“WATER” CHINESE DIESEL/PETROL HEATER TEST: Hcalory value for money?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ย. 2023
- In the second part of this series, I put the Hcalory 12V 5KW Water hydronic Chinese diesel Heater to the test after breaking down its components in the previous video. Join me as I evaluate its performance in in test bench conditions. Talking about its uses during winter vanlife adventures. See if this Chinese-made hydronic heater stands up to the tests and delivers on its promises. From disassembly to practical testing, we're diving deep to uncover the full picture of this essential addition to my camper setup.
Unexpected testing was the unit seems to run both on diesel and petrol and even be swapped between the most running. I did, however, break a part of the unit during the testing.
Check out @compactcamperco where I will be installing the unit.
hydronic heater are versatile, they operates by heating a coolant loop, which can be directed through plated heat exchanges for hot water or a hot air matrix for hot air in a leisure format. This design allows for efficient warmth distribution. For another engine it can pre-heat the engines coolant loop warming the block.
It is not recommended you directly heat water, but a coolant solution.
This video is part 2 of 2 reviewing the heater and working with Banggood.com
Here is my affiliate link for the Hcalory 12V 5KW Water heater / hydronic heater
www.banggood.com/custlink/DDv...
Coupon code: BGab5aad
Coupon price: $319.99
*Due to temporary stock shortages in the UK warehouse, it could only be shipped from the CN warehouse.
Other heaters in UK warehouse:
www.banggood.com/custlink/m3D...
Black Friday Sale!
www.banggood.com/custlink/GKD...
#banggoods #ChineseDieselheater #wintervanlife
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How many times did a mispronounced the name of ChatGPT? 🤦♂️
Just for some frame of reference, ChatGPT is horrendous at maths. I would recommend not using it for complex calculations as it will almost always get it very wrong.
@@epicsmg2682 fair enough, I would call what I did overly complex so just quicker to feed it up chunk of data. It did take while to get it to interpret the data. I wanted it to originally
It be cool if you had rain capture to fill your water tanks automatically and heated pad floors of the alternator and solar so free heating 🧠🇬🇧🌍🏆 Great Build 👍
AI is going to kill us all not by taking over the world but making us all too lazy and stupid to continue living.
@@MispronouncedAdventurescould someone use one of these through a system under the floor and do a hydronic heated floor as well?
If that was researched/demonstrated/filmed by a TV company it would have cost tens of thousands for a team to produce. I assume you are pretty much a one man band and so you deserve loads of praise and respect for your work. Great video...Cheers.
Thank you very much for the lovely comment, just me for the talking, testing, filming and editing!
No Sir, those fasteners are not made from Chocolate. Those are grade-A Chinesium alloy steel! They are made from the finest of recycled Dodge pickup truck bumpers, Frigidaire appliances, and an occasional Americium fueled smoke detector - just to give 'em some spice ☢️! 🤪
I do build up the miracle alloy of Chinesium in a good few videos as well!
As someone with a 3kw water cooled diesel generator, a unified cooling loop is the dream! I want to have the 3kw generator, the diesel engine, a diesel heater, heater core, and radiators all in a loop! Ultimate flexibility.
Some day....
I want to be able to run the generator and heat the cabin, and if it gets too cold I fire up the heater.
I didn’t think about using a diesel generator coolant and using it for heating
Great video man! Thank you so much for your time, money, and effort on this!😊
No problem at all. Thank you very much for watching!
Water is a better heat transfer fluid. Glycol is mainly used for freeze protection and corrosion.
Indeed, although from my understanding, coolant being a glycol / water, mix is a far more stable medium for transfer as you eliminate some of the limitations of water, such as freezing at zero, or in this case boiling off above 100
@@MispronouncedAdventures The anti freeze does not change the boil point only the freeze point. In a vehicles cooling system its the atmospheric pressure change in the close lope system that raises the boil point. Sea level (14.5psi/1bar) is 212*F/100*C, so at sea level pressures in the system water is going to boil at 212*F/100*C and at 500psi needs to be at around 460*F/238*C-ish.
If you're looking to increase heat transfer you need what is referred to as a "water wetter" in the automotive racing world. Royal Purples ICE is one of the best on the market. A "Water Wetter" is a surface tension reducer and allows the water to get closer to the surface of the device you're trying to get heat in or out of.
Now I know what you're going to say (LOL's) "the water is already in contact with the rad's/heat exchanger". But it's not touching all of the surface the same way, this is because no surface is a perfectly flat surface, even the glass in your windshield. If you were to magnify the surface of anything a thousand times it would look like the Grand Canyon, and water has a very high surface tension which keeps it from getting down into those lower areas. What the wetter does is let the water get deeper into to the low areas in that jagged surface and in-effect increases the surface area in which the water can transfer it's heat too.
@@MispronouncedAdventures
Water is one of the best fluids for transferring heat. Look into Specific Heat Capacity for more information.
Its limitations are the freezing and boiling point.
Water cooled vehicles use a glycol/coolant/antifreeze to lower the freezing point and offer corrosion protection by using inhibitors. The boiling point is raised by pressurising the coolant system usually to about 2bar above atmospheric.
@ChristopherWilliams-fq5ig aye, that’s what I have said in other comments as well. Water is great for heat transfer, but has its limitations with freezing and boiling point. Which in the context for coolant option is not a great set of attributes
Generally you want to setup and test everything with water. Just because it’s to messy when things go wrong. Then use a very low mix as you feel safe, depending on how cold the coldest areas get. Always circulate even without heat. The heat transfer rate won’t matter much, but glycol will tend to create leaks slightly more. Plan for the worst, but once it’s been stable for a few months it’s probably going to be fine.
Great video. We're using an Eberspacher S3 to pre-heat the forged engine on our company car. Your earlier videos helped us move in this direction instead of a plug-in block heater. I think more people with forged engines might be interested in installing hydronic/circulation/coolant heaters with a $300 price point.
Glad I was of help! Fired Pre-heater are great bits of kit, I want to show over a number of videos the difference options and costs of doing it
learn a load from your channel! Thanks so much. May you have an excellent winter experience @ the crazy northern cold! Cheers.
