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Forum Index : Other Stuff : 5KW Chinaayah Diesel heater for the house.
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Revlac Guru  Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
Thanks for the info Davo, I agree, it seems like they just expect get a lot of heat out of the thing and not provide the extra airflow, most noticeable is the flat rubber mount that is under the heat unit around the intake and exhaust, when running hot you get the smell of burning rubber, some might like that smell with cars and smoke, I hate that stuff. I might take that rubber mat out and replace it with something else, there was no muffler with this unit either. I have turned down the settings to reduce the heat and smell, I guess not all users would do this and might end up with something cooking that shouldn't. The seller whats to know what I think about the unit, will tell them about the burning rubber. Oh, and the remote control ain't working yet inside, perhaps it works outside at the unit, will try later. Have a photo of the screen and settings, looks like The control unit has a temp sensor in it, and is too close to the heat outlet.   Sea level should be 102m here....last time I checked. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
That seemed odd to me as well. Why would you have a flammable material right within a mm or 2 of a hot exhaust pipe? I guess the answer is simply " China". I have my heater on a square Frame I welded up years ago that I have used for 100 things, many of them burners! It's just resting on the ends of the heater so the port area is unattached to anything and the gasket is still in the box. You might be able to replace it with some fireproof fibreglass type material or cur the hole bigger and lag the exhaust. That wrap stuff stops and incredible amount of heat but it's only some sort of rubber so it's probably going to fume at anything over 100 if not less. There are a couple of different Mufflers I have seen. Both are glass packed. One has actual baffles, mine is a straight through type but works OK. Would work better if there was the ability to put pipe behind as well as in front of it. I'm thinking of running my exhaust into a large container and have that inside another with the fan pulling the air through to pre heat it. That will quiet the thing real well and there is 20% efficiency to be gained there. Cold here tonight and I have the thing cranked up and went out and felt the heat coming out the exhaust. would make a difference being able to utilise that. Convinced that in a setup like mine where I am pulling in air from outside I could direct the exhaust in the intake and still be well under CO levels. Seems there was no problem with the unflued gas heater at the holiday house we stayed at earlier in the week so if one could check the CO levels and they came out at 5 or something, there would be no problem at all and you'd get ALL the heat. My remote works 20M away! I have read a lot on the net about people having trouble getting remotes to work and pairing them. Yours is not the standard controller either but at least you can change settings, unlike mine. I ran an oil mix today and the smell of the exhaust was very strong. It was on lean mode so I'm thinking that there may not have been enough fuel for proper combustion. Seen this before in my own burners and with engines. They can smoke when they DON'T get enough fuel as well as when over fuelled. Got a pretty weak mix in this but it does not seem to like running in normal settings on oil either. Every time I put the mix in I run it again on clean diesel for a good time both in lean and normal mode flat out. Not having any problems starting and temps seem the same bar the couple of degrees down I'm putting money on just being colder intake air. Mine has the temp readout in it too but pretty optimistic. Sometimes it's out by 5o. Must want you to think it's doing a better job than it is. I have just been running mine in manual Mode. Never going to get the temp up much where I have mine, happy for it just not to let the place get too cold. I think these are brilliant little units for what they are designed for and well beyond as many people are adapting them for. No, they aren't new being knockoffs but they are now affordable to everyone rather than being a major purchase like the originals. They are from all I have seen interchangeable with the originals and despite their Tightarse Chineseness, They seem to be reliable and durable enough. Wish they were around 15 years ago when I sat for so many days round freezing cold sports fields watching the kids play. People thought I was brilliant with a Tarp I'd fold and a Couple of poles to make a lean to that kept the wind and drizzle off. I'd have a pop up tent with one of those heaters in the back and a kettle out the back sitting over the exhaust keeping the coffee Brewed. Also ran an event trailer they would have been perfect for but I will admit, the 2 Huge servers I had in there ( that would be completely put to shame but a half decent laptop these days) did keep the thing nice and toasty.... but unbearable in summer. As I have seen on the net, possible to go camping anywhere any time of the year and be toasty and cosy now.... least until you have to go out to answer natures call. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
Definitely going to try and find some sort of heat ex-changer for the hot exhaust, small radiator should work if its not too restrictive on exhaust flow. I don't have access to much veg oil, but old WMO, theirs plenty of that, but would require a lot of cleaning. Found a little info Here on some of these heaters, but know most of it already. I run the Diesel heater for an hour and a half, just after 10:30pm Temp's night 12:30Am inside 22c outside 10c morning 8:00am inside 19c outside 8c So I call that comfortable inside temp, the heater kept the temperature from dropping at the bedroom end of the house. Some other things, I have a large exhaust fan that sucks down worm air from the roof cavity on a sunny day, (no good if its windy or a little rain), still a little worm on a lite cloudy day. The temp coming in from that exhaust fan was 32c most of the day, this has been helpful over the few years it has been used. Then tried one of those portable aircons outside, just piped the hot air into the house though its window tubing, that aircon was also putting in heat at 32c. The house ended up to 23c inside today, happy with that. Later I will pull the wall unit aircon out and stick it in backwards, see if it helps. This is ok on sunny days when there is plenty of solar power, but those windy cloudy dark damp days it will be up to the diesel heater to do the work.  Edit,I messed up the link, might work now. Edited 2021-05-30 22:16 by Revlac Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
