Planar heater purchase and installation (later)

[starcruiser]

Just a quick one for now...I'm almost out of data so I'll post pictures when we return home. Installation is pretty much finished and heater is operational.

Still haven't mastered switching on/off as instructions are incomprehensible. First impressions: very warm on the lowest setting. Tick tick tick of the fuel pump everyone seems to complain about is inaudible. It's in the bilge under 3/4 inch floorboards.

No roar of jumbo jets taking off. No need for mufflers. Hot air vent is about as loud as a portable electric fan heater. All good so far.

A more exhaustive post later this week....

[aclmck]

i often use kero in with the diesel in machines that sit for a while to avoid the "bugs in diesel" that are often found causing the fuel to go gluggy and the injectors blocking (i only normally have issues while using portable tanks or 20 litre containers and i'm not sure why) some say because of the light but i have encountered this with metal containers as well. so a little kero would be the go in the tank when leaving for an extended period

[starcruiser]

The hot air exits through this rotatable vent in the dining seat.
And the heater installation in a rear locker. It's bolted to a bulkhead which separates the cabin from the rear area. He dining seat is of the bulkhead so just a short 450 mm (1 1/2 feet) duct.

Installation and wiring still needs tidying up.

More pics and posts whenwe return home.

[ColdEH]

Be care full with that exhaust . It will burn your boat down ! It is the most dangerous part of the installation and needs extreme attention . The heat drying out the wood over time will ignite it . I have had my Webasto 2010 on board for over 2 years and I regularly check surrounding surfaces for signs of heat damage .

This is what I wrapped my pipe with .

W001-886 2-3/4" lace-on high temperature exhaust insulation

Regards

[starcruiser]

Thanks Typhoon. Yes it gets very hot at the hull. I have a double walled stainless steel thru-hull and am monitoring it. For the moment, though, heat is more an issue at the heated air vent.

For the first 3 days post installation we were more than happy with the heater. Having finally worked out how to use the digital controller, we opted
to use the power setting rather than temperature mode.

But in the 4th day it began powering down after a few minutes. Code 1 error... overheating caused by an obstruction, or faulty sensor. This repeated every
time I set it on high. On mid-range it happily churned along, but heating he cabin took comparatively much longer.

I removed the plastic cover to ensure there was nothing obstructing flow. Everything looked pristine.

What had changed to cause the error? Well, we were having huge problems with the batteries. So I rewired the house and starter banks with new 0 AWG cable and terminals. Massive 2 days of hard, bruising, contorting work....and on the heels of the equally bruising and contorting heater installation.

Right away the results were obvious. The batteries charged quickly and held it.

So I am assuming the extra power available o the heater enabled it to run much, much more efficiently. So?

Efficiently means hotter and the way i placed 3 bends in the hot air duct in short run is causing banking up of hot air. It's being produced faster than it can be expelled.

So next time it's going to be out with the hole saw, a new route with one less bend and a gentler one too.

Also, as the heater is connected directly to the house bank, a switch will be inserted. At the moment I have to unplug it at the loom.

More later...

[CaptTom]

Interesting observations. I had the same issue with thermal shutdown using the thermostat control. The ducts are short and only have one gentle 90-degree turn on each end. It's a fairly short run to the power panel, and doesn't change whether on shore power or battery only, so I don't believe it's a low voltage problem. I suspect the internal fan that moves the heated air is just too weak for the amount of heat this thing can generate. I wonder if augmenting it with an external fan would help.

My solution has been to just run it on one of the lower power settings. I still worry about the exhaust temperature, even with the thermal blankets covering the whole exhaust pipe. I still worry about CO leaking somehow. So I'm not at the point where I'd leave it running overnight.

If I had it to do over, I'd buy the smaller unit and find a place for it that would allow a very short exhaust run. If I could design the whole boat from scratch, I'd go for a diesel-fired hydronic baseboard system that also heated the domestic hot water.

Meanwhile, this thing is great for what I bought it for; taking the chill off when shorepower is not available, without running the genset.

[starcruiser]

The installation took longer than planned, mainly because of the unclear instructions -- I suspect a literal google translation of the Russian manual at play here, resulting in "RussEnglish".

The colour coding of wires for the controller was the worst offender, because both ends had different coloured wires and the instructions were of little help.
The orientation of terminals to be placed within the connectors also needed sleuthing.

The air outlet as mentioned has one or two too-many 90 degree bends, first from the heater and down towards the floor, then into the bulkhead, then at the very end into the cabin. This I suspect is causing backed up heat over the exchanger.

The wiring looms looked very long...about 6 metres. So I drilled holes for the controller at the opposite end of the cabin, thinking its cabling was the same length.

Unfortunately, the controller wiring is very short, about 1.5 metres. and it wouldn't reach. So for the moment it had to be relocated over the dining table. I could splice some computer cable to join it, but sounds too fiddly.

In any case, we don't plan to run the heater according to the controller's inbuilt thermostat, so the position is irrelevant.

The fuel standpipe is for the moment just sitting in the main diesel tank until I decide whether to have a separate tank which allows for occasional mixing with kerosene, or take fuel from the diesel filters handily located near the heater fuel pump.

With my mouth I prime-sucked fuel through the heater's fuel line to the little heater pump and connected the line to it.

Pressed some buttons on the controller, and away it went, fired up right away.

Then...lots of smoke outside. Just like an old thumper diesel. Then, unexpectedly, lots of smoke from the heater itself, which was being picked up by the air inlet and blown into the cabin.

I quickly evacuated my wife and self suspecting carbon monoxide.

But it wasn't...just something that happens on a new installation until the oils are burned off.

So, as mentioned previously, all went amazingly well for three days until the rewiring of the battery banks.