Thank you very much. I’m glad you found the content helpful! I do love the winter Arctic up here.
Very informative and a well put together video. Awesome work!
Thank you very much for watching, glad you found it informative
My application would be a series of 256 gallon ICB totes in the basement of a northern cabin. This is to keep the utilities from freezing and the whole cottage above well above zero during the October to January months. All other months there is enough sunlight for the panels to supply electricity for a normal water heater system. It is a thermal mass system done cheap. Note that a diesel air heater has to take very cold air and heat it up. The water heater is taking ambient warmer air so it is more efficient. The ICBs also supply water for cleaning and showers instead of a winter under ice intake, which has several maintenance and reliability problems. The cabin is only used occasionally in the winter but I need to avoid a full winter shut down.
The heater could definitely keep things above freezing. Maybe need to make a system outside on its only controller to turn it on and off. I’m pretty sure the heaters have a max run time
@@MispronouncedAdventures I will check on that. I’m assuming that the heater would cycle on and off on a timer. Leaving the circulating water pump on always to avoid cold spots.
Excellent testing with lots of useful information!
Glad you found it had useful information. I try to cover as many points as I think people will be interested in!
Looking good, thanks for putting this video.
Glad it was useful
This would be great for an hydronic system to heat all the walls (including roof and floor). With good insulation and anti condensation measures it would be great.
I was searching for one of this to put it under the van. A water and air heater would be better, so you can pass the hot air trough a radiatior to get a sauna shower and making it more efficient (by passing the hot air and hot water trough the radiatior.
There's plenty of examples for cooling with this method.
I have a Chinese diesel air heater and a Thermo top C water heater. I've been running both on household heating oil for about 2 seasons now and both seem to be running just fine. Heating oil is quite a bit cheaper than diesel if you have access to it. The only drawback, if you can call it such, is the need to plumb in a second fuel tank.
Yep, heating oil ( kerosene ) would definitely work. And significantly cheaper than diesel that for sure my old house in Scotland used to be heated by it.
In a van format I personally prefer the convenience of being plumbed into the main tank opposed to a second fuel type
@@MispronouncedAdventures A couple of things I have heard about kero over diesel is kero burns hotter and also cleaner as it has fewer additives that are intended to be burnt in an engine not one of these heaters. I'm not inclined to remove and dismantle a perfectly good working unit to find out one way or the other. Maybe if you get bored🤔🤔🤔
Convenience is certainly a factor. Even a small amount of split fuel in the truck can smell for a while. Something you really don't want or need in your camper.
I've worked out a large amount of information on these units:
(I am running it on petrol too)
To get them to work in auto restart mode, for a campervan etc, is the setting A-ON and A-OFF
My controller (part YWH-B801) allows you to change this setting. Not sure if the other
controllers do. To find the manual online search for Hcalory W51 which shows this controller.
When in A-ON mode, it ignores the end temperature you can set. My unit always heats to 84c
and then switches to pump only mode, it keeps the pump running but at a lower speed.
At the temp 59 deg it restarted fine.
When it gets up to 84 degrees, it starts flashing the temp on and off. After a while the
controller turns off the screen (it keeps pumping however). Once the screen is off, you can press a button to turn it back on, but it no longer shows the current temp, it goes back to settings screen.
Its all still working checking temps, etc though.
Also, in A-ON mode, when it is heating the timer counts UP not down. i.e. runtime. It will keep running forever until it runs out of fuel. Draws 55 watts when heating, and 20 watts with just the pump running.
As per this video, when starting on petrol the first time, it runs for a bit and then coughs out smoke and then restarts. I think this is it detecting its not on diesel and is on petrol.
Thanks for the rundown mate, now I need to install on the sprinter 👍👍👍
Best get on it!
I’ll make sure I use that gdptrst thingy majig u were on about too 👀👀👀 😥
@@truebluetravellers exactly
I've been running mine now since April. Initially I had a weird error E-14, I never found what it was and it eventually cleared. In June it failed with a blocked burner that I cleared by heating the burner around the fuel pipe to red heat with a blowlamp. Note it is possible to fit the flame sensor plug into the wrong socket which produces E-04. It is working fine just now burning Kero heating fuel and is nice and clean inside.
Thank you for this👍
Thanks for watching!
Great video. Thank you.
Thank you for watching
I have one of these on my Peterbilt with a cat c-15 and so far this winter it's worked flawlessly
Glad to hear it’s been working well for you!
Are you able to get it to run continuously?
Usually once the coolant loop is up to its preset temperature, the unit will shut down to prevent itself or the coolant from overheating.
Although the coolant loop didn’t reach its temperature, it should continue indefinitely. I don’t know if the unit has a maximum eight hours runtime, rule or something like some other.
Thanks for an amazing video, saw your other video too where you dismantled the heater. Just ordered myself the heater for my car, a bit hard to start in the winter cold with -30 celsius.
Glad you found the videos helpful and have ordered one. Yes definitely difficult to get a vehicle to start in -30c!
Nice video! I am not Chatgpt but i can tell you another useful project for you ,make a small loop with cooper pipe under battery pack of truck eventually a termostat to avoid overheating.If you are able to heath the battery you are the big winner.Every start will be great!
Some would do those these system to make under floor heating. I could see the idea of running a loop of it under a battery for heat
An easy way to measure fuel consumption accurately is place the fuel can on a weigh scale. Make sure to support the fuel hose so it doesn't affect the measurement
That would work but I’ll need a really accurate scale for it which I don’t have. Easier for me to count doses with a fixed .ml
Heating my 27 foot 5th wheel on the 56 parallel. 2 water to air units and 4 24 inch passive radiator.
Works great
Sounds good to me from my understanding, similar wet heating set up to quite popular in the boat and canal industry in the UK
Are you able to get it to run continuously without shutting down? I want to do a similar setup but never have it stop, but rather get it to slow down to an idle.
I was thinking of using as a air and water heater... but the water to air is more then the cheap air heaters... and this is more then a stand-alone instant hot water system
What standalone instant electric water heating system are you comparing it to? If it’s an LPG/propane one, I don’t think it’s right to compare two different fuel sources.
