Says in the instruction manual I received that it is designed to run on gasoline as well. I use mine with a blend of diesel filtered used engine oil and gasoline , burns clean and no fumes.
I found start on 90 percent heating oil (diesel is fine) and 10 percent petrol... Switch to 40 percent used oil/veggie oil/etc 50 percent virgin heating oil and 10 percent petrol. Right before shut down, switch back to 90 / 10. Years with no issues.
just tried running my diesel heater on gasoline, it worked for 2 days and them the pump failed to supply fuel... what I learned is that due to how viscous the gasoline is compared to diesel, the pump provided can't force fuel through, i believe it failed once there was no diesel left at all to lubricate the pump... right now running on a 50/50 mix... it's been running well for 1 day so far with no difference in operation compared to running straight diesel.
50/50 is good gas just smells terrible and my tank is inside so i will only be using 10 percent gas seems to work great in the winter and keeps it cleaner
The increased volatility of petrol compared to diesel means the fuel is vaporising too quickly in the burner. The small pump run at a higher rate works to counteract this problem by injecting the next shot of fuel before the first shot has fully vaporised. At high output anyway. I'm thinking that you would need to modify the air flow around the vaporiser to reduce its performance, which would mean a slower, more continuous feed of fuel vapours into the burner and a resulting better performance at all rates, particularly at the low end.
Well, now I know that I can use petrol in an emergency. Thanks for all your work with these heaters. I just got one last week and I'm searching for all the info on them I can find.
don't use as an emergency any longer than 1 day... your pump will fail to pump fuel... learned from experience in an emergency... it needs the thicker fuel to pump through
That's interesting. As my friend had been running on misfuel and switch back to diesel and got more heat from the diesel. Another thing to test then. :)
Run 5kw heater on mix of petrol / diesel with no issue. Misfuel removed from cars that have been fuel'd incorrectly. Don't notice much difference in heat output.
Hi David. Really enjoy your videos. I purchased a heater a few weeks ago and it came with the new blue controller. I realize this is off topic for this particular video but, I happen to notice your afterburner and the blue controller also nearby. I would love to purchase the afterburner for my heater but the website says to be suspect of trying to use it wit the blue controller heaters. So, just wondering if you have had any luck running the afterburner on with a blue controller heater? Thanks for the hard work and all the great information on. These units.
Cost of living alert...i'm looking into one that runs on fart gas......i store it up during summer months by eating lidl own brand baked beans morning noon and night and want to unleash it in winter via a coverted diesel heater. My question is....will the burn chamber get shitted up?
It's almost like they built the diesel heaters to run on diesel, how odd... :P Also I wish banggood would stop sending me sweet deals on heater kits, cos I'll end up buying one with absolutely no use for it other than to fart about with in the shed or something!!! :D
Anton Kramer - Thanks for posting this reply as I haven't heard of GTL before. I Googled it to find out more. My question is, where do you buy it? Thanks.
@@rolliebca That's a good question. I live in the Netherlands and here too GTL is not available everywhere. Coincidentally, I live on a sailing ship and GTL is often used in (inland) shipping. due to environmental legislation. So I get my GTL at a bunker station near Amsterdam. Some marinas or waterfront fuel stations also sell it to pleasure craft HVO100 (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil) is now also used for freight traffic and heavy vehicles on the road and, like GTL, has no odour but is in my area if I could tow my ship to a fuel station by road HVO100 or NESTe is also more expensive here than GTL as I do not pay excise duty for my (red) GTL
@@AntonKramer Thanks for the quick reply. I'm in the middle of the Canadian prairies, so a little far from any marinas. Some have suggested smaller fuel stations or such might be a source. No worries, still good to be aware of. Thanks.
The tech inside these heaters should port across to log burners. Then it could run on wood, coal, chicken bones, old furniture, bills & final demands etc.
It looks like the pump needs to be delivering a constant stream of gasoline for the burn to be clean. Could an even smaller pump or a different pump that delivers a small continuous flow be used?
I came here to find out if it was possible to run on diesel and petrol mixed to achieve a cleaner burn and the comments section seems to think so. A follow up video would be great!
hi David. do you still have some of those pulse damper. I wonder if you add a few in line to create more of a pressurised stream then a pulse to keep the flame burning longer. if you don't have them maybe try a soft rubber hose that would absorb the pulse. or install a T with a air chamber as a accumulator. This might be subject for a new video. love your work.
Is there any Veg oil/ petrol ratio you think would work? I filter veg down to 5 um, 10 U,m is std for Pump diesel so contaminants would not be a problem. I have run Veg/ petrol blends for many years in engines and it works well so I'm thinking a blend may compensate for the less than desirable properties of each of these fuels. Maybe 50/50?
So from all the other comments from people who have tried running veg oil I think the answer is none. A 50/50 of veg and petrol runs. But it clogs the atomizer screen quickly. Other mixes just alter the time it takes to clog up.
I chunk veg oil in mine sometimes Trans fluid and gas or oil and gas works to they burn anything really if the oil is really dirty you may have to take it apart and clean it now and the if your running questionable fuel keep it turned up all the way
I’m thinking of getting a spare burner and modifying it to how the webasto burner looks. Btw you can buy the webasto petrol burn chamber as a spare part but it’s a hundred moneys. The cheap clone is about a tenner.
Very interesting. I just figured it would get too hot, and the ecu wouldn't be able to handle how it operated. Either that, or the chamber wouldn't work properly for gasoline.
Apparently James's silent pump let's you tune the quantity per stroke. I ordered one but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. When I get a chance I'll do some experience to give you an idea of how low it goes. Does the version of the pump that James sent you also have this setting?
