Cheap Amazon Diesel heater recommendations?

[smritte]

Ok, that looks perfect. Last weekend I picked up a 3" 90 from the heater area at Home depo. I want to try that to get my air cleaner up a little. I was held up finding a filter. I'm going to order one of those.
Good find.

 

[reaver]

So, I hooked the heater up to the trailer, using the voltage stabilizer, while I worked on some other stuff. Had a 10A fuse on the fuse block.

Blew it instantly.

Replaced with a 15A fuse, and tried again.

Blew that one as well.

Put a 20A fuse in there....

Hit the power button on the remote, and watched the battery meter.

It was pulling close to 17A at power up.

But once it got going, I was seeing 1-2A.

I've also determined that the smell I'm getting is from the ducting. I'll need to get a new 4 layer duct.

Other than that, I'd say I got the bugs worked out. It's currently sitting in a 56qt plano bin in the trailer, as I can store everything inside that.

 

[smritte]

I've also determined that the smell I'm getting is from the ducting. I'll need to get a new 4 layer duct.

I can also conferm that. Mine is plastic, insulated. Last trip out my buddies didn't melt but was hot enough to smooth out the wrinkles in it.
Next trip, I have an aluminum hose.
It seems mine was hot for the first two feet. Worse case is, aluminum for a couple of feet then the rest in insulated plastic.

 

[reaver]

I can also conferm that. Mine is plastic, insulated. Last trip out my buddies didn't melt but was hot enough to smooth out the wrinkles in it.
Next trip, I have an aluminum hose.
It seems mine was hot for the first two feet. Worse case is, aluminum for a couple of feet then the rest in insulated plastic.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what the best solution for the hose is. I do know that I don't need as much as I currently have either. I'll probably try a 4 layer hose, maybe with a coupling that connect to the end of the flexible metal tube that came with the heater.

That seems to be a common thing with these heaters.

I'll run it like this the rest of the cold season, and figure out how to permanently mount it in the plano totes come summer time.

 

[rgallant]

Just a few shots of my filter system. The blue is for the cold air intake to the heated air and the smaller one is for burner.

The flange for the larger filter is 3d printed and held on currently with hi strength double sided tape - until testing is complete. The intention is to add hose and run this intake above the heater, I can go to 3 inch aluminum flex hose to get the distance then a 3d printed coupler to add the filter.

The lower filter is attached to a 1 in copper coupler, with a bit duct tape to bulk it up and the hose is just pushed in and held in place tuck tape cover by aluminum duct tape. It is basically staying where it is.

The weatherproof cover is well under way, just figuring out whether to hinge doors for piping access or build external ports.

 

[rgallant]

I did some testing with my new Jackery 240 as power system for the heater.

The good news the heater started fine using the Jackery, now some numbers :

Cold start reached up to 153 watts or about 12.5 to 12.6 amps - this used 2% of the available charge
Once the heater was running at 5.4hz, full bore on mine it ran between 40 and 50 watts or around 4 to 4.2 amps given that the jackery only has 240 watt/Hours that gives a runtime of about 4 hours plus shut down time
Dropping to 50% load at 2.7 Hz dropped the amps to 16 watts this gives 1.3 to 1.4 amps or about 12 hours of runtime (15 actually but you need some space for shutdown)
Dropping to my 1.9 hz the lowest I would go drops the watts to 8 -12 which would extend your runtime to nearly 20 hours

Having both air filters on, as in the images above threw no errors.

In my short test I dropped the Jackery by 5% from a cold start to full shutdown plus the test cycle. Once the case is complete and I have my RTT setup for air out (if the snow and rain ever stops, got to love the Pacific Northwest in Feb/March) for a better test.

 

[MuckSavage]

@rgallant That's some great real world numbers that I'm sure folks will find beneficial. Thank you for posting that!

 

[B.Kuehn]

I build one myself and it works pretty well. Cost round about 400€ and runs like hell! Build it in a FrontRunner Wolfpack so it looks better…

 

[rgallant]

I should note the 12 Volt accessory (cig lighter if you are old) is rated at 13.3 volts @ 10 amps - but appears to be ok with the 12.5 for start up it is pretty short term.
Also as there are many different makers of these you may not be able to use a Jackery type device for start up, running should not be an issue. Buck convertors can up the amperage, if required without a significant effect on run time.