Opportunity to provide a proper rebuild/replacement kit to change out quality of parts. Hopefully, these manufacturers pay close attention. Great video. Thank you.
Another awesome video mate! Although I only understood about 12% (a failing on my part not yours). Good job I'm going to the arctic with you and your knowledge otherwise I'd probably die!
12%? We’re making progress!
It’s gonna be a fun Trip!
Hell yeah it is! Best bring some spare warm socks
You have to account for the mass and specific heat of everything that is being warmed. The 5KW is probably based on the BTU rating of the fuel consumed.
Which would be hard to measure with the variability of every system set up
Thank you for another great video and testing the petrol option. I think I will install an auxiliary diesel tank on my gas bus though for the better heat output. Maybe a valve to switch to petrol in a pinch.
No problem at all. Yeah I think I’ll also stick to diesel in the friends vehicleI’m putting it in is petrol but we’re also putting a diesel air heater in as well.
@@MispronouncedAdventures yep, I am planning the same, air and water..
Really looking forward to your next Arctic trip :D
Same am I!
Thanks for the information 👍pretty cool you can run it on diesel and gas. Running on gas would clean it periodically.
Perfect timing for the upload. Just finished your first video on this heater and I'm always very interested in these. I run 2 trucks on waste motor oil and the oil burning community has been very interested in running air and water heaters on WMO/WVO. I'd be interested in installing one on my 7.3 PSD F350 as an engine heater for those cold winter starts.
Glad it came out at a good time for you.
I guess since it’s a burner in theory, running waste oil shouldn’t be too much of issue. Although many of the Chinese diesel air heaters, you are able to tune the fan speed versus pump speed to get a better burn via the controller for burning alternative fuels.
I haven’t seen much option with this heater to adjust or tweak it / or even altitude adjustment with that being said.
From what I've read they will run on waste oil but not for very long. You'll be stripping it down to clean it shortly afterwards
There is a guy on youtube who tried his hardest to run an air heater on waste oil and it kept coking up no matter what he did.
@@juliogonzo2718loweredexpectations did try his best....tldr: do not do it.
I have heated a shop with home built waste oil heater. I have two diesel air heaters to heat my garage. I have one of these to preheat my truck engine. I would stick with gasoline, diesel or kerosene to fuel these. Even if you filter used motor oil. Your going to get buildup in burn chamber. Taking one of these out of vehicle to clean an fix is kind of a pain. Waste oil has so many contaminates. My shop waste oil heater was easy to take out burn chamber. Could do that in minutes.
I would have had a lot of use for one yesterday, when I drove locally into Gävle, Sweden in -20C🥶
I bet! my pre-heater definitely make my life easy when I’m up there
hi !
Thank you very much for this video.
My van is fitted with an Autoterm 4D heater and an exchanger water heater on the engine cooling circuit. I want to install a system that will allow me to heat the water in the cooling circuit so that I have hot water when I'm not driving, but also to limit cold engine starts when the temperature is negative. This one doesn't look bad at all.
I’m glad it was helpful. autoterm
make their own model of engine preheater / hydronic heater. Which is their “Flow” model. If you particularly set on autoterm products. Then you would just need to add some type of heat exchanger for your hot water.
In regard to the broken cast piece holding down the two elbows, it looks to me that the hose clamp tensioner may have been making contact with the cover. If so, it was creating upward pressure on the elbow as you were tightening down the center screw. That may have been why it cracked. It should still be a stamped piece as you said. Great video!
That’s more or less the reason. On the Webasto original the centre of the plate makes direct contact with the body of the unit so there isn’t the gap over where the screw is tightened. this version of the hand there is a gap which is why if you tighten it, it can snap
I did notice on the Webasto, some of them use the cast part and some models use a stamped part
Thinking about using one to heat up my hot tub!
A fair few people have done similar with this type of unit
thanks you for your effort, i have an old alde 2921 propan water heater system for my vintage motorhome, it's rated 5,4kw too but for a much more big system and 10X more expensive (3000euros the unit and a 40euros 13kg propane can last only 4 days in continue), so if it failed i will consider this chinese heater to replace it for sure.
Thank you for watching hopefully if you do consider replacing your old one with this, it works out for you
I am just jumping into the video now; plan on watching it through. Answered a lot of questions; this would be ideal for parking my truck in the winter when I can't find a place to plug in my block heater.. nothing worse than starting a cold truck in the dead of winter.
Quite a few of my friends in British vans are using this unit for their vehicle this winter in the Arctic
Call me nuts, but all of a sudden? The Webasto heaters are all of a sudden an amazing price point!
Seeing how those pipe fittings are mated to the unit has cemented my opinon.
Webastos use two types of connections between the pipe and unit. One of them is the exact copy of the cast piece which broke in my video and but I’d believe they probably use a better alloy!
They also use the stamped piece of metal which I got from one of my Webastos
@@MispronouncedAdventures I have a few Junyize brand ones and a couple puff black smoke when running. Have you experienced this with your Hcalory?
@gregmccormick21 black smoke sounds like a incomplete burn
I think connecting this to a mini tank, say 2.5 gallons and ysing as a water heater would be an amazing and very efficient way to have hot water in your van
Up until you get cancer from all the heavy metals China put in the hose and heater
Louder than a point of use propane unit I think .
@@smaksymiv4950 The instant propane is going to be way better all around, but they're also really big and you'll need a second source of fuel to run them. So tradeoffs. I'm probably still going instant since I have the space.
Might want to consider one of those battery operated pumps from Amazom..I have the DEWAY Automatic fuel transfer pump..4.6 stars on Amazon and $25 when I bought mine, maybe 3 years ago..Still have the original two D batteries in there..I've used that thing for 30 different things...
I have a mini manual siphon pump which I take with me on trips as they are just generally very useful bits of kit but would be well worth grabbing a small electric powered ones for higher quantity
AFAIK coolent is used to not let the water freeze or turn to steam.
Indeed it is. People often forget about higher boil point than the normal water when running water direct in one of these and the risk of pressure that can create
Am I really late to the party with this ChatGPT?lol that’s incredible!! I had no idea it could do things like that😮
Back to the subject👍🏼..
