I don't understand why Toyota made such a heating device in the dashboard, all these wires with huge current, a simple light would have been enough.
Why did anyone approve on making a toaster in a dashboard
I think safety aspects relating to the high-current wiring and relating to having red-hot metal inside the cab were behind why Toyota stopped using glow controllers.
And also (as we're maybe finding here) there is the problem of getting the delicate balance correct between "controller" and "plugs" where any changes by plug manufacturers can easily inhibit glow controller performance.
But glow controllers have a massive "coolness factor" don't you reckon (and are worth every bit of the effort of fiddling around to get them working right)?
Hi guys
It is the same… So I will try and write the supplier an email and see if they are aware of this. I guess there must be a difference to the plugs then!
It seems like they are different! there are more "steel" loops in yours? so couldn't that be a reason also? more resistance?
Damn! So your new controller also glows too brightly and too fast (same as your old one)?
I didn't mean to imply yours should have the same number of turns as mine. Sorry if I misled you on that.
I was more concerned with the brightness of your old controller than on its number of turns. (Although the reduced turns and nature/appearance of those turns did make me suspicious that it may have undergone a home-repair at some stage and been shortened.)
Mine is designed for a 4 cylinder and yours for a 6 cylinder. So this 50% increase in the number of plugs means your current draw will be 50% greater too. (Around 60A instead of my 40A.)
So your glow controller will need only half the resistance (since it is wired in series with parallel-wired plugs and thus takes their overall current flow) to drop your busbar to around 8.5V. So it does make sense for it to have less turns.
And all this has prompted me to do more research on HKT plugs..
Here's a cut-an-paste I've just done to place your PT100 plug alongside a PT104 plug:
I was thinking the dimensions of the two plugs were the same and that therefore
there must be a difference in their performance/current-draw.
But the above image-comparison suggests the terminal threads are different!
Unfortunately the HKT catalogue I have only supplies the dimensions for the PT104 plug so until I did this image-comparison i didn't notice:
So can you confirm that your PT100 dimensions are the same as shown above for the PT104 except for the terminal thread being M5 as opposed to M4?
Interestingly, the original plugs for my 1979 BJ40 had an M5 thread so my busbar holes are sized for that.
Up until now, I thought plugs with the M5 thread were obsolete and no longer made!
So now, rather than thinking your PT100 plugs are wrong, I'm thinking perhaps I should be running them too?
But then this doesn't explain why your controller is glowing too fast and too brightly...
Perhaps trying a completely different brand of 8.5V plug is the way to go now? Sorry... I'm unsure..(but still reluctant to suggest moving away from original spec. plugs)...
I've been lucky with my glow controller but quite a few people have been having problems like you.. Except it seems to be more common for their controllers to fail to glow or glow too dimly, rather than glowing overly fast and glowing too bright.
.. So unless I find a much cheaper source - that's the end of that idea.
But hang on a minute...
