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Suggestions to Preston Briggs

This site was last updated on February 15, 2008.

Be sure to test the many possibilities:

• open, with no plug
• with each plug you plan to use,
• with flooded plugs (I squirt fuel on mine), and
• shorted.

It's particularly important to handle flooding correctly - we don't want the driver to decide it's shorted and turn off the current!

In normal operation, the current should be around 3 amps and the voltage around 1 volt (experiment with a glow plug to see how brightly it glows with different voltage levels -- note that 1.5 volts is quite hot and you risk burning out the plug).

If the voltage is normal, but the current is extra high, then the engine is flooded.

If the current is 0 and the voltage is high, there is no connection (the clip is not connected or the plug is blown).

If the current is low and the voltage is near 0, there is a short, either at the clip or internal to the plug.

If current and voltage are both 0, the power switch is off or you've run the battery down. More typically, when the battery is failing, you'll see the voltage sag when you hook the clip to the glow plug.

What if it doesn't work? I'd do a lot of tests under different conditions to try and isolate the problem.

Begin by testing without a glowplug.

• Measure the voltage across the battery. It ought to be in the range of 4 to 5 volts. Record the value.
• Does the voltage across D1 = 2.5 volts?
• Does the voltage across C1 vary properly, from about 0.6V to about 1.6V?
• Does the voltage shown by the 3V meter match the voltage across C1?
• Is the current shown by the 5A meter = 0?
• Is the voltage between ground and the output of A3 = 0?
• Does the voltage between ground and the output of A2 match the voltage across C1?

Hook up a glow plug.

• Measure the voltage across the battery. Does it match your recorded value?
• Does the voltage across D1 = 2.5 volts?
• Does the voltage across C1 vary properly, from about 0.6V to about 1.6V? (Be careful not to blow the plug.)
• Does the voltage shown by the 3V meter match the voltage across C1?
• Is the current shown by the 5A meter about 3.5 Amps?
• Is the voltage between ground and the output of A3 = 0?
• Does the voltage between ground and the output of A2 match the voltage across C1?