What I gathered from this is I could basically have wet central heating with this system instead of blown air? Like the Alde caravan/Moho systems, but run of diesel.
Mount it under the van, insulate the pipes and pop up through the floor where the rads are??
Plus this can be used via a diverter /valve to include the engine coolant loop so when in cold places like you (I’m planning to)go I wouldn’t need a 2nd engine pre heater!
I really want radiators in my van now! Damn you Alex!haha👍🏼👍🏼.. fancy testing a small one for fun??…
Guessing any heater “like this” could do that really so I’m glad I watched this 👍🏼 cheers
I only started using chat GPT a few months ago, but it’s an incredibly powerful tool when you know how to use it in the correct way. maths like this As long as you teach it to interpret the data how you wish then it’s great.
Pretty much yes whilst I use it for an engine preheater. A hydronic heater can also be used as a wet system in a leisure campervan set up. Wet systems do become a lot more complicated, but yes, you can have diverters and valves so you could include or exclude the engine for a bit of preheating as well.
I know nothing about coding but I had a few Arduino projects with stepper motors, switches, potentiometers. I told it what I needed and it did all the coding for me. It would have taken me forever to suss it out. If you haven't done it yet. Have a go. Ask it anything and you'll be amazed. It's improving but don't rely totally on what it says and cross checking output is a good idea.
I bought mine more then a year ago, wanted to integrate it into heating hot water and powering it off waste oil, but watching a few videos about that subject made me abandon the idea. The only thing I could imagine using it was in the summer warming my small pool (5000l). I used it about 7 days total, heating the water indirectly through a copper tube and directly, letting the tiny pump suck up the water and heat it. The latter gave me the results I wanted (summer, not autumn). The unit itself doesn't look or feel to shabby still wouldn't dare to mount it in my vehicle.
I’ve heater of a few people using them to heat pools. I haven’t done the maths but I’d imagine for a pool 5kw might be a bit slow, 10,12 or 16 might be a better option. To be honest I don’t know the normal Kw of pool heaters
@@MispronouncedAdventures Yes, totally share the same opinion on that. I bought it, didn't find any use for it beside reusing it for the pool.
Not sure if anyone mentioned this before but since petrol has about 10% less Energy density so I would imagine running it on petrol it would require the frequency of the pump to be at 6Hz instead of 5.4Hz
I mentioned in the video, the calorific content of petrol is around 10% less, but out heat wise I was getting was about 20%. Which is probably because of that, and that it probably less effective at burning petrol without tuning
@@MispronouncedAdventures in the case of inefficiënt burn, there would be some excess petrol in the fumes giving you that classic "Ford Taunus" smell 😉 (not sure if you were able to notice this?)
I'm thinking also maybe the viscosity of the fluid has an influence on this pump? (So if the pump is also 10% less effective, this would add up, right?)
Excellent follow up video and perfectly shows why I prefer a used thermo top C and a rebuild. I do however get your point about some people preferring a "package solution "
Regarding cycling when running through a calorifier coil, I have a dual coil calorifier and plan to use both coils in series to increase the heat transfer and liquid volume - any thoughts?
Yes same, I prefer my Thermo Top Evo ( I have taken apart and played with the C model as well )
I do imagine putting both of the coils in series would get a higher energy transfer. Although I don’t know what the normal exchange rate is coils
I would expect to see anywhere from 80% to 87% combustion efficiency, stack losses for most oil heating systems run 15 to 20%. Believe diesel is around 138,000 btu per gallon rounded up a bit by about 500 btu and it will vary slightly. Very slick setup.
Very interesting on them sooting up at low fire mode. Guessing that the fan controller not able to regulate volume of mass of air required for optimum combustion properly. Be curious to test with combustion analyzer to see what excess air is on these units at low and high fire. I would also test see where the CO at for low fire guessing higher than 50 ppm. Once, excess air is known think one might be able to figure out better way to regulate air better would most likely require dampening control for low fire. It is common for most oil combustion processes to run with high excess air at low fire conditions and at full fire rate it is far easier to lower amount of excess air more towards theoretical requirements, no absolutes.
Makes sense on gasoline lower exhaust temps seen. Only about 120,000 btu per gallon. Factor for combustion efficiency and should match well to your data. Think I would be bit leery running off gasoline just such a highly volatile fuel.
Would love to see close up views of how it connects to vehicle cooling/heating system, hard to see in video. Very interesting setup. Thanks!
It’s seems with there hydronic one they can be tuned unlike air heater versions. So you can have a better burn at low and reduced the sooting issue.
As for petrol. maybe companies have made petrol versions for years. But I would personally prefer running diesel
I have some older videos on the channel about how to install them in vehicles
Pure water has better heat transfer, we are using the glycol for the water not to freeze, lube the system and for rust prevention in the engine block.
Very true, as well as increasing the temperature which the liquid boils as well
Would be interesting to see how a original webasto would perform. If they also deliver their advertised power.
That’s a good point, or at least if I use the same testing criteria, the results should be the same. I do have a spare Webasto which is not in the van currently I just don’t have the controllers for it to test. Although I would expect different results as this one uses a .28 fuel pump, and I believe they Webasto uses a .42
Hi , great video, I have the same model which I have had for 2 winters. No problem with the heater but I can’t keep it running for long and currently it only runs for around 6 minutes then hits 80 degree and trips out. Whilst I think I have a water circulating issue would love to know how to make the heater keep switching back on which I currently can’t seem to find any instructions on. Any help would be much appreciated. Great video and thanks.
My friends recently had an issue where it would rapidly heat 80° and switch off. There was a big enough air bubble in the coolant loop that the circulation pump couldn’t pump fluid all the way around.
Great video, I’m looking for a solution for our 4x4, is there the possibility to adjust the altitude in the screen menu, I didn’t see anything on the hcalory website. Thanks
The 64 degrees at which the cabin heater turns on, can you regulate that certain temperature? Thank you.
