Mr. Heater Portable Buddy Heater Fan Mod

[jbird68]

I built my version of the Mr. Heater Fan. I still need to glue it together and figure the wiring out.







There is another topic on this in the General Discussion forum. I just thought it made more sense to post it in the Equipment Forum.

[Kevin23]

Nice! Not a little buddy heater though.

[MEMAGGIENCOMET]

Looks good. What are you going to use to power the fan?

[jbird68]

Nice! Not a little buddy heater though.

Thanks, I changed the Subject to "Portable Buddy"

[jbird68]

Looks good. What are you going to use to power the fan?

I bought an extra 12V Battery for my Showdown because I thought it was dead. Recharged it and it holds a charge now. Going to mount it in a Plano Ammo Box and add switches and a quick disconnect.

[Kevin23]

This would be a good candidate for the old AA pack. Its a black pack that holds 8 AA batteries for 12 volts. Would work perfectly for that, nice and light weight. You could even buy rechargeable AA's and save some money.... sure beats hauling around a 5lb SLA to power it.

[Big - D OBG]

Nice mod, keep us updated

[jbird68]

Ok. Now I need some electrical help. I have it temporarily wired to try it out. Now I am no electrician so I need some help. I can get the fan to run until I turn the other switch on. Then the fan turns off and a wire on the switch with nothing plugged into it gets hot and the coating starts to melt. I have positive wires to each switch like I think it should be. Then the accessory wires to each jack. Then the neg. wire to the other terminal on the jack. But I think my problem is the neg. Wires inline at the switches. Just not sure how to do this. Here is a photo.

[lightningz]

First off the neg. wires should not go to the switch. they should be grouped together and go directly back to the battery. You are causing a direct short with them wired to the switch thus causing the heat up condition. Only the hots and switch legs should be attached to the switches. Let me know if this helps

[Buckshots]

Ok. Now I need some electrical help. I have it temporarily wired to try it out. Now I am no electrician so I need some help. I can get the fan to run until I turn the other switch on. Then the fan turns off and a wire on the switch with nothing plugged into it gets hot and the coating starts to melt.

Don't turn on the other switch   

[jbird68]

Ok. So I put the neg. Wire from the battery on the jack and hot wire from the switch to the jack and I can get the fan to run. But I can't get the light on the switch to come on now. Where do I put the ground wire from the switch so that the light comes on when I flip the switch to the on position? Wired the wife from the other input to the neg. Battery wire and it still shorts out when I have both switches turned on.

[Kevin23]

I'm assuming your control panel is composed of 3 prong switches. One for neg ground (for light), one for positive "out" (from battery), and one from positive "in" (to fan) as shown in my diagram.

Your negative line to your fan (or whatever else) should come straight from the battery, or spliced off of another neg line. Neg is always "hot", as in it is never switched on or off, always a live wire straight from your battery to the item (you can tap into any item's negative as they are never controlled by a switch or fuse). Your neg wire from the battery to the switch is just to power the LED light on the switch, and has nothing to do with any of your items you are powering. It should go to the first switch, then just hop to the next and end at the last.

You can run one hard positive line to your switch board and then hop it to each switch like you do with the neg (from one "out" to the next "out" in my diagram), and end it at the last one, or you can run a new positive line from the battery to each switches "out". Your choice.

Your positive out should never touch another positive in, this goes to your item you are powering (fan).

[Kevin23]

Here is the wiring with a common neg post or a common neg (all your negs soldered together and shrink wrapped). This is usually how I wire mine. A lot easier than splicing in wires to the neg lines. Looks like I forgot to run the neg to the switches... imagine a neg line off the common post to the first switch, then hopping to the rest just like in the other picture.

[jbird68]

Thanks alot. It works now. I knew the ground on each switch needed to go to the battery. I think my mistake was also running the ground directly to the jack on both switches when I only needed to run it once. Now I just need to solder it all together and add an inline fuse between the battery and the positive wire to the switch.