Daft question but off topic when these heaters start up with the glow plug once lit it shuts off , why does it need to come on again for the shut down process as it's already alight inside could the fuel rate just not decrease or would this not burn all the fuel off.🤔
99RON. To quote Wikipedia - An octane rating, or octane number, is a standard measure of an engine or aviation gasoline capability against compression. So as we are not compressing the fuel, it should not make a difference.
I'd try vegetable oil with the gas. Probably only need 20% at most. . Gas Being thinner, could use a higher amount of vegetable oil than with the diesel mix.
I came across this video as I wanted to try burning waste motor oil, and I've seen people show some really coaked up burn chambers. You've done a really scientific testing here and I would appreciate you opinion on using wmo and I'm thinking now maybe there's other options besides just thinning the oil with gas like we do in our trucks.
@David McLuckie where do you source your pumps that shows them by dosing amount? i cannot find anything about part numbers and pumps online where I can buy them by dosing amount.. Id like to try different pumps..
I am successfully running mine on gasoline consistently with the original pump but it only seems to run consistently on 3.5hz. I am going to try using the smaller pump. Have you experimented with the fuel/air ratio with petrol? Or would you have a recommendation for the settings?
Gasoline or petrol has a evaporation rate much higher than diesel or paraffin that are oils and not solvents. I believe the nature of the burner has a lot to do with the results. It’s an oil burner and your tweaking it to run on a solvent, wonder how ethanol/ methanol runs with the settings you got with the petrol?
Webasto make petrol versions of their heaters, but the burn chamber looks different. Do an internet search on 84883A for the one that fits their 2KW air heater - comes with the smaller holes you suggest, but at the inlet end and not the outlet end. I’m sure you could “engineer” something similar with the original burn chamber?
Oddly, i have the petrol 2kw Webasto and converted it to run on diesel by swapping the burner to the diesel version. Runs great on the petrol ecu parameters although i had to drill a hole in the diesel burner to install the flame front probe that the petrol version uses to tell the ecu that its lit. I'm not sure how the Chinese burners work, i don't think they have the "wick" like the Webasto ones do, so it might be more difficult to mod.
I think ud have changed injection may b run 2stroke. Ud def need prime diesel 4 the glow pugs 2 work. Or just mix fuels enf try menthol. Or diesel mixed with old oil. I heated more bit used less fuel
Hi Dave, would you be able to make a video of a GAS heater that they used to put in campervans please, only my heater will Not ignite. URGENT PLEASE. IT IS THE SAME SHAPE AS THE CHINESE HEATER. only it runs on gas, I think it maybe the pitzi lighter not working
So you are saying both fuels will run in the unit if you run gas smaller injector i was thinking of buying the 5k pro for a teardrop trailer but i would like it to sip fuel? Does the pro have a water heater/furnace combo? Thank you😉😊 great video
Gasoline(petrrol) has a lower energy density than Diesel. Gasoline has an energy density of 33,867 megajoules per meter cubed. Diesel has an energy density of 37,184 mj/m3
i would hazard the idea is to restrict the feed to the burner and have a pump that can push pressure, this way you build up a constant flow which is pressure related instead of pulses.
Wonder what one of these heater would run like on nitro fuel, a methanol-based fuel with nitromethane and oil added. Which RC model planes and cars use.🤔😬
HAVE SOU SEEN THE NEW HEATERS??.. The new ones don't have alpine mode, they don't have the ability to adjust the pump and fan speed and they all now seem like that, is it due to emissions maybe or is it due to people not knowing what they are doing and breaking their machines in obvious ways...
@@davidellis1355 I have modified a petrol fuelled generator to a propane generator. I guess it is possible to convert the diesel heater too ( I also have a Trumatic propane heater which is basically the same as the Chinese diesel heater )
a engine can be converted to propane because it has a spark at every power stroke and a intake valve to prevent the ignition of the gas to flash back. will not work as a heater. only as a bomb.
A few weeks ago I contacted you telling you my heater started up on its own just blowing cold air when I turn the heater on it works perfectly fine giving great Heat when I turned it off it shuts down very well . you recommended me to try any new ECU which I did and it still doing the same . Which means it’s not the ECU have you any other recommendations could it be the controller which is digital .?
@@TheOceanX yes your probably right. I’m guessing the price for those is extortionate, which is why people want to try and use the cheaper Chinese heaters on petrol
Webasto make a petrol version of the air top 2000. The only difference I can see is the burner tube. There could be a difference in the controller firmware.
@@TheOriginalCoda so at the very least, to do this properly, you need to modify the burner tube from a diesel burner to be the same as the petrol burner.
They do. As you say in the genuine versions and in some of the chinese versions if you can find them. Most of the eBay etc listing are just a generic copy and paste often citing gasoline erroneously as a fuel type.
Ethanol has fewer BTUs than straight gasoline. That’s why ethanol laced fuel gives you less MPG, tho most people don’t realize that. You may pay less for E10 fuel than straight gas, but what you lose in mileage doesn’t make up for the lower cost.
@@TheOriginalCoda Oh' I didn't know that. I thought they may have been specifically designed to run on diesel. Apparently the pumps can wear out quicker at a 45 deg angle compared to a straight up position according to someone that opened one up ( I watched his video and it made sense to me ) to see exactly how they were made and made off. At an angle they cause dry ( bubbles or air ) to form in one part of the pump causing excessive wear as the air is trapped leaving that section dry. A straight up vertical pump apparently prevents this. This is why I thought diesel being more of a lubricant than petrol would mean the pump would wear less with diesel, unless that petrol had two stroke in it. Anyway, I'm still learning so thanks 👍
@@TheOriginalCoda Actually, these cheap Chinese diesel heaters use a metering pump that relies on the diesel to help lubricate the pump. It's a small piston inside a metal cylinder, which will wear prematurely without proper lubrication, and the only lubrication source is the fuel passing through it. Even running kerosene with too low of a sulfur content will wear out the pump prematurely.
