Micro CoGen.

Hi Veggie,
The actual glow plugs that are screwed into my adapter are:
NGK YA01 or NGK YE01.

The NGK YA01 is pricey at about $35 and is a 12V plug,
the NGK YE01 costs about $18 and is an 11 volt  plug. Both were purchased over the internet.
These plugs are quite small with a M8 x 1 thread and I'm not sure they would work effectively in heating the inlet air.

As a side note I've never had to much luck starting my engine by heating the inlet air using a propane torch or anything else in freezing weather. I guess a proper inlet air heater should work though.
I believe there were posts on this subject on this site. Do a search.

All the best,
Hank

You are right, these glow plugs are for intermittent use. About 10 seconds of power is the max they specify. All I need is to get it started, the smoke clears up after about a minute or less of running in freezing weather. Getting it started in freezing weather, without glow plugs, is a real pain. Hope this will solve that problem.

These are in the pr-combustion chamber (or IDI chamber) so the pressures are pretty high. I have had one running for approx. 5 hrs. without a problem, though I must say it was pretty warm (60 F) when I started it up without  a problem. When the engine started it quickly reved up and smoking stopped when I engaged the glow plug.

This is "work in progress" until I determine the optimal parameters.
So far so good!!

Well it's getting on to fall then winter, which means cold weather.
At my daughters/son-in-laws land in the Berkshires of Mass. it gets pretty cold and we have no grid power, the sun does not always shine so the solar panels are useless and the wind doesn't always blow so my wind mill is also useless in these situations, and we do love to hunt and camp in December.

Not to despair we have a 195 Chang-Fa diesel tied into a 7.5kw generator and an alternator to charge the batteries. Cold weather starting is however an issue.

I've looked for some glow plug solutions and though there were some eluded to non were forthcoming. To that end I have designed my own (perhaps others have already done this and I'm just not aware of it, sorry).

My IDI Chang-Fa has a starting assist plug (useless) in it. What I have done is to machine an adapter to accept a glow plug and use this plug port to equip the engine with a glow plug for cold weather starting ease.

The plug is threaded with a M12/1.75 thread with a beveled seal at the bottom.
The photo's below are the adapters that I have machined to accept either a YA01 or YE01 glow plugs for starting assistance. I have one installed and is running, unfortunately the weather has been warm so I can't really give this approach a true evaluation, perhaps in the next week or two I'll have more information as the weather cools off.

Got my vote and still ahead by 2+%

Good Luck

Hi Bob,

It's been a few months since this post has been active. Just curious if you have any progress report on your concept or is this a dead end?

It would be great if it works.

All the best,
Hank

I'm not sure about putting in DC power into an AC charger and expecting it to work correctly if at all.
In terms of measuring DC amps you are correct in using a shunt. What you can do is use a length of #10AWG wire on the + side charging your battery. Measure the voltage drop across a 1 ft. length of this wire and your current will be pretty much what you read in millivolts, ie. if you measure a 20 millivolt drop the current will be 20 amps.

I'm not sure what your generator system is or how far it is from your battery banks but you may want to consider a charge controller to charge your battery bank and divert any excess power to a water heater or some other load.

Hank

Hi Bob,
Just curious if you have anything new to report on this?
Also, would you know what the thread configuration is of that pseudo glow plug they have in these engines. My engine is on my daughters land several hundred miles away and I won't be there for a while so I can't readily measure it. Somewhere I thought I read that the thread was an M12-1.75.

Trust you had a good holiday season and thanks,
Hank

In my neck of the woods these OWB's are not allowed in many cities.
The prime reason is pollution, they smoke like hell especially in the early and late parts of the heating season when heat demand is the lowest.

Had a neighbor put one in last year without checking/getting a permit. After spending some big bucks for the furnace, installation and a few cords of wood the city shut him down.
When he first fired it up the smoke was so bad that at times you could not see your hand in front of your face. I'm sure the neighbors complained, rightfully so!

On the other hand if your nearest neighbor is miles away and you have an abundance of free wood then they may be okay. From what I've read they are horribly inefficient, burn a lot of wood and require much more frequent wood reloading then advertised.

Bob, I would be interested in 2 glow plugs as well.
I'm new to the board and this is my first post/reply.
Seems like a great and informative board.

Thanks,
Hank