Was thinging the same myself. Outlet is only 1" and not a lot of flow so a 2" radiator should be fine. Only thing will be the gas temperature. That could be a problem but a good airflow should take care of that. I don't think it would actually. If you put it through some felt, that would be more than adequate for this purpose. There are no real fine orifices in the system I can see. As long as there are no chunks or particles would be fine. I have been thinking about Cracking some engine oil ( Pyrolising) to refine it but It would be a lot of work for the qty required. I did this years ago and it was easy and successful. I think the thing I did that many I see on the net don't and end up with something like a was was I Superheated the output. That was where the vapors came out I ran the tube back under the keg I was using a s a retort and back through the fire. The tube glowed red and the output which I simply bubbled up though a tank of water and skimmed the fuel off the top was something between Petrol and diesel. Burned easily and burned clean with no ash or residue like WMO will do on it's own. I was doing 50 L batches but it would be a lot of batches to do the 500-1000L I'd want. If some needed a lot less, could be very Viable. For the meantime, I'm going to explore just collecting Old/ Contaminated diesel. That really only need Filtering and maybe drying although if it has petrol mixed in which is fine, Drying would remove that so would depend on what the contamination was. I found that too but it does not relate to my controller ( or maybe yours) because mine is the newer one that works completely different. I'm a bit surprised how well mine is keeping the whole end of the house and more . I was thinking it's not increasing the temp much ( although it's holding at around 19-20) but being real slow on the uptake as I am, Only dawned on me last night how big an area it's working on. The Kitchen is over 70Sq M with more windows than a glass house, The media room connects and is about another 20 SqM and windows on one wall and the Lounge Dining hallway is probably 30+ Sqm and all windows and another 3 pretty but leaks doors. The warmth is travelling very well between all these Connected and pretty open rooms and keeping them nicely liveable. Plus, it's also travelling up the hall way some what. Yeah, it's definitely more chilly up in the bedrooms but it's not alarmingly cold. I put the fan heater on low for a bit before I go in for a shower and even the ice box ensuite is liveable so far. I turn the heater down to 2 or 3 depending on the night and the place is cool but not cold when we get up. That's a Luxury we are all thankful for. I did a run round with the heat gun again last night and sure enough, everything I checked was sitting right round the 19-20 bar the windows which were showing 12 and Felt colder. Outside wasn't bad last night sitting around 8 when I checked. That's excellent if you can get the air in qty. Have you a tiled or tin Roof? Maybe I should measure temps in my roof again? Last time I did they weren't much in winter at all and I'll definately need a GOOD filter because whatever is up there makes me cough every time I have to get in there and I don't like it. Now THERE is some lateral thinking of how to make a single Cycle AC into a reverse Cycle! Might be a bit noisy that way though. I wanted to build a Car AC into a unit I could drive from a small Diesel Engine. Pull the engine heat through the AC and should get excellent efficiency. Had it 3 parts set up before moving here and then figured it was something I wouldn't need. Threw out everything I should have kept and kept a lot of crap I should have thrown out. Too many ideas, not enough motivation. That's basically my paranoia and fear. When the sun is out, I can get by without heating here. It's when it's not and at night that the cold gets too much. The other day it was cloudy all day so I ran the heater over 24hours and was very glad of it. I need to get more panels back up so we can use more power to offset the Diesel. I took a lot down to upgrade but have not been feeling the best at all of late so that's been set aside. The diesel was supposed to offset the load on the AC but it's taken over completely. Need to get the power up to balance them but mainly I need to get a workable veg burning heater set up. Any amount of heat I want and no problems with fuel supply. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
Interesting, I had thought about doing something like that, a lot of the waist oil was mixed gear oil, transmission fluid, petrol. The oil was collected back into the 4 or 5L plastic oil containers and could be any thing in them, Some of them where 90% petrol, A few have been good clean gear oil etc, depends on what the garage was doing at the time. Pyrolising would certainly be useful with this stuff, could be done with some stove heating elements I guess. In the past I used some WMO to run a steam cleaner, had some hot charcoal in the chamber before the coils the fed some oil in front of the blower fan, that produced a lot of heat, a bit too much, over 120psi in steam pressure, some other ideas come to mind after that. I have a tin roof not much pitch, not a big area to get into, but good at collecting heat and dust, Enough height in there for a piece (upright) 4ft long 250mm pipe about 200mm or more from the peak of the tin roof, room for the air to flow in from the surrounding area. It takes a few minuets for the air in the surrounding area to start moving to the pipe, so it takes time to get the maximum heat from it. The most heat I have seen coming through was about 45c on a good day, running time depends on the time the sun is on the roof, (and weather) at the moment its best running time between 9:30am to 3:00pm I expect this to get a little shorter. The exhaust fan is about 230mm inner diameter and uses 100watts running, Bolted to the bottom of the 250mm pipe it really pushes some air provided there is some leaking out in other places around the house. There shouldn't be much dust sucked in, most of that itchy choking stuff sits on the ceiling insulation, what will get sucked in is the smell of the timber getting hot, some other smells can get in that will ruin the idea, Pollute the entire house. The amount of time's I have kicked myself over the doing the exact same thing...  Edited 2021-05-31 21:20 by Revlac Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