When we return we'll wrap the hot exhaust outlet in heat-proof tape, see about a separate fuel tank and switch the 12V supply from the batteries.

[starcruiser]

For family reasons we haven't been able to venture to the boat much over the last half year or so.

We did go last week and despite warm sunny days the evenings and mornings were brisk enough to warrant use of the Planar 2D 2kw diesel heater.

It now has its own 10 litre fuel tank (2.5 US gallons). It's actually a plastic diesel jerry can into which I drilled a hole on the flat top area under the handle for insertion of the metal standpipe.

It sits in a locker next to the main stainless steel diesel tank.

Ten per cent of the fuel is kerosene but I'm thinking of upping the ratio to perhaps 50 per cent as an insurance against early failure from stale old diesel and the carbon deposits which may thus be produced inside the burner.

Next time we go we'll also connect the heater to a spare outlet on the CAV diesel filter which supplies the engine.

Little valves we have bought cheaply will direct fuel to a brass T-fitting, either from the CAV filter or from the new tank or both.

The heater performed well, and even on 25% power the cabin temperature was a very warm 24 degrees C.

Also still to do: install the heatproof insulation tape around the exhaust pipe. Re-route the power supply from where it is directly connected to the batteries, and connect the wires to the distribution fuse box.

Why? So I can flick a switch to turn off 12v power when not needed (instead of pulling the connectors apart as we do now). The amp draw will also register on the digital volt/amp meter.

Hopefully after Easter.

[starcruiser]

Just one more thing...Sealing the exhaust tube to the thru-hull and to the heater itself is a little tricky, even with muffler putty. Any leakage and the gases will be sucked in through the cold air inlet and blown into the cabin.

So I bought a carbon monoxide monitor and am pleased to say it registers zero CO emissions.

Worrying though is the emissions of the LPG stove. Just boiling water and toasting bread gives out 60 ppm -getting into the danger zone.

[juwoods]

Thanks for the detailed install information and pictures. I'm currently installing a planar heater as well and came across a similar wiring issue with different colored wires for the controller. I just wanted to double check that from the picture you ended up with brown-red and yellow-blue connections?

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by starcruiser

The installation took longer than planned, mainly because of the unclear instructions -- I suspect a literal google translation of the Russian manual at play here, resulting in "RussEnglish".

The colour coding of wires for the controller was the worst offender, because both ends had different coloured wires and the instructions were of little help.
The orientation of terminals to be placed within the connectors also needed sleuthing.

The air outlet as mentioned has one or two too-many 90 degree bends, first from the heater and down towards the floor, then into the bulkhead, then at the very end into the cabin. This I suspect is causing backed up heat over the exchanger.

The wiring looms looked very long...about 6 metres. So I drilled holes for the controller at the opposite end of the cabin, thinking its cabling was the same length.

Unfortunately, the controller wiring is very short, about 1.5 metres. and it wouldn't reach. So for the moment it had to be relocated over the dining table. I could splice some computer cable to join it, but sounds too fiddly.

In any case, we don't plan to run the heater according to the controller's inbuilt thermostat, so the position is irrelevant.

The fuel standpipe is for the moment just sitting in the main diesel tank until I decide whether to have a separate tank which allows for occasional mixing with kerosene, or take fuel from the diesel filters handily located near the heater fuel pump.

With my mouth I prime-sucked fuel through the heater's fuel line to the little heater pump and connected the line to it.

Pressed some buttons on the controller, and away it went, fired up right away.

Then...lots of smoke outside. Just like an old thumper diesel. Then, unexpectedly, lots of smoke from the heater itself, which was being picked up by the air inlet and blown into the cabin.

I quickly evacuated my wife and self suspecting carbon monoxide.

But it wasn't...just something that happens on a new installation until the oils are burned off.

So, as mentioned previously, all went amazingly well for three days until the rewiring of the battery banks.

When we return we'll wrap the hot exhaust outlet in heat-proof tape, see about a separate fuel tank and switch the 12V supply from the batteries.

Smoke from the unit into the cabin upon initial startup will tell you when the heat exchanger was made. Lots of smoke means winter built. Minimal smoke means summer build. ( units are coated with veggie oil to protect them from rusting .)

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Smoke from the unit into the cabin upon initial startup will tell you when the heat exchanger was made. Lots of smoke means winter built. Minimal smoke means summer build. ( units are coated with veggie oil to protect them from rusting .)

Not sure I get the connection, but it's true that components (I suspect mostly the flexible exhaust hose) did smoke at first when they got hot. Very scary to smell smoke in the cabin, even thought I could see it was coming off the outside of the hose, the hose was intact, and exhaust gasses were exiting without any apparent blockage.

After the first few times running it, whatever manufacturing oils there were must have been burned off, and it no longer smokes. You might get that "burnt dust" smell of a radiator or electric heater that's turned off after a long period of not being used.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Not sure I get the connection, but it's true that components (I suspect mostly the flexible exhaust hose) did smoke at first when they got hot. Very scary to smell smoke in the cabin, even thought I could see it was coming off the outside of the hose, the hose was intact, and exhaust gasses were exiting without any apparent blockage.

After the first few times running it, whatever manufacturing oils there were must have been burned off, and it no longer smokes. You might get that "burnt dust" smell of a radiator or electric heater that's turned off after a long period of not being used.

The steel heat exchangers are coated with a vegie oil to protect them from rusting before the end user installs the unit.

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, juwoods.

[starcruiser]

Living in Australia where petrol (gasoline) is $AU1.54 a litre ($US 1.12) I am bemused by American forums which suggest running these heaters on kerosene because it's cheaper than diesel.

Not here. Kerosene is $AU4+ a litre..$US 2.90.