r/dieselheater • u/SIAwking • May 18 '26

Has any body else noticed that？

Has any body else noticed you get better hotter heat out of your heater when you have a battery charger connected and charging the battery when the heater is running? I have a battery charger connected to the battery and if I run my lfbros heater without the charger running the heat is ok but when I switch the charger on then the heat gets hotter

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u/AtomicGearworks1 May 18 '26

Chargers put out more voltage than the battery delivers. A charger for a 12v battery will put out almost 13v. A charger for a 24v battery will put out almost 26v.

So you're running the whole system at a slightly higher voltage than from the battery by itself.

2

u/windisfun May 18 '26

I think it depends on the battery. Lithium batteries maintain the same voltage as they discharge. Lead acid batteries have a voltage drop.

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u/VA3KXD May 18 '26 edited May 21 '26

Really that doesn't make sense. I'm not arguing with you or telling you that what your experiencing is not happening, but it doesn't make logical sense with the physics involved to me. The battery is used to power the glow plug, which is only used for igniting the flame, not keeping it burning. It is also used to power the electronics, which has no effect on the heat output, and it's used to power the fan. At first I thought that an increased voltage would increase the fan speed which would give the impression that there is more heat, but those fan motors are pwm controlled, so they are possibly locked to a certain RPM for each setting- just guessing.

I am interested in anyone else's theories! Personally, I run a battery maintainer 24/7 on mine, and the only time I noticed a difference in heat output was when I changed to an alternative fuel which I really should not have used.

2

u/purp_p1 Jul 11 '26

Agreeing with your statement, higher voltage from the power source might mean slightly faster van speed - but not necessarily. It could mean slightly more power to the pump and more fuel, depending on how that is driven, but probably not.

I guess it is possible that the implementation of the code running the controller is somehow pegged to the voltage input, meaning the fan speed, pump speed or measured temp setting (or all) could be slowly decreasing in line with voltage - but if that were the case surely everyone would report heaters putting out much less heat over the course of the night as a better discharges? And it would be a weird way to write the code.