Ah some good news, I got the remote control to pair with the Red Controller Display. With heater powered and turned off, Hold the down button for 3 seconds until screen lights up, Remote Icon on top left of screen is red in colour, the Press ON Button on the Remote Control.. I did this twice, It worked on the second go. Sounds stupid simple....but its completely the opposite to the instructions for the others in the manual.....Because this one is not even in the manual its shipped with...  Might be helpful to someone Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
You could test the petrol Content by putting a carefully measured/ weighed amount of the mix out in the sun. The petrol will evaqporate pretty easily and leave the oil content behind. If you work out something has a lot of petrol, Just use it to blend with the other heavier oils. The petrol could easily be driven off because from memory it cooks off at 90O so easy to boil out and re condense. Oil requires something up around 300. I never worried about temps when I did it. I just blasted the Keg with a Burner and then turned it down to get a strong but steady output. You have to be a bit careful because you don't want the whole lot going super critical and flashing to vapor all at once. Done that in burners where I have over fueled them and the oil Pooled. They will keep running but then all the pooled oil reaches boiling point and goes off at once and the results are quite spectacular although a little dis-concerting the first time it happens. One thing I did on my setup was to use 1/2" tube so there was no pressure buildup. I was concerned that 1/4" may block but a lot harder for 1/2" and I put a pressure gauge on a long tube to make sure there was no pressure in the retort as well. Never use any non metal hose. The temps these things run at will put any sort of flexible hose to the test and make it nearly Impossible to clamp. I used some crimped Hydraulic hose and that came apart. The smoke output was incredible and time I had the thing shut down and cooled which was under a minute, the smoke was so thick the cars out the front on the main road had slowed down as it drifted across. Amazed no one called the fire Brigade. The wood smell wouldn't worry me and I haven't noticed that when I have been up there. I would get a proper AC Filter off my mate and a housing and put that on the end of the inlet. If nothing else I would know I was pumping in dust free air into the place and keeping a lot of other dust out. I was a bit Crook yesterday and went and had a Lie down in the afternoon. Was dark when I woke up and I knew the Diesel heater was low on Fuel. I tried running it on an oil mix I mad up the other week and got the second flame out on that batch. I thought it was pretty weak on oil and looking at it today I'm sure it was going by how this it was but whatever was in it , it didn't like. I refilled the container and did a 1L of oil to 2L of Diesel mix. Put the thing on early this afternoon due to falling temps in the house with no sun today and it's been burning well and smells clean. The diesel I mixed it with was some Dregs out the Drums I have been using. I filtered it so there are no particles but it looked a bit Milky like it could have had water. Thought as long as the thing runs, might be good for cleaning it out. Seems to be burning fine. Refilled the 25L Drum with diesel and ready to go again. Might start advertising for Contaminated/ Old diesel and see if there is anything around I can pick up. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
The little heater has been working really well. On saturday I got some 25MM copper and elbows and re did the exhaust so the intake for the combustion air and the heated air picks up from it. Put the muffler right in front of the intake and used the flex hose to go on after that. The copper is showing a LOT of heat which Ideally should be captured. I'm thinking of a tube in tube design and pulling the air though that to try and draw even more heat out the exhaust. I have seen on the net people using EGR HE's but they tend to be for water and are not cheap here. I think an aluminium Radiator off a motorbike may be OK to blow the exhaust though and have the intake sucking through that to pre heat the air which would bump efficiency up to 20% which would be noticeable. The Jury is still out on using the veg. Ran 33% but after burning 3L or so I could see haze out the exhaust. Putting it back to diesel and running in lean mode leaves traces of soot particles on the ground. 25% seems OK but I still give it some blend and then back to straight diesel. Blending with straight petrol may help but still Issues with that I can think of. The temps are dropping right down here and a combination of that and I think us getting used to the warmth is seeing the little heater being run harder. With cold nights and a couple of 12-13O days, the heater has been running over 40 Hours non stop atm. Looking at the forecast which predicted more rain, I filled another 25L drum in preparation as the on on it was at about a 1/4. That was Sunday and the current one is at about half and I haven't put all the remains of the other one in yet. The fuel is adding up but the heat comes from burning fuel so while it may seem a lot, it can easily be converted into the amount of KWH we have had to pump into the house. Nothing new, I could see that last winter by how much power I was using on the AC. That has been MUCH lighter this year although we are still using fan heaters a bit to warm up the rooms at the far ends of the house. If the weather was a bit better we'd be keeping up well and also if I had all the solar I planned to have up by now that would be no problem either. Have to be a bit careful with that atm. The women folk have come to love this little heater and I have been asked to get another. Another 2 actually. Mrs wants one for the lounge room where she lives at night and daughter wants one for her bedroom. She has the fan heater keeping the room a cosy 35C or so now and has always been cold. The thing is having to be run pretty hard atm and compensated by the other heating But I knew all along It wasn't going to be able to carry all the load just by the output. 