Extending Velit Air Heater Power Wires to Reach Battery
How to correctly extend the power wires on the Velit Air heater wiring harness to connect to the battery.
If you need to extend the Velit air heater wiring harness power wires to reach your battery, make sure you upsize the wire gauge appropriately to prevent amperage loss over distance.
We use the equivelant of 14AWG for the Velit air heater wiring harness, which is about 8 feet in length. So if you are extending those red and black wires to reach the battery further away in the space, then you should be upsizing the extension wire with 10AWG or 12AWG typically.
The reason this is a problem if power extension wires are not upsized is during the high amp glow plug heating phase the glow plug will not get enough power to get red hot and allow combustion of atomized fuel.
It should be noted that amperage loss over distance is typically determined with a calculator tool available online, and is typically not measured in terms of voltage. IE you are seeing enough voltage at the heater wires, but during high amp draw during glow plug heating AMPERAGE is lost on length of the wire if not appropriately upsized.
General information on amperage loss over distance:
- Distance: Doubling the distance doubles the voltage drop.
- Wire Gauge: Thinner wires (e.g., 16 AWG) have higher resistance and cause more loss than thicker wires (e.g., 10 AWG).
- Amperage: Higher current draw increases voltage drop.
- Round Trip: The distance must be calculated as a "round trip" (source, load, source).