Rayline spotlight overheat

[Sailor John]

Hello,
I have a vintage 'Rayline 1-Mile' spotlight on Mad Hatter. It's beautiful, and it works. Or, it did.
The other day, after smelling electrical burning, I noticed the wires that feed into the back of the Rayline joystick (via a 9 wire plug) had started to over heat.
I quickly turned the unit off and pulled the in-line fuse. (It didn't blow).
After pulling the whole joystick assembly out of the dash, I was able to see that the wires had started to melt their coverings.
The joystick itself, shows no sign of overheating or damage. ONLY the wires that feed into the 9 wire plug had melted.
The pins all look good with no apparent wear, or corrosion and nothing loose. My first thought was that a bad or loose connection somewhere, but I think that would show somewhere.
I did a check of the larger + and - wires, and I was getting full power.
I also put in a smaller watt bulb to see if it would lessen the demand. Nothing changed. The wires still heat right up.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. I love this old lamp. It seems to be a defining piece on a Hatteras bridge.
Thanks you all,
John

[JuiceClark]

I've been gradually struggling with mine, too. It matters what size your light is...and you didn't mention it in your post.

Apparently, the 8" light (like mine) is a 24v bulb. All the smaller size bulbs are 12v. All the switches, no matter what size light, are 12v. There's an extra red wire running up to the light and I assume that's to supply the 24v to the bulb. However, I haven't quite gotten to hooking it up and trying, yet.

Anyway, if you have a 24v light and a 12v switch (like I think I do) it would be easy to fry something....I think. Hell, I don't know - that's why I keep putting that project off.

You might just have a short at the light pulling too much?