Diesel Heater powerbank issue

I had the same issues with my Goal Zero Yeti 400 and now my Biolite 1500. I had my local outfitter check it out the problem with my was on startup the heater was pulling too many amps for the batteries.

My heater has ring terminals so, my work around is to have two separate 12v power cords connected, one to the truck to get the heater going and the other the portable battery. Once the heater has started up I disconnect from the truck and run off the portable battery. No issues with that route other than the extra step.

 

Those cheap power boxes have DC-DC step down converters to create 12v nominal at the cig lighter plug . They're usually made of ~20v packs. This makes them cheaper, however the small cheap DC-DC converters will be current limiting. 10a max mostly. 10a is not very useful for very much. Most real 12v LiFePo4 batteries will have 60-100a breakers in their BMS. That's why they cost more.....

 

I swear I just saw a YouTube video where a big time YouTuber was having this issue and explained it. It's an issue of the GZ and multiple others having a cutoff, if the diesel heater pulls more than 120W of power.

Here's the video where Talon talks about this issue with many of the different brands of battery.

He starts talking about the exact issue at 8:30 into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY4is23DET0

 

I have the tall skinny Vevor and am having this issue. I have the Jackery 1000 and it does exactly as you described. But it works on my Jackery 290 from Harbor Freight. Go figure. Jackery even sent me a new 1000 and it’s the same. How did the converter work for you?

 

I had a problem similar. My Vevor ran no problem on my jackery however on a ski camp trip with my buddy, he borrowed his coworkers massive 2000w ecoflo to keep our both our tents toasty however we kept getting an E8 - over voltage error. Tried the trucks 12v and tested on another buddies goal zero, same issue. My fix was to wire a buck down converter into my heater setup and dialed it to 12. Now works cherry!

 

this right here....we had the same issue for the wife battery so I plugged it into my truck to get going then swapped over to battery once glow plug was good. Ran all night nice and toasty.

 

Ive been looking for someone who did this forever! the switching over really works even with a momentary break in power? did you have to add a capacitor? Do you then switch back to your starter battery for the shutdown?

Thanks in advance!

 

I had a similar issue. I bought the skinny Vevor 5kw CDH and a GoLabs 300wh power station. I wired a standard 12v cigarette plug into the CDH pigtail. First time I used the CDH, I didn't really know what I was doing, but running off the power station it heated up fine and lasted all night perfectly hot.

The next time I used it a month later, it would run the start up for 3-4 minutes and error out with E01 (low voltage). I eventually got it to work by "warming it up" on the truck 12v socket then swapping to the power station and starting the process again, but already hot. Seemed to work.

Didn't work when I used it again, a month later. I even bought a Napa Maxitrac battery box, hoping putting a marine deep cycle battery would have enough juice, but again using the cig plug port it errored out E01.

I did some chatting on a CDH facebook group and it was explained to me that the plug and wire were having too much resistance. The plug wire was someting like 8' long with 16 or 14 awg wire. Also the plug contact points were just too small (but, again, are standard for 12v cig). I was told there are 360 degree contact 12v cig plugs available, which might help. It was also stated most of these do not pull more than 10 amps during start up (they tend drop down to below 4a after they're warmed up)

I experimented this by cutting off the cig plug from the CDH pigtail and adding some battery terminal clamps. I was able to run the heater perfectly straight off the same deep cycle battery the 12v cig plug would not work with. I even ran the CDH a whole night connected like this.

I have since added an SAE connector to the CDH pigtail and have a longer SAE to Anderson 50a with 10awg wire for connecting to the battery box. Works great. Eventually I will get one of those 360 cig plugs and see if I can run it off the power station again this fall.

TL;DR if you're experiencing this kind of issue, resistance may likely be the culprit.

 

This.
This "non hard wired" connector is known to be a good work around.

$28 Scotty #1125 Depthpower Hella Electric Plug and Socket Black, Small

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001M4HSQW?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

I ran into the same issue with my CDH and Anker solix C1000. I ended up ordering

$22 ALITOVE AC to DC Converter 100V ~ 240V to 12V 10A 120W Power Supply Adapter Car Cigarette Lighter Socket AC/DC Transformer for Car Vacuum Cleaner, Car Refrigerator and Other Car Devices

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078RZQ9WY?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details from Amazon and it runs fine. Sucks that it has to be off the AC side but it is what it is I guess. There's even a blog from Anker on how to run a diesel heater all night. https://www.anker.com/blogs/home-power-backup/how-to-run-diesel-heater-all-night-with-portable-power Kind of misleading. Oh well.

 

It would be interesting to put a meter on it and measure the current at startup. Wondering how long the period of high draw actually is.

 

Not super long. Only while the glow plug is running. I did that with a clamp on ammeter last year. Will have to look back see if I can find the pics.

I imagine the exact time will depend on ambient conditions when the unit is first started as its all logic controlled with internal and external temp sensors

 

I would say it’s until the glow plug goes off. I’m brand new to these things though. When plugged into the 12v cig port I get this error

 

ah ok. Probably at least a few seconds then. Hmmmm.

 

Purely from memory Id say closer to a minute.

 

Ahh ok. That’s a decent chunk of energy then, probably would have to rework the glow plug system to reduce the usage

 

Personally Id look into a better power solution before messing with the glow plug. Not saying it cant be modified, but at the end of the day it will need to get hot enough to kick off the flame

 

The glow plug cycle lasts several minutes.