Thought I'd share an embarrassing blunder. Keep in mind I am an project manager in the electrical business for longer than I will admit.
I am in the tail-end of the build and everything has been closed up for a good long bit. I have taken every precaution to prevent any of the wiring getting damaged during the build .I have tested everything along the way countless times. Some may say, a ridiculous amount. For some reason I wanted to see what the exterior lights look light with the hatch installed, so I directly hook them up to the battery and nothing, nada. I total freak. NOOOOOOOO!. I bust out my tester and sure as sh**, a dead short. I'm devastated. I then come up with a plan to see where it is, which will require me cutting a wall open behind the first exterior light closest to the battery and would be inside the cabinet when done. I am hoping that the short is between the battery and the first light that would be an manageable fix. I did have a enough sense to slow down and make a jig to cut a clean hole to patch back later.
And it's open to inspect.
Well, the short is not between the battery and the first light, it's down stream somewhere. I am devastated and so perplexed. I am telling myself, "I haven't done anything for weeks in the cabin !" I then hook up the wiring back to the battery and I smell smoke! then I see smoke coming from the hole where the switches will be, and that's when I hear " you are a total dumb-ass" in my head.
Well...when I wanted to burn the cabin lights without the 3 way switches installed weeks ago, I just twisted all the switch wires together forgetting the positive and negative legs for the exterior lights were also in there. I had not hooked up power to the exterior lights since then and totally for got that a ran the feed to the switch first and not the light. Felt pretty much like an idiot. Wife says "See, I knew it would be something simple. You're an electrician".
Pretty good patch job that nobody will ever see in the cabin cabinet or hear about again.