David. I have tried to buy an Afterburner but Ray is not sending to UK anymore for various reasons. Any idea where I can get one. PS I run my heater on Parrafin seems to run very clean, might be worth you trying. Regards Peter
What settings should I set my diesel heater to to run it on gasoline better low and high temps/speeds and I'm only a few hundred feet above sea level living in the wash DC area
@@DavidMcLuckie that's what it seems like too higher blower 4200 4500 rpm and 5 Hz pump seems to work better than the 2200 2500 rpm and 2.5 Hz pump rates
I have another suggestion. These are Diesel heaters, so they burn Diesel, yes the clue is in the name ??? Is there a difference to the type of diesel ? by that I mean, Shell V+ or BP Ultimate or Shopping branded diesel. Does the type of fuel from the pump make any difference of burning, smell, smoke and amount it uses, make any difference ? Thanks
The additives in fuel are mostly detergents and for the performance side a cetane booster of some type. Whether the cost of the higher grade fuel is worth it in the long run would need someone to run a heater for years and only use one brand of fuel. That sounds like a Project Farm kind of experiment. I couldn't bank roll that. :)
@@DavidMcLuckie Wouldn't necessarily need to run for years, a way to measure the thermal output accurately and then compare how much heat you get per unit of each type of fuel would do, and then a careful comparison of level of soot buildup and such. I wouldn't expect a significant difference though.
can i make a suggestion diesel is now more exspensive than petrol why dont you mix 50% petrol with %50 diesel something to consider is that diesel fuell lubricates the fuel pump unlike petrol
Hi David, as THE experimenter go to guy, and thinking about possible heater clogging with soot, is it worth considering adding a diesel treatment to the straight diesel fuel? I just saw a notice at a garage near me advertising AdBlue additive. I had no idea what it was so I checked on TH-cam and it is an anti knock agent I think! I have my heater up and running now and it is working fine. 5-8 kw and I am learning about the history of them, a lot of which comes from you. It’s a cosmic substance so perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree lol. I enjoy your videos but worry about you breathing the exhaust fumes as you often do!
Adblue is for emissions reduction and is injected into vehicles exhausts. As for other additives, they won't hurt the heater, but I'm not sure how much cleaning they would do.
yeah, add blue is 50% water and 50% catalyst to reduce the flashpoint of unburnt ash in the particle filter. it cars inject it straight into the exhaust. if you mix your fuel with it, it will cristalize and seperate. also all the water will just cool your burnchamber down, if not even flame out
hey where do you get the various size pumps? I cannot get anyone to tell me what the pump volumes per stroke are.. no one .. my 12kw heater runs at 7.5hz , it has a terrible time starting in really cold weather.. I opened the heater and ther glowplug was perfect, the burn chamber, nozzle and screen all perfectly but still when its say -5c and colder the heater often fails to start.. considering trying a mix of petrol and diesel.. or perhaps running it on K1 kerosene? I want to try other pumps..
@@stalbertjocelyn I upsized the wiring as the original harness was definmitely wimpy.. my Bus is plugged into both an AGM battery charger and the engine block heater(block heaster has no bearing on the diesel heater).. the display on the heater reads 13v when in startup mode.. still no dice in the cold.. seems like it just blasts too much fuel at it.. ill see the exhaust temp start to rise.. can even hear what sounds like fire then the fuel pump speeds up and i just get tons of smoke.. sometimes it will cycle a couple times and get itself going.. most often it goes down with an E-02 flame-out error code..
@@DavidMcLuckie thank you.. I was on the actual alibaba site and they were hard to find.. lots of them on aliexpress. super! now if my heater motherboard only supported afterburner.. time for a different board.. VVKB heater is rubbish And I paid too much for it.. turns out they just buy them from someone else and re-market.. there are about 6 heaters that use the exact same body and pump (the junkie flange mount like your 16kw water heater has).. I need to 3D print that hose flange you made sop I can use a divorced pump.
If there was something or some way of turning the pulse into a linear voltage and make it adjustable, then you could use a peristaltic pump or something similar.
I wouldn't expect much. So although the per stroke amount is less, you'd need to adjust the frequency up to maintain the same heat output. In theory it should burn more efficiently with shorter squirts more often.
Yes and no. There are now so many ECU combinations it's impossible to tell just by looking. If it has a triangular plug that's a good start, but you'd have to buy it and plug it in to see if it actually works.
@@DavidMcLuckie If youd prefer to buy something maybe a speedohealer would do it. The car modding guys use them, its a box which sits in the speedo sensor line (pulsed square wave on most cars) and lets you adjust the multiplication up and down
I’d think you don’t want to use a spark plug because you don’t want an explosion but a steady fire instead. If you mean a hot plate igniter like a gas /lpg oven, then these units already basically use the same thing, just smaller.
any chance of you using what you have learned from hacking these to make a better waste oil burner I've been hoping you would make a update on the one you did way back if you could control one like this and have it self regulate even monitoring CO2 you would be the first in the DIY world of TH-cam
The problem with waste oil is all the rubbish in it. You'd either have to filter down to a ridiculously small size, sub micron. Or take it apart every few hours to clean the ash out. Thermobil style waste oil burners are the best design, plenty of heat and easy to clean out. You can run anything in them.
