of full-stops and commas wouldn't go amiss on your narrative either !!!....... I'm out of breath reading this..

[j90xxx]

They're not big on punctuation in the North-East, Andrew. tudy:

[geoff]

Even a 10 Amp fuse will allow for a 120 Watt current draw so a 20 Amp fuse is well over the top at 240 Watts !!!

[LionHeart]

Even a 10 Amp fuse will allow for a 120 Watt current draw so a 20 Amp fuse is well over the top at 240 Watts !!!

Seems to me the cable is undersized, 1.5mm csa cable will take about 16amps before being too hot for it's insulation. if the the cable is protected by a 20amp fuse i would suggest 2.5mm cable, may not be apparent but its the same in mains wiring. a domestic socket not wired on ring main, but as a radial would be wired in 2.5mm and be protected by a 20 amp fuse/breaker.
voltage is different and the amps are wiggly, but the current is the same. the current provides the heating effect. I Squared R another one besides ohm's law. dc car sockets are rated at 20amps normally max load