You could use one to install a van central heating system, not sure how good if would be but I ain't seen one yet
Yes, heaters like this/hydronic heaters are often used for wet heating systems in vans and boats
Could you maybe explain how the blower fan wiring works? are the instructions clear how to connect it to the car blower to get hot air moving? Thank you!
Quite a few ways of doing it. It can vary between different model of vehicle. effectively you bypassed the vehicles power supplied to the cabin fan or cabin heater controls
Thanks, great video, I had a quick look around on heatso's website for the webasto part you used to replace the part that broke. I couldn't find it, you seem to know these heaters very well, do you have any more ideas where I might find that part? Cheers.
This is an interesting point as I’ve got two Webasto Thermo Top Evo. The one which broke is a clone of a cast Webasto part ( part number - 1322832A ) which feels to be a sturdy piece of cast material but look pretty much the same
However, the one I used in the video is also from my Webasto pre heater and is stamped metal. Its Part number 9001814C which is apparently is from Volkswagen Touran part. which is odd since both of my preheaters are from Land Rovers
Iv got one of those victron chargers 15 amps. Ps take loads of spares with you for fellow brits
Are usually always carry that charger is very convenient for different jobs and I carry a full a full spare diesel heater and engine heater. As last year. I did have to lend out parts of British van
@MispronouncedAdventures I know it's abit like a old marine engine I keep double of everything
Awesome video. Would be really interesting if you could do a video of how to connect the heater to the cabin fan in the car? It looked like it had two wires sending a signal when it reached the temperature. But would you rewire it from the fuse box or strght to the cabin fan?
Thank you, one of my older videos is on retro fitting a different model of hydronic heater to my van. The get plumbed into the cabin heater air matrix return line. Which circulate through the cabin heater and engine.
The wiring not done myself but id imagine you would go direct to the fan which would just be max but a better option might be to the climate control circuit, then turn the fan on the previous set mode
Yes that seems like a good idea. Hopefully nothing blocks the airflow of the fan
It is a low voltage circuit. Would need a relay to drive the cars heater motor. Car heater blowers take a few amps.
I’m looking at getting 1-2 for my boat to also use with my wood stove while I’m on the water 56 N 131W
From my understanding, hydronic heaters are far more popular in boat settings, then van one
very nice job, where did you get the 12v power supply, the victron one plugged into the battery pack?
It’s a Victron ip22 12v 30A charger. Great bit of kit
You're a Mad-Man with your extreme cold adventures. I'm a fair-weather adventurer.
What are you using for your thermal imaging adapter?
Only a little bit mad.
That’s a FLIR One LT attachment for my iPhone. Currently testing a different model at the moment, which I’m finding a lot better.
Hey Alex 👍🏼 had a thought mate.. you know those cheap “all in one” 5kw diesel heaters, I’m thinking of just keeping in the garage/boot or in storage during summer, not a permanent install…just bring it out when needed..could you use a Bobil exchanger then pump coolant as a pre heater to do “the same” job as the heater your using if I did some mods…circulation pump and fittings inside the enclosure with just a nice quick release tee for flow and return, not sure of all of it yet but I think it could work.?? Any thoughts👍🏼
After watching a couple of these Chinese heater vids, it seems the upshot is they work good if you replace the junk parts with Webasto peices.
I mean, it could be possible quite a few parts are the same design, but it would be probably be easier to find webasto parts though than replacement parts for this
Thanks for doing the gasoline test! I wonder if a slightly larger pump would work better when running gasoline...
Potentially, but I would be worried about playing with the fuel to air ratio which is pre set. Since he doesn’t allow tuning.
It is NOT a fuel pump, it is a dosing pump… The operating frequency of it does defines the fuel amount it deliverers. That frequency is controled by the ECU on the heater… in theorie you can reprogramming the ecu, but what happens with the lifespan of parts? Like the glow/flame controller? Etc?
Any ideal if this unit compensates for high altitude operation? I’m at 8500 ft (2600m).
I wonder if the fuel pump will last on running on petrol since petrol doesn't have the lubricating properties of diesel. I heard those that have used the normal diesel air heaters on petrol have had their pumps die. It would be great to have a cheap Chinese option for a petrol powered heater, air or water.
I know what you mean, I’ve heard the same said for people running Kero on your normal Chinese diesel heaters.
Although many of the expensive western brands do have petrol variants, I don’t know if they do anything particularly different in there pumps either on petrol versions
I don't have any big loads that a camper does, but I do have a very thirsty EV with an average of 100km winter range. It has two coolant PTC heaters on two isolated loops (2.5kW for battery coolant to maintain minimum 0-13ºC, 8kW for cabin coolant to air that drops to 1-3kW).
Can a coolant heater's main ECU manage two loops or would I need an additional controller with some feedback? Would I be able to choose to heat the battery coolant and not the cabin coolant, or only heat the cabin in some instances?
Thanks for all the testing you've done!
That’s an interesting question.
I guess if you made some sort of valve system, then you could select which loop gets heated. Although it would seem that both of those coolant loops require their own specific temperatures settings, which might be quite hard to achieve with one.
Great video. Just wondering, why do you siphon the diesel with your mouth while your heater comes with a pump? Sometimes the solution is easier than you think
To get a .28 dosing pump to fill my 5L diesel container running in priming mode ( 5.4hz ) would take 10 hours.
These pumps is a single pulse of power to do one dose. They’re not the style of pump you can just connect power to turn on.
This is my first time watching your channel. We are looking this direction for our 52ft Sailboat project, for heating the boat and a hot water heater at the same time.
Would you recommend this or better to go with the Espar?
Thanks again for the great demonstration.
Definitely budget is the main question. Espar and Webasto for big budget, Autoterm Flow 5D ( which I think is as good as Webasto and Espar )
This chinese one I think is a great price for what it is. If you have DIY skills then a second had Webasto have be a cheap as £40
When you sleep in the same hull as the heating device is running in, i would never trust chinese copies due to possible co leakage etc… they are not (to our standards) certified or what so ever… price difference is not worth my life (and my family’s). If it happens you will never find out though, only family and friends, funeral company, police, etc.. webasto has a combined unit for heat AND hot water (for dishes and shower)
Coolants indeed have better thermal properties - and do not contain minerals etc. as water does which would deposit and clog the system overtime (besides the non-frost-feature of course ...)