@@DavidMcLuckie 😞you wear all most there your oil feed was a 🍋and the burn pot needed a rethink if you add a secondary reburner like new wood stoves have use multiple sensors temp O2 etc and control it all with ardweno it could be ground breaking I'd do it myself but I'm no good with tec
@@DavidMcLuckie what can I expect from the pump ? I really want to run this heater on my vans fuel tank cause then I'll never have to deal with the higher cost of diesel here
Hi David, Iv seen it here first, one of these "diesel" heaters working on petrol. The Hungarian controller has a bridge option to convert it to petrol, have you tried that? Would be interesting to see what changes regarding fan speed and pump frequency. On the WTT software, I'm only able to adjust fuel pump Hz so I guess you just match fuel Hz to their pre-set fan speed as you would running it on diesel? Question is, does the petrol option work?
Says in the instruction manual I received that it is designed to run on gasoline as well. I use mine with a blend of diesel filtered used engine oil and gasoline , burns clean and no fumes.
I found start on 90 percent heating oil (diesel is fine) and 10 percent petrol... Switch to 40 percent used oil/veggie oil/etc 50 percent virgin heating oil and 10 percent petrol. Right before shut down, switch back to 90 / 10. Years with no issues.
just tried running my diesel heater on gasoline, it worked for 2 days and them the pump failed to supply fuel... what I learned is that due to how viscous the gasoline is compared to diesel, the pump provided can't force fuel through, i believe it failed once there was no diesel left at all to lubricate the pump... right now running on a 50/50 mix... it's been running well for 1 day so far with no difference in operation compared to running straight diesel.
50/50 is good gas just smells terrible and my tank is inside so i will only be using 10 percent gas seems to work great in the winter and keeps it cleaner
@@ImWildDave what ? gas smells great ! 2 smoke fumes even better 😛
The increased volatility of petrol compared to diesel means the fuel is vaporising too quickly in the burner.
The small pump run at a higher rate works to counteract this problem by injecting the next shot of fuel before the first shot has fully vaporised. At high output anyway.
I'm thinking that you would need to modify the air flow around the vaporiser to reduce its performance, which would mean a slower, more continuous feed of fuel vapours into the burner and a resulting better performance at all rates, particularly at the low end.
Then i think adding "Fuel Dampers" would greatly help in this regard
Well, now I know that I can use petrol in an emergency. Thanks for all your work with these heaters. I just got one last week and I'm searching for all the info on them I can find.
Pretty much if it burns it will work. Mixing with diesel also helps.
@@DavidMcLuckie I can run it on whisky?
@@Mumblix ABSOLUTELY NOT! Whisky's heating abilities ONLY lay in drinking it. I have many years of drinking...I mean testing to prove this accuracy.
don't use as an emergency any longer than 1 day... your pump will fail to pump fuel... learned from experience in an emergency... it needs the thicker fuel to pump through
@@fairlyoddme3021 not true mines working fine
Enjoy these experiments so much. Thanks for the content 👍👍👍👍
Glad you like them!
I’ve just tried running mine on a petrol diesel mix seems to be running nicer than what it does on diesel by it self
That's interesting. As my friend had been running on misfuel and switch back to diesel and got more heat from the diesel. Another thing to test then. :)
Run 5kw heater on mix of petrol / diesel with no issue. Misfuel removed from cars that have been fuel'd incorrectly. Don't notice much difference in heat output.
Very informative since I live 'across the pond'. Thank you, David!
i was hoping to see a diesel heater rolling coal!
On the 65ml pump it was. For once I had to turn it off and leave the workshop until all the CO alarms went off.
Hi David. Really enjoy your videos. I purchased a heater a few weeks ago and it came with the new blue controller. I realize this is off topic for this particular video but, I happen to notice your afterburner and the blue controller also nearby. I would love to purchase the afterburner for my heater but the website says to be suspect of trying to use it wit the blue controller heaters. So, just wondering if you have had any luck running the afterburner on with a blue controller heater? Thanks for the hard work and all the great information on. These units.
Cost of living alert...i'm looking into one that runs on fart gas......i store it up during summer months by eating lidl own brand baked beans morning noon and night and want to unleash it in winter via a coverted diesel heater. My question is....will the burn chamber get shitted up?
It's almost like they built the diesel heaters to run on diesel, how odd... :P
Also I wish banggood would stop sending me sweet deals on heater kits, cos I'll end up buying one with absolutely no use for it other than to fart about with in the shed or something!!! :D
Hi David, great info in your videos! Do you have any videos with the small pump and diesel to minimize fuel consumption?
I have waited a time for this video,. now i will install one in my RV .. i thank you very much.. Hamish
I do plan to see if I can modify a burn chamber to get it work even better.
Currently, I run my diesel heater on GTL (Gas-to-liquid) at 1.1Hz and a super clean exhaust output.
Anton Kramer - Thanks for posting this reply as I haven't heard of GTL before. I Googled it to find out more. My question is, where do you buy it? Thanks.
@@rolliebca That's a good question. I live in the Netherlands and here too GTL is not available everywhere. Coincidentally, I live on a sailing ship and GTL is often used in (inland) shipping. due to environmental legislation. So I get my GTL at a bunker station near Amsterdam.
Some marinas or waterfront fuel stations also sell it to pleasure craft
HVO100 (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil) is now also used for freight traffic and heavy vehicles on the road and, like GTL, has no odour but is in my area if I could tow my ship to a fuel station by road
HVO100 or NESTe is also more expensive here than GTL as I do not pay excise duty for my (red) GTL
@@AntonKramer Thanks for the quick reply. I'm in the middle of the Canadian prairies, so a little far from any marinas. Some have suggested smaller fuel stations or such might be a source. No worries, still good to be aware of. Thanks.
