My glow plugs thoughts, theories, complaints, ideas and beliefs

[GOOSE]

Man, I never thought of the resistance drop and all of that when I relocated my controller. I ran a # 4 wire to it off of the solenoid and then a #4 to the two #10's in the harness. Its only gotten down to 30 deg but I find myself short changing the GP cycle and it starts flawlessly. Here are a couple of pics of what I did.

The one pic shows me splicing to the yellow wires. I didn't realize this was unneeded and changed that half way through the process. I now have a #4 wire that is 12" long feeding the GP controller.

 

[Fordsandguns]

Mine works good with the larger cable replacing the two 10 gauge wires. But, I do see the reasoning behind having a fusible link or good circuit breakers in there. My glow time seems normal - shorter for the warmer temps and longer for the colder temps.
Sometimes back in the summer heat they didn't come on at all. In the cooler temps we're seeing now they always function.

 

[whenry912]

Wow, we had the exact same issue with our glow plugs, I also lost power to only one of the yellow 10g wires, and yep, that made it a bear to diagnose!

My fusible link that burned up was actually right next to the passenger side battery, it said 14gauge on it and was fried right in half. I patched it with a regular wire but I ordered a fusible link and will install that tomorrow.

 

[Black dawg]

I had installed a battery cable to the controller to make my truck start better. It reduced the glow times enough (10 sec) that it started harder. Went through 5 glow plugs in short order. Took battery cable off, and glow times are back up to 15-16 sec, and no more burning up glow plugs.

 

[Fordsandguns]

I had installed a battery cable to the controller to make my truck start better. It reduced the glow times enough (10 sec) that it started harder. Went through 5 glow plugs in short order. Took battery cable off, and glow times are back up to 15-16 sec, and no more burning up glow plugs.

That's weird, mine does 15-16 seconds in cooler temps with the large cable from the power to the controller. In warmer temps it's like 8-10 seconds.

 

['94IDITurbo7.3]

how long does your WTS light stay on for when the engine is warm? (just driven)

 

[Fordsandguns]

how long does your WTS light stay on for when the engine is warm? (just driven)

If you mean me, if it's a short trip and the truck isn't up to full op temp, anywhere from 8-12 seconds. Most of the time if it's fully warmed up and it hasn't sat long before restarting it doesn't even come on. The volt meter will show no drop when the key is in the on position.

 

[Silver Burner]

I feel like I should amend my first statement about the #10 wire. The 30A that I was quoting you is actually the allowable ampacity of #10 60 Celcius wire IN pipe or directly buried! If you base the wire on a 90 Celcius insulation rated wire such as THHN or XHHW in FREE AIR that rating jumps to an allowable ampacity of 55 Amps up to an ambient air temp of 40 Celcius (104F). Now assuming the engine bay is cool (which it normally is when we're using the GP's, there are no correction factors for heat. At 122F you would multiply the 55 Amps by 0.85. I know, a bit technical, but I wanted to let you guys know the actual proper ampacity of #10 since it is in free-air, not in pipe.

 

['94IDITurbo7.3]

If you mean me, if it's a short trip and the truck isn't up to full op temp, anywhere from 8-12 seconds. Most of the time if it's fully warmed up and it hasn't sat long before restarting it doesn't even come on. The volt meter will show no drop when the key is in the on position.

thanks. question was thrown out to anybody really. ya full op temp. ex. go into store, you come out a few min later and WTS light time=??
for this senario my WTS light will come on for ~10 sec and the volt gauge will move and then the plugs will cycle like it does on the first start of the day. pretty sure it is the controler. all beru plugs are good.

 

[Silver Burner]

^^And that was my 500th post BTW. Oh yeah!! lol!!

 

['94IDITurbo7.3]

^^And that was my 500th post BTW. Oh yeah!! lol!!

do you feel special now?

 

[Silver Burner]

do you feel special now?

Nope. Just think it's cool. The post itself was much more important IMO.

 

[GOOSE]

I feel like I should amend my first statement about the #10 wire. The 30A that I was quoting you is actually the allowable ampacity of #10 60 Celcius wire IN pipe or directly buried! If you base the wire on a 90 Celcius insulation rated wire such as THHN or XHHW in FREE AIR that rating jumps to an allowable ampacity of 55 Amps up to an ambient air temp of 40 Celcius (104F). Now assuming the engine bay is cool (which it normally is when we're using the GP's, there are no correction factors for heat. At 122F you would multiply the 55 Amps by 0.85. I know, a bit technical, but I wanted to let you guys know the actual proper ampacity of #10 since it is in free-air, not in pipe.

You are taking these ratings from the National Electric Code Book. This is absolutely correct for high voltage applications. I have come to find that there is a totally different chart for 12 volt DC ampacities. Either Peterson's 4 Wheel and Off Road or 4 Wheeler had a great chart years back, I wish I had copied it. I will see if I can find something comparable.


http://www.boatus.com/boattech/CircuitProtect.htm

There is a pretty good writeup and calculations there. I find that most knowledgeable electricians go for overkill when it comes to low voltage sutuations, myself included.

 

[Silver Burner]

Nice! Thanks for that Goose! Looks like they come out in a relatively similar manner to NEC's ampacities as a baseline and then the wiring shifts for voltage drop due to length of wire. Obviously 12V is not very much voltage to push that current, so voltage drop plays a big factor, much more so than a 120V or up circuit. That's a really great article on how to correctly size wire for 12-24V.

 

[Rot Box]

Big thank you to everyone that has posted here. It's great to see what has worked and what hasn't for you guy's

I warmed my truck up today (so I didn't freeze while working on it ) so I couldn't test out my newly re-done wiring with a cold motor. Right now I have 4ga. from the battery to the controller, from there I have 2 10ga. wires going to the GP's. Well now that the motor is stone cold at about 32* outside I tried it out and they cycled for 5-6 seconds--not nearly long enough...

Tomorrow I will go from the battery to the controller with 2 10ga. wires and see if that does anything. I LOVE having the controller/solenoid on the fender so I'm thinking that if I can't make it work tomorrow I'll install a push button and call it good.