lambeau- LOL- She'll actually let you get away with that? As most of us electrical engineers know letting the smoke out is not a good thing, as it's very hard to recapture all that smoke and get it back into the point from where it escaped. From your description, I would suspect a little 4-legged critter has been at work. He/she probably nibbled on some of the wires and they were shorted. When you connected the battery, the short got very hot and probably burn't itself open. If you need some help finding the source of the smoke let me know (847-6123).

Al Warner

"All Water is Zalt Water"

http://www.zaltnad.com