Who can beat this failure?

[Washout]

I killed one D-370 on the bench that went with just a whimper and it was gone, but this one was in the field and had been for about three weeks when it went up in smoke. I've never seen one fail so dramtically. The slave flash is still working, the PIR tries to work but is not well. Any ideas what could cause one to fail so severly? The case is fine, it was not in a forest fire, there was about a tablespoon of water in the bottom of the case when it was opened up.

 

[bat]

Washout are you sure that was water in the bottom. I had one cam where the batteries evidently got too hot inside the case and burst and made a mess. Where the batteries ok in it? bat

 

[DropTheHammer]

I put a 5 or 10 amp fuse in all of my units just in case.

 

[OhioBowHunter]

Greg,

Wow... That had to be a shocker when you Opened it up...Was the card salvageable with anything on it? If so did the last Pics show rain or anything. All I can think of is Moisture got into something it should'nt have and shorted something out...

Thats a Bad break, sorry to here of the misfortune... Hows your hunting season going for that Buck you had pictures of?

Dan

 

[D Letho]

Sorry to see that .

. I have never investagated a fire but I think Bat is on it . Sure looks like the hotest point was around the batteries .

 

[Jon5ja]

Man, that's weird.

Did the heat come from inside the camera, or from outside? (i.e., are there any wires that burned up near the camera?)

Or... did some sort of "battery juice" leak out of the batteries and melt the camera case when held there by the foam?

If you think the heat came from within, it'd sure be interesting to see inside the melted case and see what got hot.

Jon

 

[Washout]

I didn't see the AA's so I'm not sure if the fire could have started there, Bat may be right. The C's were still in fair shape and the data card was still usable and had pics of several deer, no rain. This cam was in South Louisiana so the water could have come from condensation. I'll look closer at the camera and see if I can locate the starting point for the fire. The foam was not damaged in the fire and the case is still intact.

 

[Matt in MO]

wasn't a coonass with a Bic?

 

[Washout]

SMILE when you say "coonass"

 

[TxCowboy]

Good grief, that gives a whole new meaning to "up in smoke".lol Sorry to hear of your loss, I can imagine how disheartening it must feel. Do some more investigating and let us know what you find, I'd be very interested to hear the cause of this. Good luck on figuring it out.

 

[davered1]

Better get ahold of manufacturer for warranty

 

[g-hog]

Washout, Sorry about that. Man thats brutal. Now Gamecams are suffering from internal combustion............

GHog

 

[Tinhorn]

I've got an idea for an "Automatic Sprinker System" if you're interested.

Man that's got to hurt your pocket book but at least it wasn't ripped off, that's a much worse feeling for sure. Maybe you could classify the cam enclosure as an "Outbuilding" and the cam is covered, like Dave said...ha ha......

just kidding, sorry

Tinhorn

Tinhorn

 

[RSB]

Washout
Sorry to see that. Could be the humidity down here.

 

[Washout]

I disassembled the camera today and it appears that the failure was on the camera circuit board near the lense. I would emagine that normally this would just result is a small puff of smoke and the camera would be dead but in this case I had 4500 ma of C cells to power the short on the board. It caused a small melt down within the camera. The battery area in the camera was clean and showed no signs of heat or acid. The long and the short of it is I was able to salvage everything except the camera and it is back on a tree now doing what it should do .... I think. Anyway, I know that buck is still there and I'm going huntin!

I do like the sprinkler system idea though.

 

[bat]

Can't wait to see that "automatic sprinkler system"... then again maybe I don't want to see it..

Glad to hear everything else survived Washout! bat