Truck is a 02' F350 xlt crew cab, 7.3l, 4x4, 4R100, manual transfer case, 125,000 miles.

So me and the family were pulling out of the driveway tonight and electrical smoke starts blowing out the vents. My wife had just plugged a cheap USB charger into the auxiliary outlet above the cup holders for only 30 seconds. I immediately pulled back into the driveway, yanked the charger out, and found it had melted a hole in the side of it. No smoke had come from the charger or the outlet. The outlet looked fine and wasn't hot to the touch. I pulled the dash off real fast and started grabbing wires, feeling for anything that was hot or melting. I couldn't find anything. I pulled the cover off under the steering wheel and couldn't find anything. I never turned the truck off while I was looking. After a few minutes, I noticed that the cover over the fuse panel was warm. Pulled the cover off and felt every fuse end and they were all cool to the touch. The relays in the middle were all pretty warm(almost hot to where I couldn't touch them). I was still faintly smelling the burnt smell and I couldn't tell if it was just stuck in my nose. I disconnected the batteries and we had to switch cars(heading to a bbq).

So I just got home and I'm going to start looking for any obvious signs first. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on at the panel? So far, everything is still working. I haven't found any blown fuses. Any ideas? Thank you in advance.

 

This is a strange one. Clearly something was burning up, or in the process of starting to burn up. If smoke was coming out of the vents, it may have been getting in there inside the dash somewhere because the tubes obviously run through the dash.

I would start at the power outlet, then visually inspect the wire all the way back to the panel. Are you sure it was not the cheap plug that was burning up and you thought the smoke was coming out of the vents just above the outlet?

Good and quick thinking on trying to find the problem right away. Keep us posted and pictures are good too.

 

I would check to see that the fuse feeding that outlet was the right size. The fuse should blow

before the wire start smoking from heat, generated from excess current drain!

 

So I tore the dash apart last night into the wee hours and couldn't find anything melted. I traced the brown w/pink stripe wire from the outlet to the fuse panel. Everything looks fine. The #3 fuse wasn't blown or damaged in any way. I replaced the 20 amp fuse just for the hell of it. The weird part is there's absolutely no burn stains on the inside of the outlet. Just the cheap charger. I'm wondering if I dodged a bullet, and only the charger was the problem. It's possible that I only noticed it being blown by the vents, and not blowing out of the vents. It happened so fast and scared the crap out of me. We were pointing into the sun at 5pm. The mysterious blue smoke is never fun.

Is it possible to post pics from my iPhone? I don't ever use the computer in the house.

 

Just make sure that the wires to and from the outlet are not discolored from heat. If the wires are clean, then maybe the charger was the whole problem. Just be aware that hose chargers do not shut off with the key, so that kind of problem can occur at any time. Make sure to remove the charger when the truck is unattended.

 

So far so good. Thank you very much. No discoloration in the wiring. I do make sure to unplug anything that goes into the outlets when not in use. Mainly so I don't drain the battery. But from here on out, nothing will left in the outlets while not being used. Thanks for all the responses.

 

You guys might think its odd but I have actually wired my power outlets to hard switches, yes I could just do key on with accessory, but I prefer to know it OFF and have control over them (the most things are plugged in are either lights I don't need all the time or a mobile phone charger which is not often) since they mostly lay dormant during my drives...I also have inline fuses with them also rated at 7.5 Amps each (figure phones don't draw more then two amps and the dash cam is maybe a couple amps (so lets say charger and camera are 4 amps together, that still leaves a few amps for a light or something I might need, but I might still step them down to 5 amp fuses, who knows...

 

The AC return picked up the smoke and ran it through the vents. It will blow a fuse before it melts wires.