White smoke from diesel heater

[2kool4skool]

While up north, one morning was a bit chilly so I fired up the heater. It worked but puts out lots of stinky white smoke.

Ok, it's running rich.

Tried it at home, lower el...same.

Checked the intake for obstructions...clear.

I MAY have put in some fuel with additive in it.

Water in fuel?

Drain and put in fresh fuel?

Heard running on kero. will clean up any deposits?


Any thoughts.

[2kool4skool]

OK, called Planar USA and tune up parts are on the way. Horror stories, at least so far, regarding lack of service are not true.

This unit has quite a few hours on it. I read there's a small air orifice that feeds the burner that gets clogged with soot., causing the rich condition. We shall see upon disassembly.

[chev49]

i wont use no 2 OTR diesel or farm diesel in my heater... only no 1, n have also used kerosene...

[turf]

i think we have the same one.
mine fouled out at high altitude. it wouldnt start for a while after that.

i forgot about it. and tried it again a month later, boom, it lit. i let it run and clear out for a while, and its worked well since.

glad to hear there is service!

good luck with it!


edit:
now that i think about it. my white smoke foul happened while i was also running some 2 stroke oil as a diesel additive. the 2 stroke helps power, but may have contributed to the foul

[cadillackid]

ive got one of those diesel heaters.. still new in the box i havent even taken it out yet.. I suppose i should wire and pipe it up before winter..
-Christopher

[2kool4skool]

Ok, follow up report.

I replaced the combustion chamber, could have just cleaned the old. I did clean the old after the fact so I have a spare.

I had to clean the heat exchanger also, ran it on power mode high for about 1/2 hour before it cleared.

I found out:

Always run it on high for a while on a regular basis before you shut it down. This will help burn off the soot.

The heater is quite simple, there are a few vids online that walk you through most maintenance.

Expect to get DIRTY when servicing the unit.

Problem solved. Planar 44D 12v.

Caddy; Do it, the heater works very well for us, 13000 plus BTU and 26 ft stock bus. Toasty warm in the 30's. I mounted it under the stairwell with one outlet on the side wall of the well. The living area is in the front, the bed is in the rear so that area stays cooler which we like. At bedtime I turn it to (temp mode) 19C or lower, keeps it just right. 20C is 68, 30C is 86.

[2kool4skool]

Originally Posted by chev49

i wont use no 2 OTR diesel or farm diesel in my heater... only no 1, n have also used kerosene...

What heater do you have?

[2kool4skool]

Been running kero and all's well.

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by 2kool4skool

the heater works very well for us, 13000 plus BTU and 26 ft stock bus. Toasty warm in the 30's. I mounted it under the stairwell with one outlet on the side wall of the well. The living area is in the front, the bed is in the rear so that area stays cooler which we like. At bedtime I turn it to (temp mode) 19C or lower, keeps it just right. 20C is 68, 30C is 86.

Huh. I don't suppose you've got any pictures of this setup? I've been looking at a diesel heater and would like an out of the way place to mount it. Up till now I've been thinking behind the driver's seat....the stairwell idea intrigues me.

[alpine44]

Whether it is a Webasto, Espar, Planar, or a Chinese knock-off, these heaters will run rich at higher elevations and build up soot inside, especially at the lower setting. Ironically, the cheap Chinese heaters can be adjusted from the control panel whereas Espar requires an expensive high altitude add-on controller. Don't know what Webasto and Planar has to offer.

Running the heater at full output before shut down, as mentioned above, will hep. But at some point, disassembly and cleaning is inevitable.

If the heater is clean inside and still smokes at sea level, check the combustion air intake and exhaust pipe. They need to be free of obstructions (rodents, mud wasps?) and the exhaust should not be too long and the intake not too short.

The inertia of the air column in a sufficiently long intake will stabilize the flame and avoid resonance. A long exhaust will decrease the air ratio and promote resonance. (Without intake pipe, an Espar V7S --a 41000BTU/hr heater for military trucks-- sounds like an organ pipe that can be tuned with the exhaust length. That could come in handy as a revenge for camp neighbors running the genny all night.)

Christopher, if you plan to operate your heater at different altitudes and very low output, replace the factory controller with a DIY microcontroller that can adjust the fuel ratio. I did the same for various Espar and Webasto heaters I bough without the expensive factory controllers and now have more features than the original. PM me for details.

[turf]

i've sooted out mine a few times.

my cleaning method is neither approved or fancy but it has worked for me.

i will go get a couple of cans of brake cleaner, one can gets sprayed up into the exhaust pipe. i remove the glow plug and spray the second can straight down into the combustion chamber.


i've burned out a few glow plugs on mine. the soot makes a jacket over the glow plug and eventually keeps it from igniting the flame. when i was living at 8500' i went through a glow plug each year. now that im down lower i hope to replace it only one last time.


any info on making the planar run leaner i'd sure be interested in. i've considered installing a 2nd, smaller fuel pump for high altitude.

when they work, they're great. when they don't, people look at you like cheech and chong.

