Today was figure out why my stupid Chinese Diesel heater refuses to run. I pop in the fuse and after about a minute it shows error E-01. This is a voltage error. Ok so what the heck I upgraded the power wires to 14 gauge last year and it seemed to be working fine last year. I knew the 2 Deep Cycles were junk so I bought 2 new ones from Menards. Still the same thing. I hooked up the battery charger to the batteries and still Nada. I then found out the controller I have defaulted to 24v system. So I found the special passcode 1688 to get into the advanced settings and changed it to 12v. Well now it only runs when the charger is hooked up and charging at 25amp. I can watch the voltage on the display drop from 12.5 to just under 9volts in 30 seconds. After joining the Facebook Diesel heater group and doing some searching I found that a minimum of 12awg and a suggested 10awg wire is to be used. So I went to Home Depot and bought some 10awg stranded copper wire (2) 15′ sections in black and red and some 3/8″ wire loom. I cut the wire as close to the connector as possible then crimped it together and heat shrunk it and covered it in the wire loom. I ran it back to the Fuse block and crossed my fingers. I popped in the 15amp fuse and powered on the heater without the battery changer connected. I watched the voltage at the display drop from 12.5 to 12.3 and stay there. The heater happily fired up and ran for an hour without issue. Another thing to cross off the list.
This was about 1 minute after I turned the heater on. You can see the Heater display on the left and the shunt on the right. This was before I swapped out the 14awg with 10 awg power wiring, and seconds before the heater would shutdown.
That’s the previous setup before upgrading the wiring. I’ll try and grab an after pic and add it here later.
All Cleaned up. Still need to attach the wires to the wall once I finish this area. (If you notice this picture has the fuel line feed running back under the bus to the tank. I made this change on May 8th)
For those of you who were interested in how close I cut the wire and spliced in the 10 awg wire. It’s about 1″ from the connector.
Current setup of the Heater outlet pipe. There is a T fitting behind the water tank and it continues on against the wall under the rear of the shower pan and out under the sink cabinet kickplate directly behind the toilet.