2 of them may be close though. I am getting a better idea of the heat I really need for the entire house though so can adjust my Veg burner outputs which I was trying to keep lower a bit higher which will make it easier. That is really going to be the only way to go to keep up with our heating needs. Been playing with solar heating as well and while complimentary, something combustion is going to have to do the heavy lifting and be cheap enough to run. I am very impressed with the little heater though and touch wood, has not given a bit of trouble... yet. I am trying to nurse it best I can with not running flat out all the time but giving it an hour or so full tilt in the hope of keeping it clean and also giving it some time in lean mode for the same reason as well as keeping the veg oil, as much as I'd like to use more of it, under a close and conservative eye. For vans, motorhomes, small sheds etc, these things would take a lot of beating I think. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
The little heater is starting to show signs of being unhappy. It's been working great till this week I went out earlier and found the Mrs Perched in the swing chair she had moved in front of the heater and was sitting there with her feet on the windowsill in front of the outlet. I commented and she said I come out here every morning and have my Coffee. Approval Rating 11/10. I mentioned I wanted to build a bigger veg heater and she lit up. Seems my Technical Research and development at the other place was not to her aesthetic standards and she somehow has a Maligned Idea and impression of what my own build would be like. Went something like " I'm not having all that S&*$% and Mess around here again with F!&*** Oil everywhere and bits of &*!@ crap and Sticky *!%^##*!!!" But you are happy with that thing! Yeah but it's neat and tidy and just in one little spot. Hmmm. My idea was to enclose the heater setup so looks like that will be a good idea. Going to need more of those Frames I got for the engine enclosure. Be pretty Good Stood on end and as I'd have to enclose it all in fireproof Fibre board, easy to make a door on one side as well. Earlier in the week and yesterday, when I went to start the diesel heater it came up with an error 6 Which is the fan. Checked all the connections etc, disconnected the thing to re set it, no good. Opened the cover and disconnected the most difficult 3 Pin plug to re connect in the history of the known universe and got it going. was much harder yesterday for whatever reason. It worked fine for several days earlier in the week then stopped again. I was manually spinning the fan while trying to start the heater thinking maybe there was a dead spot in it or something but no go. Only has 2 wires to the motor so no sensor maybe other than detecting current draw though what is probably a PWM speed control. I took pics of the error on the controller and have messaged the seller and await the typical BS stalling tactic question in my request to return and get a replacement. I think I'll just leave the thing running on low atm. Sun is not out today and weather this week is supposed to be crap so might just leave it run unless it stops itself. Have to go up and get another drum If Diesel. I think I have been though about 200L so far in the thing. The fuel pump was only noisy ( or mare accurately, Audible) for a short time and has long gone back to near silent again. Maybe it had some rubbish in it although I think I had a bad batch of fuel there that was not anything to do with the veg. I accidentality put the fuel pickup in a drum of straight veg the other day and the thing went out. Definitely does not like that. I have been mainly running on straight Diesel but I might go back to running a 25% Mix again every second day or so. I have been running the AC with the heater and that has been working really well. It distributes the warmth and makes up the short comings of the heater. It only clicks on for a couple of minutes or so about every 15 and is complimenting the little heater well. Last year the thing would run almost non stop if I let it because the outdoor condensor would ice up and then the thing would be struggling to prosduce any heat anyway. I have been looking for some sort of chart or calculator to give me an idea of the sort of surface area i'd need for a heat exchanger to transfer a given amount of heat at a certain airflow but havent found anything. I am thinking a 3" Fire tube with a 3" surround to allow for plenty of air to be blown around. I was also thinking to weld a number of short bolts round the outside of the fire tube before putting the outer tube on to disrupt the airflow and pick up some more heat. I'd drill holes and put them right through into the flame path if I was more confident of my welding skills to make water tight Joints In tight circles like that. If I still had my oxy Bottles I'd braze them which would be easier. Might try a couple on some scrap and see how I go. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
I do wonder if you would get more settings to play with if using a different control panel or if the seller could send you one, or a different heater plug and be able to tune the thing better to run veg oil? Had a another hair brained idea......Might be stupid but could be cheap to try.  To build your own veg oil burner heater, how about using the cylinder and head off some busted air cooled engine of suitably size could be 2 stroke, could have aluminium fins on the head in the same direction as the cylinder fins you want. Put a cover plate on one end, the head has a spark plug hole for glow plug or oil inlet, drill some large holes for air intake and exhaust if needed in the correct place. This could be your burner and HE, just need to make a suitable housing to direct the air around it. Haven't had a cup of coffee for a while so there's probably a lot I haven't thought about, might inspire some other ideas anyway. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