[alpine44]

Originally Posted by turf

i've sooted out mine a few times.

my cleaning method is neither approved or fancy but it has worked for me.

i will go get a couple of cans of brake cleaner, one can gets sprayed up into the exhaust pipe. i remove the glow plug and spray the second can straight down into the combustion chamber.


i've burned out a few glow plugs on mine. the soot makes a jacket over the glow plug and eventually keeps it from igniting the flame. when i was living at 8500' i went through a glow plug each year. now that im down lower i hope to replace it only one last time.


any info on making the planar run leaner i'd sure be interested in. i've considered installing a 2nd, smaller fuel pump for high altitude.

when they work, they're great. when they don't, people look at you like cheech and chong.

The feed volume of the Espar V7S heater pump is adjustable to compensate for the very limited features of the 1st generation factory controller. This pump is way too big for your heater but you could limit the piston travel of a Chinese heater fuel pump in a similar fashion. I will look into this tomorrow.

If you know your way around a soldering iron and digital electronics, you could use a binary rate multiplier like the CD4089b to modify the fuel pump pulse frequency coming from the factory controller. The use case example in the data sheet (multiplication of input signal by a fractional value) is exactly what you need to reduce the amount of fuel at higher altitudes.

[lqdchkn]

Originally Posted by alpine44

The feed volume of the Espar V7S heater pump is adjustable to compensate for the very limited features of the 1st generation factory controller. This pump is way too big for your heater but you could limit the piston travel of a Chinese heater fuel pump in a similar fashion. I will look into this tomorrow.

If you know your way around a soldering iron and digital electronics, you could use a binary rate multiplier like the CD4089b to modify the fuel pump pulse frequency coming from the factory controller. The use case example in the data sheet (multiplication of input signal by a fractional value) is exactly what you need to reduce the amount of fuel at higher altitudes.

All that sounds more complicated than say splicing a potentiometer into the fuel pump circuit and slowing down the pump a bit????? Not sure whether that would be possible or not??

[alpine44]

Originally Posted by lqdchkn

All that sounds more complicated than say splicing a potentiometer into the fuel pump circuit and slowing down the pump a bit????? Not sure whether that would be possible or not??

Negative. You need to change the frequency at which the pump receives a full 12V pulse or mechanically limit the piston travel in the pump. (That reminds me to take the Chinese pump apart and check whether the volume per stroke can be changed.)

If you supply too low of a voltage to the pump, the piston will not move at all and you get zero fuel.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by alpine44

Negative. You need to change the frequency at which the pump receives a full 12V pulse or mechanically limit the piston travel in the pump. (That reminds me to take the Chinese pump apart and check whether the volume per stroke can be changed.)

If you supply too low of a voltage to the pump, the piston will not move at all and you get zero fuel.

At least you get infinite efficiency that way. Or "undefined" if you're pedantic.

[alpine44]

Chinese pump CANNOT be adjusted for volume per stroke, which is not surprising for a $14 item.

If there is a Maker Space or Hacker Space close to you, ask someone there to help you with the binary rate multiplier. It is really not that difficult, the components are cheap, and you can develop/test the prototype with a blinker relays from a car so you do not have to lug the heater to the lab.

The other great use for these devices is to adjust your vehicle speed sensor signal for tires with different diameter if you speedo is not programmable.

[alpine44]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

At least you get infinite efficiency that way. Or "undefined" if you're pedantic.

Being completely un-pedantic, I would say you'll get a cold bus.

[alpine44]

Someone mentioned running Kerosene in the heater and if we take that a little further, we could add oxygenating additives to Diesel. The additives would provide some of the oxygen atoms that are lacking in the high-altitude air.

That may not be feasible when drawing fuel from the main tank but at least for a cleaning run the heater could be fed with oxygenated fuel.

Ethanol/Methanol and other compounds are mentioned in this paper

Fuel to air ratios by weight for common fuels are:

Fuel type, Stoichiometric AFR
----------------------------------------------
Diesel, 14.6 : 1
Pure Gasoline, 14.7 : 1
10% Ethanol Gas, 14.04 : 1
15% Ethanol Gas, 13.79 : 1
E85, 9.75 : 1
Pure Ethanol, 9 : 1
...and for those who like to go to the extreme:
Nitromethane 1.7(!) : 1

[wrenchtech]

My recently installed Chinese diesel heater has the same problem. I ran it out of fuel last night and now I have air bubbles in the fuel line. I also got the wrong fuel line with the heater. Apparently the pump is very sensitive to flexibility of the walls of the fuel line which seems to absorb some of the pump's energy. In any case right now I'm just blowing off white smoke and not getting ignition.

My pump is a 5 kW (17,500 btu) unit. With half of the old floor stripped down to bare metal and no new insulation added, the heate is only able to raise the temperature inside the bus about 10° when the outside temperature is around 32° I think when I get some good insulation and tighten up some of the air leakage from the windows, two of these heaters will heat the bus pretty well. My only question now is whether they're reliable enough to be depended upon.

[wrenchtech]

<BTW> To the point of adjustability of the pulse frequency to the pump, I believe that this is adjustable from the controller on the Chinese heaters. There is a Facebook group for troubleshooting these heaters catchy and the owner of that group has put out a 16 part video series that is available on YouTube that is pretty comprehensive.