Lithium batteries, power stations and voltage errors

Why does my heater show a voltage error on lithium or a power station?

In the owner reports collected for this page, the cause was nearly always voltage sag, not over-voltage. Vevor’s XMZ manual says the current is high at start-up, and the Belief manual checks the supply as the heater starts, with the glow plug on. Manual In the reports below, a cable that was thin or long, or a source that could not deliver that current, let the voltage at the heater collapse until the controller reported a fault or the source switched itself off. Owners

What owners found:

• Thin or long supply cable: four owners. One cured E-01 by replacing the supplied battery-to-heater wiring with thicker wire. One cured it by cutting the supply wires to length; it came back with longer leads, with the voltage dropping to 8 to 9 V at start through a cigarette plug. One saw the voltage sag to 7.9 V through cheap jump leads, and other cables fixed it. The fourth is the lithium case below. Owners
• Power stations and small supplies: four owners. One on a power station whose 12 V output is limited to 10 A got intermittent error codes, and says the heater pulls about 15 A at start-up. One could not fire the glow plug from a power station socket, while the same heater ran from a small car battery. One reports a small power station that could not run the heater and a larger one that could, but only through its high-current port. A post in another thread on the same forum, about the same model of small power station and possibly by the same owner, adds that dropping the lighter plug helped but the 10 A breaker still tripped in real cold; it is not counted separately. The fourth got E10 from a 3.1 A laptop supply, and the heater fired straight up on a vehicle battery. Owners
• Weak, low or distant battery: four owners. Three are in one TheSamba thread. One 2 kW heater on clip leads quit before finishing its start routine after the car had sat for days; with the engine running it started normally, then ran for over an hour on the battery alone. One heater behaved oddly and threw E-10 on a weak battery, and ran as expected when connected straight to the battery of a running car. One all-in-one heater shows E-03 when the auxiliary battery is low; its owner runs the engine until the battery shows 13.8 to 14.2 V, lets the heater light, then switches the engine off. The fourth, on another forum, got a low-voltage message when the heater was fed from a solar battery bank about 10 ft (about 3 m) away, even with heavier cable, while it worked from a small battery 1 ft (about 0.3 m) away. He now switches in a small battery beside the heater for start-up and shut-down. Owners

The code shown varies with the controller and is not always the voltage code: owners in these threads also quote E-03, E-06 and E-10.

Is lithium over-voltage ever the cause?

No confirmed case of a lithium battery causing an over-voltage fault on a Chinese diesel heater was found. What was found instead:

• One lithium swap that looked like over-voltage and was not. The heater errored on a lithium battery resting at 13.25 to 13.8 V but ran on a small lead-acid battery. After the owner tightened a loose pump connection it started on lithium: 13.83 V at standby, falling to between 12.30 and 11.80 V with the pump and glow plug working. Later he removed surplus cable and it ran. Owners
• One controller that misbehaved above 13 V. On a lithium battery resting over 13.1 V at 58% charge, one owner’s controller showed a wiring-fault icon, ignored the buttons and eventually showed E-07. It read and responded properly once the battery had fallen under 13 V. The same heater ran normally on a lead-acid source down to about 10.5 V. The code was E-07, not E-02, and this is one report. Owners
• E-02 at 11 to 12 V, unexplained. One owner saw E-02 with 11.8 V on the display while starting. A commenter with the same code says only a different battery resolved it, cause unknown. Owners Nobody in those threads isolated the cause: see E-02.
• E-2 with P04V on the screen, unresolved. One owner of a 2 kW heater had E-2, no start and no prime while the display flashed P04V. He measured 12.1 V at the main board with the heater at rest. Replies told him to measure while it tries to start and to try another 12 V source; he posted no result. Owners
• Lithium that simply works. One owner has run a 5 kW heater from a 100 Ah lithium battery for two winters. Another runs a heater from a power station’s 10 A port and says it has never tripped or errored. A third reports about 300 hours on a heater fed from a LiFePO4 battery through an upgraded wire loom; he puts its occasional failed first ignition down to the glow plug. Owners

What voltage limits do the manuals give?

They differ, so each is shown with its source. These are the figures for 12 V heaters.

Every row is from the manual named. Manual Owners ask about lithium batteries sitting at 13 to 14.6 V. Every upper limit in this table is 15 V or higher.

How much current does the start need?

• Gasmate’s manual says the power source must supply at least 15 A, and gives the input power as 144 W at start-up. Manual
• Vevor’s XMZ manual says the start-up current is high and asks for a 12 V supply of 15 A or more. Manual
• Vevor’s CY manual asks for at least 20 A, says not to use the cigarette-lighter socket, and wants any extension wire to have a cross-section over 2 mm². Manual
• The OnTrack guide says the cable must be sized for a start-up draw of up to 12 A, and that the battery should not drop below 12 V during start-up. Manual

Two owners name a 10 A limit on their power station’s 12 V output. Owners That is below every one of these figures.

One owner’s inline meter showed the current climbing past 20 A before the heater shut down on a long run from the battery bank. Owners That is a single reading on a set-up that was already failing, not a rating.

What should I check, and in what order?

1. Read the voltage during a start. Many panels show the supply voltage. Watch it while the glow plug heats, not at rest. A reading that falls sharply as the glow plug comes on points to the supply side.
2. Measure at the heater plug. Put a meter on the supply at the heater end during start-up. The lithium owner above saw 13.83 V at standby fall to under 12 V there. Owners Compare what you see with the limits in your manual.
3. Try one start from a strong battery. Three owners found a weak or low battery this way: the heater started normally with the engine running, or wired straight to the battery of a running car. Owners If it starts like that, the heater is not the fault.
4. Check the socket rating. If the heater is on a cigarette socket or a power station’s 12 V socket, move it to a direct battery connection or a port rated for the start-up current. Owners
5. Shorten and thicken the cable. Cut out surplus cable and use heavier wire, as the owners above did. Owners
6. Check every connection and the fuse holder. A loose pump connection was part of the lithium owner’s fault. Owners Go over the battery terminals, the fuse holder and each plug between the battery and the heater.
7. Check the 12 V or 24 V setting. On panels with a PIN menu, a voltage error that appears at once on a healthy supply can be the wrong system voltage. One owner’s E-01 after a controller swap cleared when the controller was set to 12 V. Owners See the hidden settings menu.

Which code you get for low voltage on your panel is on E-01.

When should I stop?

• The voltage at the heater plug stays inside the manual’s limits through the whole start and the voltage code still appears. The supply is then not the cause, which leaves the controller or the main board.
• The controller behaves oddly only above 13 V, as in the one report above. No source confirms a fix for that.

If you are not sure, ask a technician. Replacing the control board goes beyond routine owner maintenance. A mistake here can cause a fuel or exhaust leak. Stop if anything is unclear.