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Who here bench tests EESS boxes?

Humpty

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I'd just unplug all your glow plugs and connect the positive lead to one of the glow plug wires, the other lead to ground. Turn the key and see if you get 24v while the wait light is on and verify the voltage goes to 0 (or under 1 volt) when the wait light goes off. That Camotech guy has a pretty slick test box that appears to really simulate a real world install. Photo of it on his website "about" page. https://camoteksystems.com/index.php/about-us
 

Mogman

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I'd just unplug all your glow plugs and connect the positive lead to one of the glow plug wires, the other lead to ground. Turn the key and see if you get 24v while the wait light is on and verify the voltage goes to 0 (or under 1 volt) when the wait light goes off. That Camotech guy has a pretty slick test box that appears to really simulate a real world install. Photo of it on his website "about" page. https://camoteksystems.com/index.php/about-us
Just remember that they have "afterglow" some boxes use pulse width (turn on and of a couple times a second) and other reduce the voltage for the after glow period which can be a couple minutes or so, I am not sure you will see the reduced voltage without the glow plugs attached and some smart boxes may not try to light the glow plugs at all without a load as they will detect a failure and give an error code.
I leave all the glow plugs attached and monitor the voltage, I have a battery switch in case something goes wrong.
 

Humpty

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Just remember that they have "afterglow" some boxes use pulse width (turn on and of a couple times a second) and other reduce the voltage for the after glow period which can be a couple minutes or so, I am not sure you will see the reduced voltage without the glow plugs attached and some smart boxes may not try to light the glow plugs at all without a load as they will detect a failure and give an error code.
I leave all the glow plugs attached and monitor the voltage, I have a battery switch in case something goes wrong.
I presume all the glow plug wiring is parallel in the newer HMMWV's as it is on my M998.. so if the box is looking for a load it couldn't be much.. 1.5 to 5 ohms per plug x8 plugs all in parallel it would be looking for a resistance of less than half an ohm. I wonder if a guy couldn't just rig up a dummy load to connect to one of the glow plug plugs... unless your battery disconnect is on the same side as the steering wheel a lot could go sideways quickly if the box were baking glow plugs.
 

Mogman

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I presume all the glow plug wiring is parallel in the newer HMMWV's as it is on my M998.. so if the box is looking for a load it couldn't be much.. 1.5 to 5 ohms per plug x8 plugs all in parallel it would be looking for a resistance of less than half an ohm. I wonder if a guy couldn't just rig up a dummy load to connect to one of the glow plug plugs... unless your battery disconnect is on the same side as the steering wheel a lot could go sideways quickly if the box were baking glow plugs.
You would fry the one wire as it is not meant to carry the full load of all the glow plugs, It would be more correct to say it is looking for a large load, .5 ohms at 24V will carry around 50A
 

Mogman

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It is always best to test any device under full load, just because it passed/failed under no load does not mean it will pass/fail under a full load
 

Mogman

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Well.. then make it 1.5 ohms and it'll only try and pull 16 amps if it sends voltage?
Would probably work but you would need a 400W resistor or a stack adding up to 400W and that would be running near 100%, no idea if it would work on a smart start box as they have more brains than the older boxes as you are not proving a full load.
 
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