I reckon the pump would dry out with petrol as it has less lubricating properties as you know.
The tech inside these heaters should port across to log burners.
Then it could run on wood, coal, chicken bones, old furniture, bills & final demands etc.
It looks like the pump needs to be delivering a constant stream of gasoline for the burn to be clean. Could an even smaller pump or a different pump that delivers a small continuous flow be used?
or add a restriction on the pump outlet to turn pulses in to a ramped stream
I came here to find out if it was possible to run on diesel and petrol mixed to achieve a cleaner burn and the comments section seems to think so. A follow up video would be great!
Crimp the pipe to restrict the fuel flow to the burner and ad an accumulator to even out the pump pulses and deliver constant pressure to the burner.
With a flexible reservoir maybe ? Something that will absurb the pump kick and continue to push the fluid between every strike
If I pour gasoline mixed with diesel 50:50, will it work
Yes.
hi David. do you still have some of those pulse damper. I wonder if you add a few in line to create more of a pressurised stream then a pulse to keep the flame burning longer. if you don't have them maybe try a soft rubber hose that would absorb the pulse. or install a T with a air chamber as a accumulator. This might be subject for a new video. love your work.
Jocelyn East - These are great suggestions! I hope David does a video on this, as he is set up particularly well for such things. Ciao.
I've order some more now. :)
Is there any Veg oil/ petrol ratio you think would work? I filter veg down to 5 um, 10 U,m is std for Pump diesel so contaminants would not be a problem. I have run Veg/ petrol blends for many years in engines and it works well so I'm thinking a blend may compensate for the less than desirable properties of each of these fuels. Maybe 50/50?
So from all the other comments from people who have tried running veg oil I think the answer is none. A 50/50 of veg and petrol runs. But it clogs the atomizer screen quickly. Other mixes just alter the time it takes to clog up.
I chunk veg oil in mine sometimes Trans fluid and gas or oil and gas works to they burn anything really if the oil is really dirty you may have to take it apart and clean it now and the if your running questionable fuel keep it turned up all the way
I’m thinking of getting a spare burner and modifying it to how the webasto burner looks. Btw you can buy the webasto petrol burn chamber as a spare part but it’s a hundred moneys. The cheap clone is about a tenner.
I've ordered the bits just waiting for them to arrive. Hopefully it'll work.
Very interesting. I just figured it would get too hot, and the ecu wouldn't be able to handle how it operated. Either that, or the chamber wouldn't work properly for gasoline.
Apparently James's silent pump let's you tune the quantity per stroke. I ordered one but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. When I get a chance I'll do some experience to give you an idea of how low it goes. Does the version of the pump that James sent you also have this setting?
Also maybe time to bust out The Arduino base controller if you want to experiment further.
Maybe I am lazy but I run diesel in my diesel heater. A lot less messing around trying to get it to run.
Daft question but off topic when these heaters start up with the glow plug once lit it shuts off , why does it need to come on again for the shut down process as it's already alight inside could the fuel rate just not decrease or would this not burn all the fuel off.🤔
It helps to clean the glow plug and the atomising mesh ready for the next start.
@@DavidMcLuckie thanks David 👍
I'm wondering about what octane was used and how much that would make a difference. !:- )
99RON. To quote Wikipedia - An octane rating, or octane number, is a standard measure of an engine or aviation gasoline capability against compression.
So as we are not compressing the fuel, it should not make a difference.
I'd try vegetable oil with the gas.
Probably only need 20% at most.
.
Gas Being thinner, could use a higher amount of vegetable oil than with the diesel mix.
I came across this video as I wanted to try burning waste motor oil, and I've seen people show some really coaked up burn chambers. You've done a really scientific testing here and I would appreciate you opinion on using wmo and I'm thinking now maybe there's other options besides just thinning the oil with gas like we do in our trucks.
I think perhaps filtering and then maybe a centrifuge to get the oil clean enough to leave little deposits.
@David McLuckie where do you source your pumps that shows them by dosing amount? i cannot find anything about part numbers and pumps online where I can buy them by dosing amount.. Id like to try different pumps..
AliExpress. I've bought 16, 22, 35, 65.
I am successfully running mine on gasoline consistently with the original pump but it only seems to run consistently on 3.5hz. I am going to try using the smaller pump. Have you experimented with the fuel/air ratio with petrol? Or would you have a recommendation for the settings?
I haven't yet, no.
I think mines running ok ish on 2.0 hz 2.1 low and 1680 rpm but I need to get it tuned just right for gasoline
What model is yours
Hey David, interesting video. Would you have an old VW Bus gas heater kicking around? I wonder how it supplies air and fuel?
Negative.
Gasoline or petrol has a evaporation rate much higher than diesel or paraffin that are oils and not solvents. I believe the nature of the burner has a lot to do with the results. It’s an oil burner and your tweaking it to run on a solvent, wonder how ethanol/ methanol runs with the settings you got with the petrol?
Webasto make petrol versions of their heaters, but the burn chamber looks different. Do an internet search on 84883A for the one that fits their 2KW air heater - comes with the smaller holes you suggest, but at the inlet end and not the outlet end. I’m sure you could “engineer” something similar with the original burn chamber?
