Blown/Melted Fuse???

Hellman Huddle

Hellman Huddle

New Member
Nov 6, 2009
510
Lake Wateree/SC Coast
Boat Info
2005 260 Sundancer
2000 F-350 Diesel
Engines
350 Mercruiser Bravo III
Does anybody know why the fuse located on the starter would blow/melt? The only thing different that I did was I bought an inverter to run my laptop. Help! Good thing I was at the marina when I went to restart and they had a mechanic on duty. THe mechanic said that fusing blowing was very unusual, usually the resettable on on top of the motor will blow.
 
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Did the fuse blow while you were cranking? OR Did the fuse blow while you were holding the start button down, and the engine didn't crank?
 
Went to start and nothing happened, so I assume it happened somtime between the last time I started which was 2 hours earlier and when we stopped.
 
This is just a WAG, since I've never owned a boat (or car, for that matter) with a fuse on the starter...
But since it's just an electric motor, would a dead short in the windings cause the fuse to blow?

Seems it would be easy enough to pull the starter and take it to a local shop for testing.
 
Loose connections can arc blowing a fuse. Also fuses can blow from age but your boat isn't that old.

Nice group boat pic at the top. :))
 
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I know this is an old thread but figured I'd post here prior to throwing up a new post given it's relevance.

Hellman Huddle- did the fuse permanently solve your problem or was there another underlying issue? I've had the same issue. Starbord motor would not start after the boat sat for a while without using the emergency crossover switch. My Starbord bank powers a lot of my accessories on my boat so if the engine was not running or on shore or gen power with the charger, I would have very little power on the starbord bank, just enough to give me some dim lights with a voltage meter on my panel reading like 6v.

Traced the issue to the fuse on the starter which was melted almost completely away (SCARY!). Replaced it, everything worked totally fine. Looks like they use the fuse as a bridge to bridge power from the batteries to the panel in addition to the starter. Still don't understand how I had some voltage but not all when the fuse was blown even without shore power or gen, maybe it was arcing internally and that was what melted the thing? Anyway, after a few months and very little use. It appears my new fuse has now blown as I have the same symptoms once more. This is a 2005 340 Sundancer that's been very well maintained and the only changes I've made to the electrical system were adding a few amps right after I took delivery of the boat and replaced the starter batteries you get with the boat with marine deep cycle sealed batteries. I'm considering this to be unrelated given both of those things were performed 4yrs prior to this symptom. No visible connectivity issues that I've been able to identify so far and the starbord batteries test out just fine.

I can continue to replace this over-priced fuse but I'm concerned there has to be a reason this thing is blowing that could be a major safety hazard and I don't feel like blowing up my family. Any guidance from anyone who has had similar issues would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
Consider replacing the fuse holder. They can get resistive and cause the fuse to get hot. This is actually a pretty common failure.
If the holder is the culprit the fuse will fail from getting too hot and melting from the heat from the resistance of the holder instead of the fuse failing from getting too hot from too much current going through it.
If you have fuses blow repeatedly from an electronic or electrical failure it is usually not accompanied with the holder melting. This assumes the fuse and holder are the correct type.
Hope this helps.
 
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