I guess as well as the frost feature also an higher boiling temperature, as a boiling in the system, creating pressure would be not necessarily be a great thing!
Okay, good. I want to e a m me to turn it on, roll through my heater core, then through a heat exchanger for my hot water heater then return, with a stand alone thermostat set for 160°F that will let some hot water exit into the rest of my cooling system, and cooler water will mix in right before the heater water entrance. I have a big bus…
That seems a reasonable way of doing it. Many people have hot water tanks with a coil in as part of hot water system.
Have this one installed using glycol and heat exchanger for van water supply. How do I lower the top limit for cut off? 80C too hot. Any suggestions?
Wet heating systems like that using heat exchanger, particularly for hot water you would use a plated heat exchanger with its own Thermostatic Mixing Valve. The mixer valve would dictate the hot water, not the hydronic heater.
Would be nice to see you test one of the 10kw to 30kw Webasto or Eberspächer units whit vegetable oil, motor oil, hydraulic oil and so on.
They have a a high pressure fuel pump for proper atomization of the fuel.
I have two 25kw units and one 10kw unit, if you swing by I might lend you one for testing until next time you swing by :D
What are heating with a 25kw unit?
@@MispronouncedAdventures
Heading?
It can be installed in any heading you like, or did you mean reason or meaning?
Sorry typo. Yes heating. I just wanted to know as for far larger engines people might use 10 kW or 16 kW heaters. Wondering what bit of machinery was being heated with 25kw
@@MispronouncedAdventures
My mistake, I have two 30kw units and one 16kw or 10kw unit.
My first 30kw unit I bought second hand from north in USA, was used on a big diesel locomotive. The brand is Spheros which basically is a Webasto. My plan then was to use it on my Land Cruiser HJ61 as an extremely fast engine pre-heater because why not, but never got around to it.
My second 30kw unit is a webasto one, bought it second hand from a guy using it to heat his pool during the cold season. Bought it just because the price was right and it probably comes from a bus or small vessel.
The 10kw or 16kw unit I bought second hand from a Scania lorry because it is smaller in size and easier to fit under the hood of my Land Cruiser.
I am planning to build an outdoor wooden hot tub heated by firewood but also a diesel heater for when I don't have time to fire it the whole day to make it ready.
Maybe I will but one of them in use to heat my home on used vegetable oil, don't know yet.
At the moment none of them are in use, just collecting dust.
@Mr.Engineer. That makes a lot more sense! Definitely good for heating extremely large bits of machinery if that’s size or large volumes of liquid like a pool or hot tub.
Hello. Would it make sense to install the hydronic heater in such a way that the hot air exhaust blows its 200+ °C air directly onto the bottom/side of the engine’s aluminium oil pan, so that the very cold and viscous engine oil is somewhat pre-warmed too?
I can see the logic warmer blowing into the engine bay, the exhaust gases aren’t particularly focused or powerful air pressure wise, so it would have to be run very close to the sump to have much effect. I’m also unsure potentially about the long-term corrosive effects of exhaust gases being pumped into the engine bay.
It would likely have minimal effect, since there's not a whole lot of energy coming out of the exhaust compared to the large thermal mass of the cold oil and engine. Carbon monoxide will also build up in the engine compartment in high concentrations, and can find its way into the cabin.
Use the hot water loop to wrap the oil pan?
It is quite cold in Northern Norway at the moment, even in the south. My place had -14°C this morning 🥶
When will you visit my small corner of the world for the season?
All being well I’ll be leaving the first week of January to drive up
I wonder how long it will be before they set up one of these for heating water in a camper or motor home for a shower, dishes, etc
It’s quite popular and common-ish to do this already, . It’s called a wet heating system I know quite a few which have them set up like this.
Would you recommend a second hand webasto water heater or a new Chinese water heater like this one for a low budget van?
If you don’t mind more technical project, sourcing parts and more involved go for the second hand Webasto as it’s half the price of this kit. If you just want to fit something then go for this heater.
could the exhaust off one of those cheap diesel heaters be connected to a coil made from copper pipe submerged in a tank, that way your using the waste exhaust to heat the water while heating the space your in...
Running the exhaust directly through a water tank would in principle work. The reality of how you put it together, might be a bit more difficult. although one of the issues would be condensation inside the exhaust pipe as heater exhausts need to be all downhill for drainage. A coil would potentially trap moisture which would then prevent the exhaust gas from escaping
would be great to heat my jacuzzi would take some time to heat up 250 liter... but way cheaper then electric. Here in the nederlands 0,42cent a kw.
A few people have mentioned using it for that. Seems like it would be a good cost effective option
Hi! Seems like you have a new fan for your channel :) Could you please clarify, what was the consumption per hour on diesel?
As round 0.55L per hour on max.
This is pretty cool for a semi truck. Has anyone ran it on one or something else?
There are a few vans with winter in the Arctic uses it
hello good morning excellent video, I have the same heater with the same display, but I have a problem, once it reaches 80 degrees it turns off and never starts again, do you know if there are any adjustments to make? I tried every way, thanks in advance
Same question here
This is an odd one. As I have its turn back when I was doing something else when the coolant temp dropped, but other times when I wanted that to happen it didn’t. When I can find it in settings I be hard to know if it’s worked or not
@@MispronouncedAdventures its the A-ON and A-OFF setting, I think only some controllers can see that. In the manual it shows the ones that can.
If the radiators get up to temperature and the unit shuts down - does it continue to circulate until the temperature has dropped and then starts back up again like a webasto does? Thanks!
In my tests the pump turned of after 3 minutes ( or about that after combustion shutdown ) I don’t know if that could be changed in settings, or you could make the pump continue manually
look for my post on here from a few days ago, it mentions all the various settings and what you need to do to get it to do this.
Do we know how many amps this runs with at 12v at full speed but after the glow plug has shut off?
55 watts when heating. 20 watts when not heating, but just in the water circulation mode (A-ON mode on controller)
Hi! Could I possibly use a diesel heater for an outdoor pool? I have a small tub (1m3 of water), hope to call it a hot tub in the future 😊
Don’t see why not, it might take a little while to heat up that quantity of water. But you could actually use the maths I use in the video to work out the specific time taken.