Oddly, i have the petrol 2kw Webasto and converted it to run on diesel by swapping the burner to the diesel version. Runs great on the petrol ecu parameters although i had to drill a hole in the diesel burner to install the flame front probe that the petrol version uses to tell the ecu that its lit. I'm not sure how the Chinese burners work, i don't think they have the "wick" like the Webasto ones do, so it might be more difficult to mod.
and yep there's more holes in the diesel version than in the petrol one.
Nice. Hopefully I can make something similar with the diesel burn chamber.
I think ud have changed injection may b run 2stroke. Ud def need prime diesel 4 the glow pugs 2 work. Or just mix fuels enf try menthol. Or diesel mixed with old oil. I heated more bit used less fuel
How well does the Webasto work? They sell versions of the Air Top 2000 STC and the Evo 40/55 that run on gasoline (petrol).
Webastos are fantastic. They are just expensive.
Hi Dave, would you be able to make a video of a GAS heater that they used to put in campervans please, only my heater will Not ignite. URGENT PLEASE. IT IS THE SAME SHAPE AS THE CHINESE HEATER. only it runs on gas, I think it maybe the pitzi lighter not working
Hey ! I wonder if you have tried using waste engine oil in the heater ?
Probably won't work unless its a blend of mostly fuel.
Yes. It's not pretty. Mixed with diesel it burns but fouls the heater up quickly.
Dude I wish you could narrate my life.
So you are saying both fuels will run in the unit if you run gas smaller injector i was thinking of buying the 5k pro for a teardrop trailer but i would like it to sip fuel?
Does the pro have a water heater/furnace combo?
Thank you😉😊 great video
Gasoline(petrrol) has a lower energy density than Diesel. Gasoline has an energy density of 33,867 megajoules per meter cubed. Diesel has an energy density of 37,184 mj/m3
diesel fuel is denser than petrol and contains about 15% more energy by volume.
i would hazard the idea is to restrict the feed to the burner and have a pump that can push pressure, this way you build up a constant flow which is pressure related instead of pulses.
I read somewhere that the hole in the fuel inlet is smaller, on the Webasto heaters, and the fuel pump runs a bit faster, I hope this helps
I wonder if that along with the terrible fuel lines is enough to get around patent law?
The amount of soot that the muffler lets through is scary.
Mufflers don't stop soot though.
Wonder what one of these heater would run like on
nitro fuel, a methanol-based fuel with nitromethane and oil added. Which RC model planes and cars use.🤔😬
HAVE SOU SEEN THE NEW HEATERS??..
The new ones don't have alpine mode, they don't have the ability to adjust the pump and fan speed and they all now seem like that, is it due to emissions maybe or is it due to people not knowing what they are doing and breaking their machines in obvious ways...
Great video, David. I'm wondering if you have ever tried using a petrol/veg oil mixture.
I can state that running veg oil is a bad idea, I ran it at about 10% with diesel and it clogged the atomiser screen within a few hours.
Ran mine on 50 50 mix for 2 days, had a ton of carbon build up. Wouldn't restart until cleaned
@@SailorJohn34 Sounds like it needs an adjustment to the fuel-air ratio.
Good to know if i ever run out of diesel.
Have you tried the heater on propane or natural gas?
Would be hard for the pump to inject a gas ? Think it would become a bomb
@@davidellis1355 I have modified a petrol fuelled generator to a propane generator. I guess it is possible to convert the diesel heater too ( I also have a Trumatic propane heater which is basically the same as the Chinese diesel heater )
a engine can be converted to propane because it has a spark at every power stroke and a intake valve to prevent the ignition of the gas to flash back. will not work as a heater. only as a bomb.
@@davidellis1355 If you bypass the onboard fuel pump and just run it from an adjustable propane regulator like on a pig cooker then it might work.
Hooold up - what software & interface to the heater controller are used?? 😀
That is an Afterburner.
Doesn't the fuel pump use the lubrication of the diesel for lubrication?
A few weeks ago I contacted you telling you my heater started up on its own just blowing cold air when I turn the heater on it works perfectly fine giving great Heat when I turned it off it shuts down very well . you recommended me to try any new ECU which I did and it still doing the same . Which means it’s not the ECU have you any other recommendations could it be the controller which is digital .?
That is weird. Does it sit anywhere that it could be getting hot and the heater runs fan to cool down again.
Do you think pinching the fuel line can lean out the mixture? Id like to try with gasoline but dont want to buy a new pump
I’m sure I seen a genuine webasto warm air heater that ran on petrol. So I think they do exist
Webasto makes a Petrol specific product line that cannot run diesel; that's most likely what you saw.
@@TheOceanX yes your probably right. I’m guessing the price for those is extortionate, which is why people want to try and use the cheaper Chinese heaters on petrol
Webasto make a petrol version of the air top 2000. The only difference I can see is the burner tube. There could be a difference in the controller firmware.
@@TheOriginalCoda so at the very least, to do this properly, you need to modify the burner tube from a diesel burner to be the same as the petrol burner.
They do. As you say in the genuine versions and in some of the chinese versions if you can find them. Most of the eBay etc listing are just a generic copy and paste often citing gasoline erroneously as a fuel type.
If you were to try propane or natural gas without the fuel pump and used a regulator to tune the pressure would that work??
It's something I've been thinking about.
hi dave did u use normal or premium petrol. my tilly lamp blows its mantles with regulor fuel. the flash rate is much more he premium
That's a great question. And I can't remember. So you think I should try high octane fuel instead?
@@DavidMcLuckie WHAT IM SAYING IS IF U USED THE CHEAP PETROL ITS OPTANE IS HIGHER THEN PREMIUM.
Fuel with ethanol would burn hotter wouldn't it?
