Power converter to plug truck in in the winter?
- Thread starter rungesco
- Start date
Thats at 120v once you run it through an inverter and you are pulling it from a 12v source it would be much higher than that at least 80amps.
Deep cycle would be a must
I don't think it helps having a warm truck with weak batteries
vs a cold truck with strong batteries
Also Duramax's are common rail
Powerstrokes are Huei which need oil pressure to fire the injectors which is hard to get with thick oil while cranking
Deep cycle would be a must
I don't think it helps having a warm truck with weak batteries
vs a cold truck with strong batteries
Also Duramax's are common rail
Powerstrokes are Huei which need oil pressure to fire the injectors which is hard to get with thick oil while cranking
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Amps=wats/volts
1000/120=about 8.3 amps.
But, think of it this way, a 500 watt sterio amplifier will nuke a single batt in about 1.5 hours...running on 12 volts esentially drives the amps up.
500/12=about 41 amps
Now how the inverter relates the 120 to the 12 volts the batteries produce im not sure, but if it were a direct relationship it would be just over 80 amps.
Lets just assume that you have an average 500 cca batt, they gennerally average about 50-60 amp hours. This is the amperage they can supply for 1 hour before being completely discharged. So, having dual batts, you have about 100 amp hours onboard your truck, or enough to run the block heater for just over 1 hour. Not enough to heat a cold engine block to begin with, not to mention that you wont have any juice left over to crank the starter.
Not a workable idea really. Besides, i personally have started my duramax in -25 degree weather after the truck had been sitting in that cold for 4 days. No problem. You should be good to go.
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If you know this, then you should know that wattage is a product of voltage and amperage...
You could pick up a cheap generator online or at the pawn shop and just go out and crank the generator for a couple of hours.
You'll have no issues. The reason powerstrokes have hard time starting in the winter is because the injectors are ran off of high oil pressure, and if the oil is thick then you're screwed! Tell your dad to run some 5w-40 and some rev x oil additive, then he'll crank right over! With that being said, you'll be fine cranking in cold weather! :thumb:
I am aware of this but im not quite as sharp with the mathmatical equations as mike s, although the information he posted is the formula i was looking for to figure the actual life under the loadd of the block heater and invertor. He beat me to it though lol thanks mike :thumb:
gotcha...just plugged my killawatt into the block heater and it only read 860 watt, so not as high.
Yeah....but where is the custom cool factor in a regular old generator vs a self heating truck on a timer lol
If someone were to REALLY want to do this you could buy a coolant resivior relocation kit like used in a twins setup and add a third battery
That would give you another 30 minutes of run time on the block heater...not much of a difference for the work involved.
Umm, they do. That jumper block near the 2nd alternator (if you have one) and just above the power steering pump. That is specifically designed for jump starting. It connects to both batteries and the engine block for ground.
Dunno if youve used it much on anything that pulls much juice, but the ground on that little jumper doesnt work worth a pinch of $hit. Not one of our 4 duramaxs will jumpstart a tractor or a truck off of that stupid thing, but if you connect to the battery ground and that positive terminal, viola! Cranks right up.
Don't know what you have access to, but if you can get a couple of batteries from something like a D8, then you may be in business. Put a charging splitter on the alternator so the starting batteries of the truck stay in their own circuit, and run the timer and converter off the big batteries in the back.
The winter I spent in Milwaukee, the truck started just fine after 3 days of below 0 temps and it was -11 when I started it that morning. Texas oil viscosity hated cold weather when trying to go through the dual filters. Made awful noise, only lasted a few seconds, but it sounded bad.
The winter I spent in Milwaukee, the truck started just fine after 3 days of below 0 temps and it was -11 when I started it that morning. Texas oil viscosity hated cold weather when trying to go through the dual filters. Made awful noise, only lasted a few seconds, but it sounded bad.
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This whole thing is kinda silly, no offense. 
You dont NEED the block heater at all. And powering the block heater on an inverter from a battery is like some sort of perpetual-motion-rube-goldberg contraption that, in reality, will be so expensive and complicated that its not really worth looking into.
As shown in my video that Josh posted, that was my truck sitting for outside for over a day, not plugged in. It was -7* when I started the truck, but im sure it got much colder during the night, so the actual "engine temp" might have been -15* or more.
Oh, and yes, this was on ONE battery. And it wasnt some super 8000cca nuclear wonder-battery. It was a regular 2-year-old "titanium" battery from advance auto.
I dont understand how, even after I show people this video, they are STILL all worried about "I JUST SAW THE FIRST SNOW FLAKE OF WINTER, WILL MY TRUCK START!???"