 

[rgallant]

A little more progress on the travel case it is (in inches) 9.5W x 17.5 H x 22.5 long 1/4 in ply and 1x1 lower supports.

The big decision is top removal and load or side, I am leaning to top currently, but as I need more plywood I can think about more.

Side view with a temp rear panel and ends just placed to get a feel.

I thought about a pelican style case install, but the cases are stupid expensive up here, an Apache 3800 would run me 100.00 cdn, plywood is cheap.



The idea for the air intake is a hinged back panel, it will provide some weather protection while allowing for easy access to the connector

 

[surfnturf]

Just got back from the eastern sierras. This set up worked amazing.

 

[rgallant]

@surfnturf any issues with snow getting to the electronics ?

 

[surfnturf]

@surfnturf any issues with snow getting to the electronics ?

Since my jeep as two batteries, I wired a simple quick disconnect wire set dedicated for the heater with a long lead. No issues at all.

 

[rgallant]

@surfnturf Just so I am clear (getting old) with heater on the ground and the LCD in the tent. The rest of the heater was good ?

 

[surfnturf]

Of sorry about that... THE LCD is on the heater itself and seem to hold up to the weather just fine. The wireless remote is up in the tent with me. I used the remote to turn the heater on and off.... worked great. Full disclosure... I never sleep in a tent with the heater on. I only turn it when I'm awake.... once settled in for bed, I shut it off. In the morning, I click it on a few minutes before crawling out of the sleeping bag. Also, I left the heater on a lot while I was outside of the tent and used the tent to dry out wet cloths during the day or would climb in to warm up as needed. Here is another picture before the snow really dumped.

 

[rgallant]

@surfnturf Thanks! That answers my question perfectly, same for me the heater only runs to warm the tent up before bed and just before I get up.

 

[reaver]

Whelp, got my new mattress in the tent (3in KingCamp self inflating style), and will be testing out the diesel heater in the safety of the driveway tonight. It's supposed to get down to about 26 tonight, so I want to make sure it's able to run all night.

 

[Dilldog]

I build one myself and it works pretty well. Cost round about 400€ and runs like hell! Build it in a FrontRunner Wolfpack so it looks better…

I would be careful running the heater on its side like that. When I did factory training with Espar for the Airtronic D2s (the German heater that these are a copy of) they were very specific about how things were mounted. The heater module must be flat and level, intake and exhaust for the combustion chamber facing down. The other BIG thing is the fuel pumps, they must be mounted at a 30* angle with the inlet on the downhill side (the pump is a plunger type that requires gravity to reset each cycle), so essentially pointed up towards the heater. Also running them on kerosene will keep them cleaner than diesel (only reason they are run on diesel is because you can (most models can run on diesel, kerosene or gasoline), and they are most commonly run in over the road trucks as bunk heaters, so the fuel is just drawn from the truck tanks). When I would get heaters having issues igniting or smoking really bad, typically running them off of kerosene for 45-60min full bore would clean them up.

The German Esbars were extremely reliable if you followed install instructions and ran them for at least 30min at a time (short cycling will kill these very fast), if you didn't they had a tendency to coke up badly and become very unreliable. Also you want to run the heater hard, so don't be tempted to get the higher rated model if you don't absolutely positively know you need it. Running them "low and slow" so to speak will result in coking of the combustion chamber. I would imagine these will be similar, the heater itself is extremely simple and the design hasn't changed much since there were first built in the 30s. They have just gotten a more advanced control side to allow them to run cleaner, use less fuel and put out more heat. I plan on getting one of these for the pop up and will most likely run it off of kerosene since its cheaper and burns cleaner and hotter.

Again these statements are based off of my experience and training with the German Espars which these are a copy of. I have yet to get my hands on one of these Chinese units, but I would imagine the precautions above would be more important if less care was given in general during manufacturing, which I think we could expect.

 

[reaver]

Whelp, I can say that my test last night was a total success.

Started the heater up at 10pm last night, and just shut it off.

Running the heater on the highest setting, I was almost too warm sleeping last night, and it's currently about 26°F outside.

Looks like I'm good to go for next weekend.

 

[rgallant]

@Dilldog Thanks for the info. I know with chinese ones it is recommended to run them full bore on startup, and then for at least 10 minutes before lowering the temp. On shutdown the same run them up to full bore for 10 to 15 minutes before shutdown. I have used this even doinf testing and so far I have had no issues, running diesel.