The controllers on the heaters are board specific. That means I'd have to get the set which isn't end of the world, about $50 from what I have seen. I'm thinking I'll be happy to get it through winter then I'll pull the thing apart and have a look inside. Should be pretty easy to clean with just a small sand blaster. Barrell's off a VW would be Good. Could weld a bunch together and then encase them in metal AC Ducting. Only drawback I see is they are only finned on the outside and still smooth like a pipe on the inside so the heat transfer might be a bit one way. Still should work well though. I have seen the heaters are finned inside and Out. Guy that had a house next door to me at the old place had a VW Wreckers. I went there once and had never seen anything like it. Must have had literally thousands of engines in parts and just piled up whole. Aircooleds are pretty rare now. Could get Lycoming Cylinders but they are all rebored / sleeved and worth a fortune Being aircraft. Can't think off the top of my head where else I would come across them. Everything else is Moulded to the engine casing in small engines and 2 strokes now other than sub 100CC size are pretty rare. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
My Little heater Died.... But Lives again! I was very disappointed when it failed as most people seem to get at least a couple of seasons heating even when running them in a home. I have been trying to take care of it by keeping the speed down, the fan being the main thing I have read wears out. The E-06 error got progressively worse. The heater would start and run a short time then shut down. Was not ideal as it would not do a cool down cycle co could have baked something but looks like I got away with it. I pulled the board off to have a look and felt by the way it was acting it may have been the Relay. Double sided board, too damned hard for me to see the connections to have a go at replacing it. Have to say I was not happy. After going through a drama with Ebay to get refund on the thing whom were useless, I started looking at YT and found some vids on the same issue. Many people seem to get the E-06 error on their Chinese Diesel heaters because of the fan moving too close and Rubbing on the control board and restricting it's free movement. My problem was the opposite. The fan has a couple of magnets in the back of it. The control board which sits directly in front has a Hall effect sensor to determine the speed and the fact it's rotating. Mine of course had to be different and moved AWAY from the board and the hall sensor obviously wasn't detecting it. I got a socket and a pair of Pliers As one uses for a hammer when too lazy to go get one) and gave the fan a tap in. It moved a couple of mm and quite easy. Put it all back together and no start and same code. Hmm. Gave the fan a spin and retried and off it went perfect. It's running pretty well but I think I still detect a little bit of erratic fan speed so may need to go a Whisker closer. No worries, I'm confident the problem is fixed. VERY Ticked off with Fleabag. To cut a long story short they are completely useless and all their Buyer protection carry on is a load of BS. The seller was the Typical stalling grub whom was less than useless as well and offered a $20 refund which I wasn't wearing and in ebays eyes, because I didn't return this within 30 Days, they couldn't do anything. I repeatedly mentioned after I had confirmed I was talking to a person and not their AI that the thing was functioning perfectly and only failed after that time but their resolution was take it up with the CC company. The seller wanted me to return it but wouldn't pay for postage as they are obligated. I rang the Post office to see if they would collect and when I told them the size and what it was, discovered I couldn't send it back. Because it has had fuel and still probably has an amount, it's Dangerous goods class 3 and they won't take it. OH, what a Shame !!! ;0) Looks like I get the spare parts and the refund. Maybe. They care about nothing but their revenue and any idea of buyer protection is a sham in my opinion. The only recourse you have with something like this is the CC company. I think I will lodge a claim with them anyway. It's only good luck I did find the info to fix the thing and a lot of people would not have been able anyway. Plus I am now dubious about the quality of the thing anyway having found more problems with them other people have. I'm very interested to see what they will do and the real comeback a person has if buying online because so far, seems jack to me. Ebay is just another one of those Businesses that has grown big enough and got a good hold in the market that they don't give a rats any more. Despite what people say I find things there tend to be cheaper than elsewhere but I'll be not so price conscious in future just to stick it to them and their ever increasing dodgy sellers. There is definitely something about the way the Diesel heater works as far as Comfortable heating. For a few days with the thing not running it was back to fan heaters and the AC. They can both make the place stuffy without making it particularly warm, or make it warm and stuffy. Just running the diesel again now, it has that cosy warm feel without the stuffiness. I don't know if that's because I have it set up brining the outside air in or what it is but it's definitely a far nicer heat. Once this lockup is over and before the next one, I'll advertise for Contaminated/ Stale fuel and see what I can get. I think that will be the first consideration and longevity of the unit the second. That said, If I can get the fuel free and a season out of the heater, the 150 or so they cost ( and I'm sure they were far cheaper in summer) would not be hard to save over extra power charges. $50 a month in any case isn't a lot for the comfort the thing gives anyway..... If I can find enough old fuel. So bit of a Hiccup but back to business. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