Hey! Quick question. How far do you think I can extent the water hose? There is no nearby space on my fiat and i have to run 2,5m up and down. The heater only comes with one 2,5 hose so I have to get an extra one. Do you think all this extra lenght is an issue for the water pomp of the engine and/or the promp of the heater?
Regards!
Applying additional hose shouldn’t be a problem! I believe normal coolant hoses are 19mm internal diameter. Quite a few models of vans. Install these inside the wheel arch even, the bumper to be near the engine.
But the extra length I don’t think should be a problem as on the Ford Transit, which also have these heaters. Sometimes built-in minibus version will have a coolant line running all the way to the back corner for the heating, which would be an additional 4 m of length, and then back again.
@@MispronouncedAdventuresThat is good to hear from you. I did find the original space for a webasto heater in the front left bumper. That might the spot ill place the heater in!.
Thanks, I bought the heater thru your link and will be installing the cheaper version this week. I found that this version doesnt have the relais and cable for the internal heater. No problem for me, but not really clear in the product info.
Thanks!
@markjaik yes as far as the internal heater does in this one, you can turn it on and off with the unit if you use the cabling supplied
Water is the best transfer of heat. Coolent has antifreeze and corrosion inhibitors...
And prevents boiling at a low temperature as well
@@MispronouncedAdventures great video. Sometimes I disguise my appreciation as misplaced passive aggressive sarcasm
@@FarAway-Farm nothing wrong with that! Sometimes I live up to my channel name of mispronounced, as I’m dyslexic and misread comments or miss the meaning
I seen one that did hot water and air but never seen it again, right now i just have the air one and the amount of heat coming from just the exhaust via heat exchanger might make hot water easy i am wondering have you seen such a heat exchanger?
Amazing video.can anyone tells how to make run more than 1 hour ,to make run at least 8 hours.the settings is only for 40 minutes i set up for 1 Hour then must reset the timer from remote and keeps going 1 hour more.
Which controller? I found there is a lot of different between them
Well, go for this pojekt next week install subaru legacy 3.0R
All the best on the install!
Is there any reason to not run it exactly like your setup here as a water heater in a van? I could hook it to a 2.5 gallon or so insulated water tank and use it as a mini-tank water heater for the van. Any reason running straight water rather than coolant would cause issues? Then id just drain and blow out the lines for winter. I plan on having a completely separate diesel air heater to heat the van
Yes, water does not have great properties apart from thermal transfer, it freezes at zero, and since the heater is external, if it was not on, it would freeze and potentially crack the water jacket. Water also boils at 100°, which could put pressure into the system, which could be dangerous.
Additionally, water is corrosive, you would potentially see issues inside the casing over.
You could take the precautions to drain in the winter, but it corrosion and boiling may still be an issue
@@MispronouncedAdventures so maybe a better option would run this with coolant then run some sort of heat exchanger to heat eater with the coolant from this system
i can see why you d want to heat the engine coolant to 80c if you intended to run the cab heater to heat the vehicle......
but i d argue for a clean start in very low temps and initial fuel saving on what the engine uses in a cold start.......20c is more than plenty
It’s more heating only to 20c hasn’t allowed much time for heat to soak into the block. Sure the coolant is plenty warm for starting but the block is still cold. waiting to 50, 60 or 80 coolant allows time for block to get warmed up as well as the coolant
@@MispronouncedAdventures id be curious to know as a fact ....
Hey, that's me with the subaru. Installed it now and everything works fine, but I think the ecc starts too late.. If it's really cold, it barely has time to start within an hour. When I install ebersb. on new cars now so the ecc starts almost at once. Is it possible to adjust the start temperature in some way? Otherwise, I am thinking of connecting the ecc start with the circulation pump.
If that’s the case, you could probably do, as you said, connecting the ECC to a circulation pump, or whatever your trigger is to turn on the hydronic heater. It seems hydronic heater, heavily prioritises engine heat first.
Hi again.. 63 degrees might be quite good.. maybe drill a little bigger hole in the engine thermostat for better flow.
Tested now in reality from 0-63 celcius took 33 min. The thing is that I am not a direct wilderness person but want to have a defrosted car in a fairly short time as I have quite close to work and want to save the battery as much as possible. Ah not going to stalk you, just got this interest for now..New challenges coming soon😀👍
At what water temperature does the heater kick in again? Is the "end temperature" and "kick in temperature" both programable? If Yes, whats the range from both? Real helpfull video's btw, thanks :).
Manual saying “item 4” in “engineering mode” / settings for the controller I have says “water temperature for running” can be set between 5c to 95c in 5° increments. Which I believe is the “end temperature”
Item 5 is “self start switch” and can be adjusted in the same method which read to be your “kick in temperature”
By default, it turns back on again, when the loop drops to 60°c
@@MispronouncedAdventures Yes, that's exactly what I meant, thank you for the detailed answer! Are those programming options also available with the controller you use for the webasto diesel water heater? Can you program with that controller also other things (for example fuel pump frequency) and/or more in detail (1degree at a time instead of 5 for example)?
@benarnalsteen4364 no the controller I use with the Webasto is dump. A simple on or off switch as the heat is generally managed themselves.
Although don’t take my word for it, as I haven’t checked, you can make an adaption to allow the Webasto diagnostic software to connect to the heater. If that allows programming of those particular temperatures, I am unsure
I do like the tear down concept as it allows you to see where Chinese copies have saved cost, but it's always confused me why people do it before testing it. Surely it would be a better to test the product how it came from the manufacturer before tearing it down?
Interesting way of putting it. I would say it gives a better understanding of the way the unit works or what it might do or behave before using it.
Although units like this are meant to be serviceable, so they should be able to be dismantled. But it run a risk. Like you saw in this video where I caught the water jacket O-ring, which I did own up to being my error, not came like that. However, chocolate screws are common for these units so chances are It would’ve it would’ve happened anyway.
