Dead 12v sockets - Fuse fine.

[chinnyhill10]

Just driving home earlier and I suddenly notice what appears to be a small fire in the lighter socket. Something has clearly shorted in there.

Get home, have a poke around and there's a couple of tiny bits of metal in there (no idea from where). Small circular things.

Clean out, check fuse, blown. Replace fuse, nothing. Check new fuse, fine.

So that's me out of ideas. The fuse is fine. There is power on that outlet on the fuse board. But the lighter sockets front and back have ceased to work.

What am I missing? I'd try to test continuity from the socket to the fuse board but my leads won't reach.

Will have another poke round in a bit but something odd going on. Why both sockets? Why is the fuse still ok?

[chinnyhill10]

Got to the bottom of this after much messing around and obtaining a meter with longer leads.

Continuity on the fuse. Continuity from the fuse box to the socket. Also continuity from socket to ground. Hmmmm.

Swapped a 20amp fuse from another socket. Works. Hmmmm

Looks at both fuses. Blades on the replacement one I used were far thinner. Shoddy Chinese rubbish. Can't have been making contact.

So the moral of the story here is eliminate all else and what you are left with is the solution. And don't buy crap fuses!