It's alive, and dying.... and alive and Dying..... The fix didn't. Well not for long anyway. Thing would go then stop after a couple of hours. I'd go out and give the fan a belt and it would go again for a while then stop.. with the run interval getting shorter. I thought it was the board and looking at the machine, there is really no difference to the controls to my own or any other burner... or engine... Fuel and air. I control air flow and fuelling rate on my burners with a PWM on the blower and a Cycle timer on the fuel Pump. The Burner computer does the same thing only with a load more complication in order to make it automatic with fire up, temp controls and different heat settings. The PWM I used from the many I have bought has Nixie readout and is adjustable with a knob rather than those insanely touchy pots or having to program the things. This makes it easy to change the setting on the fly but the readout gives you a number you can come back to. The cycle timer unfortunately is the programmable type because I couldn't find any not had one that was a Knob style that did tenths of seconds as I needed. had some in the box that were reasonably easy to change and use mosfets rather than a relay which is much better given the speed I needed it to run. I put a base timing into the thing after listening to the thing when it was running and turned out I got it spot on. Hardest part of the setup was making the connections as the board has pins for the little plugs which were nothing like anything I had. In the end I just shoved some tinned wires in there and that worked very well. I didn't worry about anything for the glow plug, not even a switch. put a lead on that and just put it straight on the battery. For the first start I set the fan by ear to low speed as the controller does, Hit the glow plug for about 10 Sec, turned on the fuel pump and I could hear the thing light right off. Could not have been any easier. Ramped the air up much quicker than the controller and it took off, no problem. I fiddled with the air a bit checking with my C) meter but I think I may have fried that because the readings were not creditable so I did it by nose. Checked the outlet temps and they were in the ball park so called it good feeling please with myself. Started packing all the tools away, played with the dog and after a bit I could see the thing was smoking out the exhaust. Wasn't doing that before. I could hear the fan speed was way down and erratic just like it had been before. Well, not the board or the pickup this time, quick check confirmed what I knew, the battery wasn't flat as it's on a solar charge controller that had it at full voltage so it's obviously the fan motor. I turned the PWM up and the fan responded then after about 10 Min started slowing again. I shut the thing off and let it cool. Bout 30 Min later, I restarted the heater easy as the first time and ran the fan nearly flat out. I upped the fuelling and it seemed happy then upped it again and could just see feint smoke which meant I was too rich so backed to where it was. Same thing, ran fine then started to slow right down. I turned the pump off and pulled the cover and the motor which sits right behind the fan was quite warm but certainly not overheating. maybe 40o or so. Anyway, that seems the problem. I'm hoping I just got a Dud with this. I have been trying to keep the fan speed down as I heard they wear but this was very quick. I ordered a new fan assembly this afternoon. The motor I have is plain metal silver, the one in the pic I ordered is black so hopefully some difference. I thought about just using another blower straight down the inlet but there is an internal fan for the burner as well as the HE. There is a 1" inlet for the combustion air beside the exhaust. I'm thinking it may be possible to do a seed for that off a blower, maybe up wind of a restriction to create some extra boost pressure and tune the thing from there. The original fans are coupled so increasing one increases the flow of the other so should just be a bit of balancing. The moving part seems the weakness of these units so I'll try the replacement fan and if that gives up too quick I'll just go to another car fan and set up on that. Definitely going to try and get a refund on The CC given ebay are completely useless and buy another to see if I have better luck. other than that I could look at a genuine fan but who is to say they would be any better. They are certainly a lot more exy. Going to go get some steel I need to build my veg heater. Not sitting round for another week for these idiots and their lockups. Heating my home in Zero degree weather as we are probably getting already tonight( Damn cold out there now) so they can go jump. Might also go to bunny's for some fittings I need. I have a gorilla mask I can wear. |
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| Warpspeed Guru Joined: 09/08/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 4406 |
This reminds me of a current model Whirlpool refrigerator I bought secondhand at vastly reduced cost. It appears the original owner had a lot of grief and decided to be rid of it. Anyhow worked fine for a couple of months, then one day it stopped, and I had a lot of rotten food to throw out. Through a long and tedious process of elimination, worked out all the various switches and sensors were o/k and the problem was somewhere on the microcontroller board. A new board cost about the same as a new refrigerator. So I decided to make my own control system for it. That has been running perfectly, with automatic defrost without a problem for over a year. If it ever gives a problem I now now exactly what everything does and can fix it. Even made a spare control board (just in case). So you might be able to do something with your very extensive knowledge of combustion, cobble together something that you understand how it works, using the original burner, and sensors, but with a customised "Davo" control system. Cheers, Tony. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
We Bought what seemed a Nice Samsung Fridge/ freezer with the water dispenser about 3 years back. Had problems with the ice make and water in the vegetable Crisper so I called samsung and they sent a young guy out to diagnose it. Got to admit I was pretty damn surprised when he pulled the thing out to reveal a motherboard that looked like it was in a High end PC and plugged his phone into a port and ran a diagnostic. I was not expecting that! It's a Fridge FFS! The only thing that went wrong with the 35 Yo one it replaced was about 10 Yrs earlier the defrost heater went out. Wasn't a real expensive fix and got good life out of that before the compressor finally shorted out. I looked online and there are a LOT of problems with the one we have and even class actions in the US so I don't expect to get even 10 years out this one. Pity, It's a nice fridge that has a lot of good features... reliability apparently not one of them. That was the thought. I gave it another run this afternoon and same exact thing so has to be the fan. I already thought of some ways to put speed controls in it and use the temp sensor with an under or over temp shutdown, really all I need. That said, electronics may not be the weak point but if I replace the fan with a different type then I'll have to use different control's as well. I spent some time doing some tidying up today and looking for things to construct a suitable house heater/ Veg burner. So much damn Crap up there and not a thing I need. Yet again, Looked at half of it and thought what the hell did I have in mind when I picked that up? I can see a pile being made next week and a trip to the scrappy to get rid of what I don't been and a trip to the metal joint down the road to get what I want soon as this BS lockup crap is over. Actually, may not wait. Keeping warm is essential to me. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