Ethanol has fewer BTUs than straight gasoline. That’s why ethanol laced fuel gives you less MPG, tho most people don’t realize that. You may pay less for E10 fuel than straight gas, but what you lose in mileage doesn’t make up for the lower cost.
Yea I never buy the stuff me self . Was just thinking because it's a dryer burn mite put more heat
I wonder how long the pump would last pushing petrol rather than the oily lubricating diesel.
Just the same. They are petrol pumps after all.
@@TheOriginalCoda Oh' I didn't know that. I thought they may have been specifically designed to run on diesel. Apparently the pumps can wear out quicker at a 45 deg angle compared to a straight up position according to someone that opened one up ( I watched his video and it made sense to me ) to see exactly how they were made and made off. At an angle they cause dry ( bubbles or air ) to form in one part of the pump causing excessive wear as the air is trapped leaving that section dry. A straight up vertical pump apparently prevents this. This is why I thought diesel being more of a lubricant than petrol would mean the pump would wear less with diesel, unless that petrol had two stroke in it.
Anyway, I'm still learning so thanks 👍
Would be fun to try mixing with 2-stroke motor oil to see if that would make any difference in terms of pump wear.
@@gregorarnez8849 That's my thoughts too, it would take much. 👍
@@TheOriginalCoda Actually, these cheap Chinese diesel heaters use a metering pump that relies on the diesel to help lubricate the pump. It's a small piston inside a metal cylinder, which will wear prematurely without proper lubrication, and the only lubrication source is the fuel passing through it. Even running kerosene with too low of a sulfur content will wear out the pump prematurely.
David.
I have tried to buy an Afterburner but Ray is not sending to UK anymore for various reasons.
Any idea where I can get one.
PS I run my heater on Parrafin seems to run very clean, might be worth you trying.
Regards
Peter
Sadly can't help with getting an Afterburner in the UK. Can confirm paraffin works great in the heaters.
What settings should I set my diesel heater to to run it on gasoline better low and high temps/speeds and I'm only a few hundred feet above sea level living in the wash DC area
Can't give you specific settings. The heaters seem to run ok at high power on gasoline, but on low mine flamed out after a while.
@@DavidMcLuckie that's what it seems like too higher blower 4200 4500 rpm and 5 Hz pump seems to work better than the 2200 2500 rpm and 2.5 Hz pump rates
Brilliant video thank you 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
I have another suggestion. These are Diesel heaters, so they burn Diesel, yes the clue is in the name ??? Is there a difference to the type of diesel ? by that I mean, Shell V+ or BP Ultimate or Shopping branded diesel. Does the type of fuel from the pump make any difference of burning, smell, smoke and amount it uses, make any difference ? Thanks
The additives in fuel are mostly detergents and for the performance side a cetane booster of some type. Whether the cost of the higher grade fuel is worth it in the long run would need someone to run a heater for years and only use one brand of fuel. That sounds like a Project Farm kind of experiment. I couldn't bank roll that. :)
@@DavidMcLuckie Wouldn't necessarily need to run for years, a way to measure the thermal output accurately and then compare how much heat you get per unit of each type of fuel would do, and then a careful comparison of level of soot buildup and such. I wouldn't expect a significant difference though.
can i make a suggestion diesel is now more exspensive than petrol why dont you mix 50% petrol with %50 diesel something to consider is that diesel fuell lubricates the fuel pump unlike petrol
Hi David, as THE experimenter go to guy, and thinking about possible heater clogging with soot, is it worth considering adding a diesel treatment to the straight diesel fuel? I just saw a notice at a garage near me advertising AdBlue additive. I had no idea what it was so I checked on TH-cam and it is an anti knock agent I think! I have my heater up and running now and it is working fine. 5-8 kw and I am learning about the history of them, a lot of which comes from you. It’s a cosmic substance so perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree lol. I enjoy your videos but worry about you breathing the exhaust fumes as you often do!
Adblue is for emissions reduction and is injected into vehicles exhausts.
As for other additives, they won't hurt the heater, but I'm not sure how much cleaning they would do.
@@DavidMcLuckie thank you for that David. Understood.
yeah, add blue is 50% water and 50% catalyst to reduce the flashpoint of unburnt ash in the particle filter.
it cars inject it straight into the exhaust.
if you mix your fuel with it, it will cristalize and seperate.
also all the water will just cool your burnchamber down, if not even flame out
Hello! Is it possible to run these diesel heaters on propane?
Brilliant man 👍😎❤️
hey where do you get the various size pumps? I cannot get anyone to tell me what the pump volumes per stroke are.. no one .. my 12kw heater runs at 7.5hz , it has a terrible time starting in really cold weather.. I opened the heater and ther glowplug was perfect, the burn chamber, nozzle and screen all perfectly but still when its say -5c and colder the heater often fails to start.. considering trying a mix of petrol and diesel.. or perhaps running it on K1 kerosene? I want to try other pumps..
you may have a voltage problem. if your battery voltage is low the glow plug will not get to te proper temperatuŕe in the allowed time.
@@stalbertjocelyn I upsized the wiring as the original harness was definmitely wimpy.. my Bus is plugged into both an AGM battery charger and the engine block heater(block heaster has no bearing on the diesel heater).. the display on the heater reads 13v when in startup mode.. still no dice in the cold.. seems like it just blasts too much fuel at it.. ill see the exhaust temp start to rise.. can even hear what sounds like fire then the fuel pump speeds up and i just get tons of smoke.. sometimes it will cycle a couple times and get itself going.. most often it goes down with an E-02 flame-out error code..
AliExpress. 16, 22, 28, 35, 65. Perhaps also some other weird sizes.
