Electrical question about glow plugs.

DEWFPO · Feb 9, 2015

Does anyone know how many amps each of the 4 glow plugs draws?

DEWFPO

SSdoxie · Feb 10, 2015

Amps depend on voltage available divided by the ohms (resistance). Glow plugs vary but should be close to 1 ohm, a good battery should read 12.8v. If 12.8v are available at the glow plug bridge and each glow plug was at 1 ohm amp draw is 12.8 amps each X 4 = 51.2 amps.

To be accurate you need to measure voltage at the glow plug and the ohms of each glow plug.

DEWFPO · Feb 10, 2015

Thanks Dennis,

I've been having a couple of issues with my 5600. Several times when cold starting it, I'd get a warning light about 1/2 second after start up and no forward drive. Shut-down and re-start would clear the warning light and I'd regain forward drive. I might have to restart it more than once to clear the code and regain forward drive. (Unfortunately at the time I didn't know how to pull any error codes). Last week the battery didn't have enough steam to crank the cold engine over. I put a battery maintainer on it for about a week and yesterday I put a voltmeter on it 10 minutes after I disconnected the battery maintainer. I had 13.3 V. (I know a good battery should measure out at about 12.7-8 Volts 8 hrs after last use/charging cycle.) I then turned the key on and after a 20 second glow plug cycle (@48F ambient), the battery voltage went from 13.3 down to 11.8 V. If I had waited and let the battery settle down to 12.8 V then I guess the voltage would have gone down to about 11.3 V after the glow plug cycle. The 5600 started right up but well see what happens when it gets cold again around here. The charging circuit seems to be fine, it was at 14.3 V initially after start up and then down to 14.1 V after several minutes.

I was wondering if there is an equation or rule of thumb to be able to calculate/estimate battery voltage drop after a 20 second load of 51.2 amps?

Thanks Again,

DEWFPO

SSdoxie · Feb 10, 2015

A battery with weak plates, sulphate build up can show high voltage after charging but will not necessarily have rated reserve capacity. Exide engineers recomend letting a recently charge battery to rest 30 minutes before testing to get an accurate test.

To see any code displayed, look on the disply panel buttons one of the them shoud say in smaller letters "hold for code". I think it is the light button but can't remember for sure. With key still on after any beeps or shutdown, hold that button for about 30 seconds a numeric code should display if a warning light is on. A fault code display will be preceeded by 3 beeps of the alarm.

Starting up, getting alarm with warning light and having no drive is very likely in the arm bar switch/system. Make sure the arm bar in fully down.

SSdoxie · Feb 10, 2015

A battery with weak plates, sulphate build up can show high voltage after charging but will not necessarily have rated reserve capacity. Exide engineers recomend letting a recently charge battery to rest 30 minutes before testing to get an accurate test.

To see any code displayed, look on the disply panel buttons one of the them shoud say in smaller letters "hold for code". I think it is the light button but can't remember for sure. With key still on after any beeps or shutdown, hold that button for about 30 seconds a numeric code should display if a warning light is on. A fault code display will be preceeded by 3 beeps of the alarm.

Starting up, getting alarm with warning light and having no drive is very likely in the arm bar switch/system. Make sure the arm bar in fully down.