Got the Diesel heater running now, the fan is a little out of balance at low speed, noticed the noise in the fibreglass window panel we made up, something to fix one day. If you could do a postmortem on the motor, after you have your replacement going, Thought I might have a motor that size, but haven't seen it yet, had a few cheap power tools with those soft carbon brushes that burn out, replaced them with better stuff. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
I can have a look at it after I replace it. I did read some comments about people not getting a season out of them because of the brushes wearing down. They are a Double ended motor as there is one shaft for the room air fan and another for the enclosed combustion air fan. Sort of complicates replacement a Bit. That's why I was thinking just to use a single fan and feed the combustion chamber and the room air off the same fan which could be an induction motor type which would last for years. I did have a brainwave last night or should I say I remembered something damn obvious I did over 10 years ago and used it for years with a setup for my Veg burner heater. Heating water with some storage ( which I could expand) seems easier as far as keeing the burner away from the house but transporting the heat through hose rather than much larger ducting. I have the combustion and heat exchange now sorted and even mocked up quite compactly and neatly in a frame I can enclose and make look even more pretty, I now just need to work out a neat and Tidy method for the room air end of the HE and Putting that in the House. Could go direct and sit something in the window or build a box for the radiator that sits just outside and duct it though a panel. Parameters will be lowest cost, neatest looking and possibly quietest on the fan. The Diesel heater certainly isn't silent but I like the noise it makes. Quite calming like the sound of work being done. When dialled up a bit you can hear the flame noise, something I definitely like. The veg burners can Fairly roar like a jet engine but seeing I will be running the one I picked at about a 10Th of it's power if that, I don't think it will be a problem. The potential annoyance I see is the fan. Was thinking of a jumping castle blower but those things really hum and rattle when turned down on the PWM. I do have a large Ventilation fan I picked up I could probably neck down to the air outlet size but I haven't tried that on the speed controller either. The other alternative is the 12V car blower. Could run that off a power supply. Ones I have are 10A and the blower is 17A flat out so would need to see how much power I need. Could always mount the power supply over the fan inlet which would unload the motor and provide huge cooling air to the power supply. |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
The new Blower motor assembly arrived Friday Night literally ( courier nearly got a very nasty Surprise Bumbling round on the Front Verandah for an eternity in the dark) and the Icy winds Dropped enough today for me to go out and Fit it. Very straightforward but opening the heater up even after seeing disassembly vids and looking at load of parts Pics on the net made another penny drop. The construction principal of the things is identical to a burner I made about 8 years ago. I speculated with the heater I could run it from a blower like a Jumping castle or a good Bilge blower by ducting some of the air into the burn chamber port. Removing the fan assembly, I realised I wouldn't even have to do that and am a little surprised they bother with the twin fan arrangement on the heaters. At the end of the burn chamber there is some vanes that lead into the chamber designed to generate swirl. Behind that there is a small plate which is used as a hot plate to vaporise the diesel so it burns. I really don't see why the air from the main fan could not be just blown in there direct? at worse, far as I can see all that would be needed would be another plate to replace the fan holder and a hole bored to regulate the air supply. As the fans on the OEM setup for the room air and the combustion are are bout on the same motor, they are both proportional so a restrictor plate would serve the exact same purpose. The other thing I note is the fuel, ideally Veg oil, Could be injected in the middle of the burner insert instead of from the side which far as I can see, is only there so it contacts the glow plug and evaporator screen for start up. Once the sensor detects sufficient heat, the GP switches off and the fuel is phase changed on the inner hot baffle plate. To mod one of these to run on veg successfully, The oil could be injected directly behind that plate and Diesel used for start up with the GP or, replace the GP with a spark plug and run LPG though the diesel fuel line for pre heat which is something I do with my Burners. It's not Press button like the OEM setup but it could make these heaters run veg successfully and be a way of using an otherwise Junk heater. Tapping the Veg input line would be easy and about all that was needed to make a heater run veg if the GP was retained and the unit started on Diesel. The burner I built that works the same as the heater was set up to be a downward firing arrangement with the air entering an outer Chamber which the exhaust ran through the middle of to vaporise the fuel before it rose to the top and then back out the bottom phase changing the oil with the recirculated heat. The idea was to increase efficiency by keeping the cool air on the outside and the hot elements