the DEV RANDOM

[cadillackid]

I dint go with any of those black heater styles as my space was limited.. i was trying to replace the 12 kw which was already there rather than have to find a completely new place to mount it so I went with the D&E.. that controller you got a pic of is completely different than my controller..



that 24 hour thing is interesting.. ill have to see if I turn the heater on with the hard switch in the harness lets it run longer than 24 hours or not.. since thats a switch it could easily be set up to turn off and back on periodically with a timer or such id think.



im not sure id rely 100% on a diesel heater for freeze protection .. the number of times thyey start and stop and it seems after 2 attempts (on my old heater) of a failed start and it gave up till you turned it off and back on then it would try again.. so id at least want some type of monitoring system that could restart it if need be or alert me if it was just dead in the water.



the advantage the Real webastos have (and maybe those black heaters) is that they throttle.. neither my 12kw VVKB or the D&E 16kw throttle.. it goes full blast till setpoint, shuts off, then lets the coolant chill down 15c from the setpoint then fires up again full blast.. the advantage of course is that you dont have ay carboning up from low combustion chamber temp.. I really wish my heater throttled.. im going to try it through this winter and see if the larger heater not throttling is an issue.. I injstalled it in march and here spring came somewhat early so I havent used it in any really cold weather yet. a couple 20 degree F mornings is about the coldest I got since I put it in ..


the real webasto brands are large like these but are yellow.. same shape.. the real webasto units dont come with a controller.. you have the ability to control a webasto with K-Line, sometimes CAN, and a timer typically.. otherwise its apply 12 volts to a wire and it goes.. at least thats how my TSL-17 (5KW) is in the red bus. and that one throttles.. if im sitting in that bus with the driver heater on low speed the webasto will run continuously at a slow speed and never shuts off unless I turn the fan off or it gets ungodly hot in the bus.



maybe I'll try and find the link to those you pictured, order one and play with it just for kicks. those arent all D&E are they?

[Bert06840]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

I dint go with any of those black heater styles as my space was limited.. i was trying to replace the 12 kw which was already there rather than have to find a completely new place to mount it so I went with the D&E.. that controller you got a pic of is completely different than my controller..

Ugh.. of course... But there is a 6 pin header. A good start.

Originally Posted by cadillackid

that 24 hour thing is interesting.. ill have to see if I turn the heater on with the hard switch in the harness lets it run longer than 24 hours or not.. since thats a switch it could easily be set up to turn off and back on periodically with a timer or such id think.

Yeah, I presume that that is a problem I can work around somehow.

im not sure id rely 100% on a diesel heater for freeze protection .. the number of times thyey start and stop and it seems after 2 attempts (on my old heater) of a failed start and it gave up till you turned it off and back on then it would try again.. so id at least want some type of monitoring system that could restart it if need be or alert me if it was just dead in the water.

I don't trust anything... That's why I have three heaters, two diesel air heaters and then hopefully soon the D&E.

The air heaters are in the cabin, so if diesel freezing is an issue, they will be less affected by it. The hydronic heater will be all the way in the back.

I'm considering lining the fuel lines with resistance wire or some other heating element of sort. Mercedes used to run fuel lines of their diesel cars through the coolant overflow tank. While that is of no help when your engine is not running, heated diesel has some benefits.

the advantage the Real webastos have (and maybe those black heaters) is that they throttle.. neither my 12kw VVKB or the D&E 16kw throttle.. it goes full blast till setpoint, shuts off, then lets the coolant chill down 15c from the setpoint then fires up again full blast.. the advantage of course is that you dont have ay carboning up from low combustion chamber temp.. I really wish my heater throttled.. im going to try it through this winter and see if the larger heater not throttling is an issue.. I injstalled it in march and here spring came somewhat early so I havent used it in any really cold weather yet. a couple 20 degree F mornings is about the coldest I got since I put it in ..

My biggest concern is that the D&E 16kW heater isn't even close to 16kW. You know how some Chinese companies play fast and loose with numbers.

That said, one of the reasons why I did NOT got overboard with the power is that the burn cycles will be longer if the dimensioning is done somewhat correctly. If a, say, 30kW the heater starts up, pumps a load of heat in the system and 2 minutes later shuts down because the coolant is near boiling, that's not going result into clean burns. If it runs for longer hotter combustion cycles, that's going to be better.

the real webasto brands are large like these but are yellow.. same shape.. the real webasto units dont come with a controller.. you have the ability to control a webasto with K-Line, sometimes CAN, and a timer typically.. otherwise its apply 12 volts to a wire and it goes.. at least thats how my TSL-17 (5KW) is in the red bus. and that one throttles.. if im sitting in that bus with the driver heater on low speed the webasto will run continuously at a slow speed and never shuts off unless I turn the fan off or it gets ungodly hot in the bus.

I didn't know that. I had a Volvo with a diesel heater and it did exactly like you describe. This was northern Europe, it came standard with a diesel heater. I didn't have it long enough to look too deeply into it.

maybe I'll try and find the link to those you pictured, order one and play with it just for kicks. those arent all D&E are they?