@@DavidMcLuckie thank you.. I was on the actual alibaba site and they were hard to find.. lots of them on aliexpress. super! now if my heater motherboard only supported afterburner.. time for a different board.. VVKB heater is rubbish And I paid too much for it.. turns out they just buy them from someone else and re-market.. there are about 6 heaters that use the exact same body and pump (the junkie flange mount like your 16kw water heater has).. I need to 3D print that hose flange you made sop I can use a divorced pump.
I wonder if the temp censor is acting up and not recording the heat on the housing fast enough on cold weather. check if it's touching the housing.
is there any way to us a different pump? something that you can vary the speed and not vary how often it pulses?
If there was something or some way of turning the pulse into a linear voltage and make it adjustable, then you could use a peristaltic pump or something similar.
Can you make a longtime test with the pump on gasoline/petrol, because it doesnt lubricate like diesel.
Just use 2 stroke premix 😁👍
@@metricstormtrooper Exactly what I was thinking. XD
How would a 50/50 mix of diesel and petrol burn .
Great. My friend has a garage and he runs his on misfuel from dead cars plus a bit of diesel.
you could modify the combustion fan so its restricted maybe?
What sort of fuel savings would you get with the 16 over the 22?
I wouldn't expect much. So although the per stroke amount is less, you'd need to adjust the frequency up to maintain the same heat output. In theory it should burn more efficiently with shorter squirts more often.
so where did you get the after burner. And at Altitude should i down size my pump im at 8000 ft and it will not run
Ray has a website - www.mrjones.id.au/afterburner/
I'd certainly try turning the fueling down.
Helooooooo!
David, I noticed a later type controller (blue) & red remote on the bench.
Can you use this on any chinese air heater?
Yes and no. There are now so many ECU combinations it's impossible to tell just by looking. If it has a triangular plug that's a good start, but you'd have to buy it and plug it in to see if it actually works.
@@DavidMcLuckie that's what I was thinking.
Thanks for the reply!
Instead of gasoline or petrol, can the heater run on chainsaw fuel?
Yes. That's just gasoline/petrol and a mix of two stroke oil. Might smoke a bit.
I'd like to know if I can run one of these on propane or natural gas. If anybody knows the answer to this I'd appreciate it.
You need to build an adjustable frequency divider/multiplier so you can tune your pumps speed. Be a useful diagnosis tool
Where can I get one?
@@DavidMcLuckie If youd prefer to buy something maybe a speedohealer would do it. The car modding guys use them, its a box which sits in the speedo sensor line (pulsed square wave on most cars) and lets you adjust the multiplication up and down
I had mine light. Then ran propane into intake and shut of fuel. Ran!
Nice.
please publish the video of your gas method
Wonder if anyone has thought about a gas ignition instead of a glow plug 🤔 if it where possible.
I’d think you don’t want to use a spark plug because you don’t want an explosion but a steady fire instead. If you mean a hot plate igniter like a gas /lpg oven, then these units already basically use the same thing, just smaller.
@@MittyNuke1 ovens have a pilot light
Holy Snidt , a small petrol Bomb
HELOOOOOOOOOOOO MY FRIEND LOL
Has anyone ever tested these heaters to determine the BTU ratings instead of what /hey advertise as KW?
I presume you mean the BTU of the blown air?
@@DavidMcLuckie yes, like standard heaters are rated.
any chance of you using what you have learned from hacking these to make a better waste oil burner I've been hoping you would make a update on the one you did way back if you could control one like this and have it self regulate even monitoring CO2 you would be the first in the DIY world of TH-cam
The problem with waste oil is all the rubbish in it. You'd either have to filter down to a ridiculously small size, sub micron. Or take it apart every few hours to clean the ash out. Thermobil style waste oil burners are the best design, plenty of heat and easy to clean out. You can run anything in them.
@@DavidMcLuckie 😞you wear all most there your oil feed was a 🍋and the burn pot needed a rethink if you add a secondary reburner like new wood stoves have use multiple sensors temp O2 etc and control it all with ardweno it could be ground breaking I'd do it myself but I'm no good with tec
So My pump will be ok on gas ?
Not really. It will have a shorter life than if it was running on diesel.
@@DavidMcLuckie what can I expect from the pump ? I really want to run this heater on my vans fuel tank cause then I'll never have to deal with the higher cost of diesel here
It could run for years. But I've also had they die for no reason. I always suggest carrying a spare.
@@DavidMcLuckie so I could possibly expect awhile if I run gas ? And what settings you recommend for gas ? I have the 5kw heater under 1000 ft
I have the 22 ml pump
Hi David, Iv seen it here first, one of these "diesel" heaters working on petrol.
The Hungarian controller has a bridge option to convert it to petrol, have you tried that? Would be interesting to see what changes regarding fan speed and pump frequency. On the WTT software, I'm only able to adjust fuel pump Hz so I guess you just match fuel Hz to their pre-set fan speed as you would running it on diesel? Question is, does the petrol option work?
I haven't tried that petrol option yet.
can we mix petrol and diesel,??
Yes.
what is the optimal mixing ratio?
how can I clean the burning chamber and the atomizer with the glow head?
without dismantling the heater body
Have you ever tried alcohol ?
Yes, well ethanol / bioethanol.
Howz about a gallon of petrol to say... 5 gallons of diesel?
It's Mrs doubtfire
I thought it would go bang lol
HELLO!!!
Salut Ami place ce faci 😊 laik laik laik
Are the Chinese getting confused with what diesel is called in Europe, Gazoline
Its called gazole
@@BubbaSnipe is this where the Chinese are getting confused,when doing their instructions.
🤙😁