My view on a serviceable item like this, that shouldn’t be an issue with dismantling it before testing. for an item which shouldn’t be dismantled. I would test it first and then dismantle it.
@@MispronouncedAdventures yeah I can see it from both sides. For example it'd possibly be hard to see what's going on inside after it's all coked up with soot, maybe. I see a lot of videos of people cutting open lithium batteries with multi tools and then testing them afterwards too, which seems backwards haha.
@HenryOCarmichaelSmith yep, definitely advantages for both side. As for lithium batteries. I don’t use the multitool to cut them up. I do the testing first and then I take the lid off with time and effort opposed. I’m not big enough to be destroying lithium batteries!
im not turning a chinese thing on without making sure its been assembled correctly
Tried to figure it out in the manual and you have not done as it says with the exhaust and angle of the fuel pump. So how important is that? I guess they are worried that unburnt fuel can get stuck int the exhaust pipe and bubbles in the fuel lines?
Both are important.
Fuel pump angle is more important. Being a dosing pump, it creates cavitations with each pump. Wrong orientation, or angle of the pump can allow those citations to form into a larger bubble inside the pump which then stops the fuel moving.
Exhaust is a number of factors it should always be downhill so condensation doesn’t fill up the pipe and block it. Additionally, adding too many bends curves or making it too long will restrict airflow and potentially mess up the burn efficiency in the unit causing it to Soot up
@@MispronouncedAdventures One other question it specifies 12V input voltage. Will it take fully charged battery 14.4V?
@andki234 yes, it uses “12 V” input vaguely as the 12v range opposed to a particular voltage
@@MispronouncedAdventures So 14.4 is OK :)
I think there is an error in techical parameters for 12kw model. It sayz that fuel consumption is 12l per hour witch is not correct i think that is 1.2 liter per hour, correct me if i am wrong.😀
Yeah, I also clocked that! Or that beast is a particular hungry one! But considering the 24 V version of the same heat was 1.2L imagine it’s a typo
Do you think it would be possible to use the little radiators (as you have to use your hot water), connected to an air heater and plumbed into the coolant loop, as an engine preheater?
I can think of some possible issues, but do like the thought experiment
Don’t see why not. The outflow of air diesel heaters is warmer than 80° so if you run that through a hot air matrix / heat exchange much the same as the cabin air matrix only in reverse, you would heat the coolant loop
The new Autoterm ComiBOIL can sort of do this. It’s got a air heat exchanger for the diesel heater which heats a water cylinder as well as a coolant loop coil / calorifier in the water cylinder
It might be a really lightweight, compact and cheap solution if you're willing to sacrifice the redundancy of two heaters. However, I see possible issues with rust particles in the coolant clogging up passages or destroying the pump, and the output might be too little.
I'll look up the Autoterm, it sounds interesting :)
Cabin air matrix use the same type of fine fin heat exchanges. They don’t seem to get clogged.
The autoterm version does look quite good however. I would still have a preheated as well. But could add redundancy
@@MispronouncedAdventures I've looked up the combiboil and it looks quite good. I would definitely consider the system if I was building a van with a full hot water system. However, now with my old Transporter, this is definately too bulky and expensive. So for me I'm probably looking at an old thermotop or this heat exchanger idea for the future. Good point on the heater matrices as well.
Addition: or this chinese water heater if the price comes down a bit
So right off the bat it's designed as a vehicle cooling system heater. I am looking for something to heat water in my calorifier when the engine is off for washing, showering etc. But it could still heat the engine block too. Are there reasons it could not be used in that way? You seem to suggest at the very end that this can be done.
Not necessarily just for pre heating engine. Hydronic heater are for engines or leisure use for wet heating. So it will work in the way you want with a Calorifier. Just use a mixer on the Calorifier to control output water temperature and not the heater
I don't know what that means about the mixer, but I'll work it out now I know it can be done. I've just recently found hydronic heaters and they solve a massive problem for me in the future. Thanks :)@@MispronouncedAdventures
Thats a nice bit of kit. I have the there diesel heater and use it to heat my house, it does a good job but it would be nice to have this as well and have it go into my central heating system. How much louder is this than the heater? It sounds very loud on the video.
You could heat central heating with it. But depending on the side of the central heating system. 5kw unit might not be enough
It is a rather loud unit compared to my Webasto Thermo top
@@MispronouncedAdventures the biggest down side is not having control over the water temperature, I have a cdh and I am making a heat recovery system from the exhaust to pass through a 10L tank of water, then pump this around the central heating system, I have a small 2 bed house with 4x1200/500 rads and 2x600/500 rads, I fitted and installed the whole system and the boiler so adding this in would be easy. Would be a lot cheaper than gas in the current UK market
@@superslick5677 to get control over the temperature could you not use a thermostatic mixer valve after the heater? “Hot water” being the output of the heater and “cold water” being the return from the Central heating?
@@MispronouncedAdventures there are Definitely ways to make it work, using a tmv would be better on a domestic water system, so if you was going to use it for a shower or washing your hands, but for a central heating system you would need it to be hotter, and ideally for the unit to stay on say all night if it was -5c outside, the unit you tested switches off at 80c. It would be better to have the water heat up to say 65c and stay there but the unit ramping down but still staying on. Unless the unit you tested can be set up so your max water temperature is say 65c and then it turns off but then comes back on when it drops down to say 58c???
What is the sound level of that pump do you think you damaged it running dry as it seem very noisy to the hot air equivalents I’ve been fitting for ten yrs main problems fuel pump failures and sooting up if not adjusted properly,I did try running one on kerosene but the pumps don’t like it as lack of lubricants nice video you always have to reverse engineer the Chinese stuff as they make everything out of monkey metal
In person sounds pretty identical to the many .22 Chinese pumps I’ve got. I guess normally you don’t run them in full view so you can directly hear them. Obviously it’s extremely loud when I attach the microphone to it directly, but that’s because of the vibration physically through the microphone not the audible noise.
Yes, the more common issue I come across is suiting up due to per installation, usually, with first time, DIYers putting some type of air restriction due to overly long or bending exhausts or intakes, which would mess with the burn ratio.
I had my first pump fail last week in my main heater, but that was after almost 4000 hours