on the inside so the heat both vaporised the oil and was ultimately put to work instead of escaping to atmosphere. As the burn chamber was totally enclosed. I put a spark plug on the end of the chamber right above the exhaust tube and would run gas in the thing and light it with the spark Plug. That made for some Interesting Pops ( to say the least!) and usually took a few goes to get the gas flow right so it was rich enough to keep burning and not just blow itself out. It's run it rich for a couple of min to get the inner tube hot then introduce the oil and once that caught the thing ramped up real fast! I did end up moving the spar plug as the location over the hole had high gas flow and temp and I melted the plug I had brazed in there clean out a couple of times. The design worked really well and ran extremely hot. I not only melted the copper off a stator I placed underneath in open air, but also melted the steel slots on the stator ring. I realised if everything is surrounded by flame, you don't need refractory to retain the heat. That's been a problem for me in the past as My burners generate heat above what the refectories will take and it all melts. Actually just Dirt/ clay stand up to the heat the best but cracks and falls apart after a couple of burns. Brick is not much good either, that just glazes and melts in no time. I only used a 1.5" pipe on the output but the flame temp was very hot and the thing could run a lot of fuel for it's size which meant there was little excess air cooling the output. I realised looking at the heater while it was apart that the setup is exactly the same as my burner, only it runs in reverse. The heat is on the inside and flows to the outer casing where the air can pass and be heated. I haven't run that burner in years but I'm confident I could run it in reverse easily and utilise the same layout as the heater works in. All I would need to do to make a dedicated air heater would be add some Finning for heat transfer which would be some 25MM steel strip welded on the outer chamber and put that in a casing so air could be blown though to heat the air for the house. I am keen to now try to Fire up the old burner just to prove I'm Right ( hey, I made a Burner out of an unmodified car muffler and a Hole in the ground literally ) So I reckon I got this one! I could easily make another Burner ( when I'm allowed out of Lockup again) By doing the same thing only I would Make the thing longer for greater heat transfer area, Put another heavy suspended tube in the Middle of the burn chamber to act like a Glow plug and move the outlet port from the side of the burner to the end so as to make it all easier to encase. I could make this have all the output I wanted and still be compact and practical to apply to heating the house. Anyway, It's real nice to have the little Diesel going again. I'm sure now having the ability to pull the fresh outside air in makes a difference. I also noticed a lot of drafts without it and having it push warm air in solves that problem and stops the place getting stuffy. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1022 |
Glad you got your heater up and running again. Had a few cold nights here (ice outside totally destroyed the garden) so the Diesel heater was running for about 4 hours, just kept it nice inside over night. Only annoyance was the new supercharge 330cca battery (when I say new....It started the mower once and has been maintained well and used for this diesel heater for some time) it has done little work at all and had a battery charger on it to help maintain power while the heater was going. The damn thing has dropped a cell and drops to 9volts when connected to the heater, another FLA battery to go on to the 4.5 ton scrap pile.  I like your other oil burner, sounds like its nice and hot, I have plenty of used engine oil and will use some in a furnace to melt down some aluminium scrap, want to do some casting later. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Davo99 Guru Joined: 03/06/2019 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1578 |
I Built a Draft burner that throws out a lot of heat. I think I put pics of it up here about a year ago. I was thinking of using it like an orchard heater. Because the thing uses a long flue for draft, there is a fair surface area and the thing and easily make the thick wall Hydrant pipe I put on it glow read it's 4 foot length and would to more. I was thinking with a fan blowing across this, It should keep the frost off a very decent size area. The pipe could be made to go horizontal and then up and have multiple fans to spread the heat even more. I am not sure if fans alone stop frost. I have read conflicting reports but I'm sure this thing would provide enough heat to make a decent home garden frost proof to a good few degrees below freezing. I run a timed fuel pump on the thing so it can do long burns from a tank. It's completely non critical as far as fuelling goes, long as it has some it's happy. Thing will hold about 3L which will last about an hour at a good tilt but would do more output with a longer flue. Whether it's full or has 100Ml in it, the thing seems happy. Works on the surface area of the oil pool and the primary airflow so the depth of the fuel is irrelevant. I want to get it out and modify it with some more secondary air holes for better air fuel Mixing and give it another run. Probably not going to get any more frosts here now. Got one the other night and I was thinking of it. Would be interesting to set it up and see what it did. My wife has been at me to get back and doing the castings/ art pieces I was mucking around with. Maybe I should listen and get some done again? She wanted to sell them at the markets but seems limited and a lot of bother to me. Online would be much easier and give a worldwide audience instead of just a tiny local one. I was also thinking of casting some decent solid wheels for my hand trolleys. Those Pneumatic ones are garbage and disintegrate after a couple of years and never hold air. The solid rubber ones cost a Bomb so I was thinking some ally ones would be cheap and last forever. My brother in law was asking If my Burners would get hot enough to melt Zinc. I laughed. He wants me to cast him up some sacrificial anodes for his battle ship. I said I can do them in brass or cast Iron if you want! Temperature is NOT a problem!:0) |
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