Duramax's are awesome in the cold. Ive started mine at -23* without being plugged in. Sounded nasty, but it started on the first try, it didnt "start then stall" and there was NO extended cranking period. The only thing a block heater is going to do for you is help you get heat in the cab faster. Ive also tried unplugging my glow plug control module when it was 25* and it still started fine on the first try, it just had to be cranked for an extra second or so.
And on another similar note, dont "cycle the glow plugs 34 extra times when its super cold" like you do with your old 6.2 or farm tractor. The duramax glow plug control module is fully computerized and "smart". If it thinks it needs to cycle the glow plugs longer than normal, it will do that by itself. The glow plugs heat up red hot in about 2 seconds, and then the glow plug control module uses PWM to keep them at a constant temperature. So if you "cycle the glow plugs" multiple times, you arent making the darn things ANY hotter because the glow plug control module is already regulating the temperature automatically. The light on the dash is not a "glow plugs are on" light. Its a "wait to start" light. You turn the key to ON. You wait for the light to turn off. You start the truck.
The glow plug control module, most of the time, will keep the glow plugs on (at a lower plug temperature to keep them from burning the tips off) for about a minute AFTER the engine has already started, to 'keep the fire lit' in extremely cold temps, and help with cold-start emissions.
You can pretty much just treat the thing like a gasser. Unless its below 40*, I never even wait for the glow plug light at all, I just hop right in crank it. Because the reality is, is that the engine needs to make at least a couple full revolutions to build up >1500psi rail pressure and to allow the ECM enough time to get a good strong CKP signal reference. When the ECM is finally "ready to fire the engine", enough time has passed that the glow plugs have already had a chance/enough time to get red hot...
Ben
You dont NEED the block heater at all. And powering the block heater on an inverter from a battery is like some sort of perpetual-motion-rube-goldberg contraption that, in reality, will be so expensive and complicated that its not really worth looking into.As shown in my video that Josh posted, that was my truck sitting for outside for over a day, not plugged in. It was -7* when I started the truck, but im sure it got much colder during the night, so the actual "engine temp" might have been -15* or more.
Oh, and yes, this was on ONE battery. And it wasnt some super 8000cca nuclear wonder-battery. It was a regular 2-year-old "titanium" battery from advance auto.
I dont understand how, even after I show people this video, they are STILL all worried about "I JUST SAW THE FIRST SNOW FLAKE OF WINTER, WILL MY TRUCK START!???"
Duramax's are awesome in the cold. Ive started mine at -23* without being plugged in. Sounded nasty, but it started on the first try, it didnt "start then stall" and there was NO extended cranking period. The only thing a block heater is going to do for you is help you get heat in the cab faster. Ive also tried unplugging my glow plug control module when it was 25* and it still started fine on the first try, it just had to be cranked for an extra second or so.
And on another similar note, dont "cycle the glow plugs 34 extra times when its super cold" like you do with your old 6.2 or farm tractor. The duramax glow plug control module is fully computerized and "smart". If it thinks it needs to cycle the glow plugs longer than normal, it will do that by itself. The glow plugs heat up red hot in about 2 seconds, and then the glow plug control module uses PWM to keep them at a constant temperature. So if you "cycle the glow plugs" multiple times, you arent making the darn things ANY hotter because the glow plug control module is already regulating the temperature automatically. The light on the dash is not a "glow plugs are on" light. Its a "wait to start" light. You turn the key to ON. You wait for the light to turn off. You start the truck.
The glow plug control module, most of the time, will keep the glow plugs on (at a lower plug temperature to keep them from burning the tips off) for about a minute AFTER the engine has already started, to 'keep the fire lit' in extremely cold temps, and help with cold-start emissions.
You can pretty much just treat the thing like a gasser. Unless its below 40*, I never even wait for the glow plug light at all, I just hop right in crank it. Because the reality is, is that the engine needs to make at least a couple full revolutions to build up >1500psi rail pressure and to allow the ECM enough time to get a good strong CKP signal reference. When the ECM is finally "ready to fire the engine", enough time has passed that the glow plugs have already had a chance/enough time to get red hot...
Ben
I thought the same (silly) as these trucks start very well in cod weather. I have really never seen anyone bitch and if they did it was probably related to weak or old batteries.
I only use the block heater ,very very seldom as I don't drive my truck when its that cold out, Ii like to keep it nice and warm in the shop, to get heat faster and so it doesn't sound like it's ready to blow up on cold starts.
I can also attest to seeing the wait to start light cycle on and off on cold starts so like Benny said it has it's own brain ,as if you didn't for some reason believe him.
I only use the block heater ,very very seldom as I don't drive my truck when its that cold out, Ii like to keep it nice and warm in the shop
, to get heat faster and so it doesn't sound like it's ready to blow up on cold starts.I can also attest to seeing the wait to start light cycle on and off on cold starts so like Benny said it has it's own brain ,as if you didn't for some reason believe him.