Actually no. It's from these guys https://www.auto-parkingheater.com/c...er/12v-heater/

And I believe them to be credible too. I asked them to explain me the difference between the grey "webasto" style heaters and the "submarine style" ones, when power levels are the same.

No answer yet.

But there may be some marketing BS involved. The legit Webasto-style heaters seem to be 5 or 9-ish kW maximum, and the submarine-style starts at 20kW, with one exception at 16.3kW.

So perhaps someone is being a bit optimistic with the webasto-style and advertise a 9.2kW at 16kW to fill that gap. Same with the 16.3kW submarine, perhaps that is a downrated 20kW unit.

[Bert06840]

Christopher,

I owe you my sincere thanks for the amount of time you saved me.



There’s a good chance this will work out just fine, and worst case I need to order another “submarine” model. Which I would have to do anyway if I had gone through the stuff myself.

You just saved me days of work.

Bert

[cadillackid]

for some reason this post didnt make it here.. this forum sometimes..



Webasto makes heaters in both "shapes" not sure which you mean by submarine and which is a torpedo..



the silver 12 / 16 KW units shorter bodies.. are similar in shape to the small webasto TSL-17 (5kw) units..



the Black Long body Units are similar to the Webasto "scholastic 45" or the 'D" series (bright yellow) webasto units made nowadays.



I got a response from DezHou ChangTou mechanical.. one of the black long body Units.. (NF-07) in 12 volt 16 kw. she says the temperature is fixed .. 60c to 80c is the range.. she didnt say if it throttles or iof it goes on at 60 and off at 80. . the only control it has is a switch.. so thats encouraging if you want to run it all the time.. or use an external timer.



the D&E I have installed now i can set the temperature with the knob on the controller (or in the TTL data stream)..



as for whether they are really 16kw I think the INPUT heat may be 16kw but as hot as the exhaust gets the efficiency cant be anything super good. with a coolant heater you could add a secondary heat exchanger to the exhaust pretty easily.. do like Youtube David and use an EGR cooler as a heat exchanger... maybe thats where you could get tempered floor heat from... I experimented with an old bus heater just stuffing the exhaust into the input of the bus heater and it blew out some serious hot air.. im sure the heater core would plug up and overheat if I tried to use it for real.. but I wanted to see how much backpressure you could put on the exhaust and have the heater not black-smoke or snuff out.. an EGR cooler is made to have super heated exhaust gas so it could take it..


**edit** this is the 3rd try.. forum keeps jacking up my post!!!

[cadillackid]

UPDATE:


my D&E heater blew up.. well something went wrong with it..



I get codes E7 and E8 so first code was a short on the Drive motor (combustion fan) and the second code is an open.. so im guessing the motor shorted then blew open..


either way its yet another failed chinese diesel coolant heater.. and of course the chinese people are not much help with disassembly diagrams or such..


I'll pull it out of the bus and bench it to see whats going on.. I nerver even got a winter out of this one.. maybe its something simple like a wire got against something too hot and i can just fix it.. but I suspect the motor will be toasted.. in which case ill compare to see if the motor from one of my other boxes of heater pieces will fit it..



in the meantime I grabbed the REAL webasto DBW2010 that I harvested as non-working from an IC bus we scrapped a couple weeks ago..



the design of the real webasto is 100% different than that of these smaller chinese rigs.. it is actually designed like a standard oil-burner home furnace or boiler.. in fact it uses the same nozzle type and a spark ignitor vs a glowplug.. the result is a near instant startup and shutdown and they are designed to be worked on while installed...


that particular heater has a bad motor in it because someone at the school performed improper maintainence however im learning why aschools spend the big $$ vs the chinese stuff..



with all the time, effort, and $$ ive spent on these heaters I couldve put in a real Spheros (webasto brand) unit and had real warranty and real parts availability.....



live and learn!!


more to come..



-Christopher

[rossvtaylor]

Thanks for the update, Christopher - I'm following along and wishing you luck.

[Kubla]

I do not think the one in my MCI works, not to worried about it, it had no problem keeping me warm when driving in 15 degree weather and I have no plans to drive into cold country in the winter

[peakbus]

That reassures me. I read all the posts of people loving how cheap the Chinese heaters were and how there were so many great forums on how to repair and tweak them. Then I went and bought the Espar air heater because when I want heat- I need heat, not a project! Sorry for your hassles though.

[cadillackid]

The air heaters seem to be different. There is a huge online following and such which helps.

So I took my d and e Chinese heater down for disassembly.

The fan wheel appears to have crashed into the case , not sure why.. they are pressed onto the shaft and I suspect with not enough clearance. So with a little movement or bearing wear it would get easily bound up.

There is apparently no protection in the motherboard as it fried the driver circuit on the board…. Of course the Chinese love to think they are proprietary so they shaved the numbers off of the transistors .. making it near impossible for me to repair the board.

We will see if they can get me a new one or not. And I’ll order a whole spare heater to keep as well.

