What is the easiest way to test an engine block heater? I’d rather know now that it needs fixing than on a freezing day with 24 inches of snow in the driveway. thanks
Make sure the coil is submerged in water.
Plug it in and see if it works lol
yes you can hear them, hear the sparks in the plug as you plug it in.
If you smoke it should produce enough sparks to lite-up.
The kind of reply I was looking for was something like “If you plug it in in the summer with a cold engine, you should see coolant temps rise 30 degrees in 1/2 an hour. Or something like that. No idea if the temp sensor for the dash gauge is in the block, a hose or the radiator. Will the gauge show the effects of the heater if you don’t run the engine to circulate the coolant? If it’s in the block, how long will it take for the heater to change the coolant temp?
Good luck with getting your required reply. If it sparks at the cord and draws juice, that heat is going into the engine. If it does not it is a bad unit or wiring. There is no spec for reading a gauge. I plug them in a minimum of 4 hours before startup, or set a timer to do it for me. If it makes that crackly noise and dims the lights I have never been disappointed with the results.
These are a simple resistive coil using the engine coolant to disallow it burning itself open, along with a thermostatic switch sometime(s) to regulate the temperature. What is the wattage of the unit in question? 120VAC, or 240VAC electrical supply? A multimeter is what you need to measure the coil resistance set on the appropriate ohms scale for the coil under test.
If its in the water I plug it in with a splitter cord and amp clamp it, amps, **** it run it, no amps, block heater no worky. My more common interaction with block heaters is taking them out and plugging the hole here though lol
A core plug block heater will typically be 400 watts. A "killawatt" is a handy plug in electric meter that's about $20 at menards, you can plug that into your extension cord, plug the heater into that, and see if it's drawing about 400 amps. The sparking when you plug it in is good enough though, they either work or not. Best way to judge from the heat of the block would be on a cool morning, plug it in and in a half hour the head should be warm to the touch.
Agreed, it's simple to test. Block heaters are resistor elements so all you have to do is an ohm test at the plug where you plug in the AC cord with an ohm meter. If you read infinity then you have an open circuit, either the cord is bad, or the plug connection at the heater, or the heat element is bad. As for the ohm reading you get, well, that depends on the wattage of the element, but you should see something between 10 to 35 ohm depending on the wattage.
Two reasons that an Ohm test is less than ideal for this. First, cheap multimeters aren't accurate for ohms. Second, a burned out element can have a reading less than infinity due to coolant filling the gap between the burned wires.
That's true. I'm only saying, if an element is good you're going to get an ohm reading depending on the wattage of the element. For example, a 1000 watt 120VAC element is going to read around 14 ohm. Lower watt elements will read higher. Without knowing the wattage of the element, if you check it with an ohm meter and get a reading of 14 ohm or higher it's likely a good element. Anything lower than 14 ohm would be suspect and should be investigated further.
Or like one shop here in town did-ran it in the shop plugged it in--burned the shop and dump truck in it to the ground.
Proved the heater worked and pissed the insurance company off, two birds one plug lol
Can vary as to wattage, from the 110w inline can types to 170w for my tractor as a core plug replacement, my Super Duty Powerstroke is right at 250w and the old Cummins heaters I was used to replacing were around the 400w size.
Cord shorted at heater connection, breaker never popped.
It should have wattage printed on it. You need a short cord with individual conductors. I use a flat air conditioner extension cord with hot conductor separated with razor knife. Check with an ammeter. Amps X volts = Watts A watthour is 3.4 BTU per hour. A BTU is defined as heat needed to raise 1 LB of water 1 degree F from 70 Degrees F. A lot of calculating there, and that's before we figure how much energy needed to heat the iron, or how much is lost to the atmosphere. It is unlikely it is thermostatically controlled, so plug it in, give it an hour or two, see if it gets warm. As an electrician, I get calls often about block heaters tripping GFCIs 90% of these problems are solved with a good extension cord.
400 amps?
Depends on where the sending unit is. On one truck its not too far from the element and heats right up at 12 or 1500 watts. The water pump circulation cranks it right around and the gauge is really fast, just seconds and reads cold but nothing is as good as putting heat on. I put one new in this winter a tank type and it worked super, have another one going to do for next. A couple that use in block which work great but are fussy on gfci.
Tank types seem to circulate better but require a lot of support structure and area. In block types can get the engine(MOST Desired) to a decent temp a lot sooner.
I also limit the need for cold starts. If it shorted and didnt pop a breaker says there is something wrong, Whole outside world is sposed to be gfci.
Good Luck with that. A Hot Short will not always trip a Ground Fault interrupter.
Now that is some funny crap you need to go back to basic electric class ,would be about 3.4 amps. Bob
If that was the worst mistake I made yesterday, I'd have been doing above average. At least I don't work at Nasa
Nice, considering how many "shops" we've seen with receptacle circuits that are in 30 amp or larger breakers it doesn't surprise me. I had a guy grind a cord once and it just sat there sparking, turns out the circuit we plugged into was hooked to a 70 amp
Well you know every shop has it's in house electricians or at least everyone thinks they are. I have too many things to stay on top of running the shop. Plus the owner needs to pay for a electrician to cover business repairs. I hired as a mechanic not a building maintenance repair man. If owner wants that then he has to pay me two wages-mechanic and electrician.
It’s 115 volts. I’ve never had a diesel before, so no idea how they react in cold weather. Right now, it catches after about a second of cranking.
My experience with a block heater was on a D9G and I had just rebuild the engine and it still had water in it. The shop I was working in was old and the machine was parked outside the sliding door. It was going to get cold over night and the cord was there for the heater. I checked it with an ohm meter and it had some resistance as I recall. No crazy sparks when I plugged it in and it seemed to be working when I left at the end of the day. I came in the next morning and the shop was open and there were some people around and the power was shut off to the building. It seems the electrical to the building wasn't set up to well all those years ago and there was a transformer on the circuit that I plugged into which got hot enough to smoke, a lot! Someone driving by saw the smoke coming out of the building and called the fire department. It seems that there were no time heaters on the circuit and the block heater overloaded the transformer without popping the circuit breaker. At any rate I cut the plug end off the heater cord and got to work putting antifreeze mix in the engine so it could be put to work.
NASA has a 1 Volt, 400 Watt heater? Some Senator must own a copper mine.
Just like my 10,000AMP welder maybe
With tank types, it is important to have that tank mounted as straight up vertical, as possible. If tipped over, they can burn out the element right quick! A tank type heater that is burnt out is right easy to diagnose, scorched/burnt paint is easy to see, on the tank!
I have a Deere 310C. I replaced the block heater with a Deere part. (1000 watt) When it's powered on, I can hear a faint sizzling sound at the block. I use that as confirmation the cord & outlet is getting power to the heater. Below freezing temps are rare in my part of NC but do happen. An hour or two is enough for a quick start.
With a 1000 watt heater, 45 minutes should be enough, IMHO. I used a 1000 w on my old Allis D-19 (d-262 engine), and it would knock right off, even in the coldest weather, here in MD...
Put an amp / watt meter on the 115 line. 8 amps, 920 watts or so. I’m guessing it’s ok.