[cadillackid]

D&E is sending me new parts for the heater.. on the board the flyback diode appears to be what fried and the transistor you can see has been hot.. transistor shorts and blows the diode? thats a puzzling one unless that circuit isnt set up how I think it is..



for some reason the chinese seem to feel the need to block out the component numbers even on common stuff like diodes and transistors.. so I have no chance of changing them..


in this day and age of software.. to me there is little excuse for burning up of components electronically due to a motor locking up..


the board soft starts the fan.. and it also can read its RPM out on the display.. as well it knows if the motor is an open or short.. (indiciative of the current sensing resistor that is seen on the board.. in fact there are several current sense resistors).. there are 3 drive circuits on the board that are transistor drivers. one for the combustion motor, one for the glow plug, and one for the water pump.. I dont see one for the fuel pump.. maybe they are driving that a different way..



I may try figuring their circuits out just for fun and see if i slapped a new transistor and flyback in there if it would clear the error code.. sense they are sending me a new board anyway.. it can be an experiment.. I also found what appears to be a JTAG port on the board.. so I can play there too!.

[cadillackid]

back at the heaters.. I slapped in the spare VVKB I had in a box.. its a 12kw, and will get me by till i get the replacement parts and such for the D&E...



the sad state of affairs.. and why we the USA has 65 boats floating waiting for delivery.. the real webasto.. it needs a Motor which lists for over $350 and is on Fleabay for $300.. it needs a Nozzle, pretty standard stuff as $25. it needs a new digital controller that lists for $200 plus... it needs a bearing kit at $50 (from what I can find). it needs several hours of cleaning and labor to make it work again correct.. CHina can send me TWO!! complete units that are built with what appears are the same components.. (the Nozzle type system). other than the motor im sure is chinese instead of Bosch.. its sad that its more $$ to repair what is probably a better heater than it is to buy 2 new ones from China..

[Nicholaschase29]

Hey I just spotted your bus in Beloit! I live a couple blocks from downtown and am working on a shorty of my own.

[cadillackid]

ha!! yeppers im hanging out at Blue Collar Coffee



I just took off yesterday from ohio for points unknown and am just driving... this will be a good trip to test my Aux heating system judging from the subzero weather forecasts upcoming.

[cadillackid]

**an update** on the DEV bus.



first off, the bus has been once again my saviour as I spend lots of time in it when coffee shops and restaraunts get too busy for me to supress my Cov-anxiety.. (or when they are freezing cold inside)


so.. I ended uo in minnesota.. why? in the winter? ha! who knows but im here and my bus is here.. and the coffee at this coffee shop i found is good.. really I packed a bag tossed it on a seat, packed my work stuff and took off.. shortly after leaving my phone went off with some errors from a server in my office so I headed there to fix it. that sent me 50 miles from home in a Northwest direction.. alas i kept that theme going..


one thing of note is that in ohio and indiana and parts of michigan, coffee shops, restaraunts, and the like deem it necessary to keep the places freezing cold.. ironically when I go up north where everyone is used to the cold.. they crank the heat.. all these places are so nice and warm inside!! when I was south in Knoxville and chattanooga it was the same.. Nice n warm inside,, I guess ohio is a 'girthy' state so places are cold.. <sigh>



so now that im here.. this is Huge test of my heating systems.. its going to be minus 10f tonight (new years eve) and -18 to -20f tomorrow night.



its 14 this morning and of course the bus started easily.. pretty amazing for no glow plugs / no grid heater. it fired up easy..



I doubt it will fire up on its own tomorrow morning.. and I wont try real hard. no reason to stress out the batteries and started. (I have a total of 6 fully charged group 31 AGM batteries). 2 starters and 4 house (which can be connected by isolator engage if needed).



D&E replaced my broken heater parts as werll as sent me a new heater.. I installed the new one and then fixed the original. so the big thing will be can the diesel heater start up in that cold. theoretically I should be able to run the diesel heater to heat the coolant loops for an hour or so then fire the engine.



one thing NEVER EVER DO!!! is heat the coolant loops for the cabin with the engine valves closed and then open the valves.. you literally could destroy your engine in seconds by sending 180 degree water into a -10 engine.. so its a MUST to make sure the cabin to engine valves are Open when you start the heating process. the system capacity is large enough that the coolant has time to disperse the heast evenly into the block and heads as it warms up.



the hotel im staying in is the type with a massive Atrium so i can feel comfortable about being out and about in the Lobby to ring in the new year tonight.. they keep the heat and ventilation active all the time. you can feel the air move..



im Vaxxed and Boosted.. ive had a *LOT* of psychological grief lately in regards to getting out and about.. at this point in my life, getting severely damaged by covid is likely a LOT LESS than the severe damage im taking psychologically.. losing interest in my passions and work is a red-light warning sign.. thus I need to fix that.. No I dont need to go to concerts or massive parties or sit in overcrowded bars or nightclubs..

However i need to get back to road trips.. for years I took many road trips per year.. all over the place.. the last 2 years they have been very sparse.. one major trip per year.. other than an occasional work jaunt.. (winter '21 was many trips to chicago for work.. that project is the only reason i survived that winter)..


so here we are on a small adventure.. driving and testing out various systems on my bus and building on the tech on the bus.. finding coffee shops to hang out in and enjoy.

-Christopher