Diesel Heater Advice

[Riverwind]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Well the chinees units have a flame sensor but not a photo eye it looks something like this .Some have a heat sensor instead of flame sensor

this looks similar to what i've been referring to as a glow plug... essentially this: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...AC_SL1001_.jpg

Anyway I've already replaced this part in my troubleshooting thus far -- no difference between the old or new, whether on visual basis, or performance of the unit.

Thank you for helping me double-check here.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Riverwind

this looks similar to what i've been referring to as a glow plug... essentially this: https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/...AC_SL1001_.jpg

Anyway I've already replaced this part in my troubleshooting thus far -- no difference between the old or new, whether on visual basis, or performance of the unit.

Thank you for helping me double-check here.

That is the igniter not the flame sensor.
I will do some digging and see what we can come up with .

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by Riverwind

Apologies if this is bad form -- last post is about a year ago but I am having very similar symptom as described by @DefinitelyMe.

I am on the side of those thinking it's probably fueling. Consistent bubbles are to be expected, and is sounds like you're describing inconsistent bubbles. I would suggest trying a short run with your new fuel pump from a temporary tank. It sounds like A the old one is working well enough to self prime, but can't support the flame. Repeated cold starts coke up the unit exacerbating things.

My personal set up has gravity feed to the pump (trying to draw or "suck up" fuel will kill these pumps) and then a head of at least 24" but is probably 36" long total. It has been working without any problems for a long time.

- AT

[newhaul]

It appears your unit has that temperature and flame sensor the part you removed and I hope reinstalled in the same spot .
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Part-Univer...edirect=mobile
New ones are not expensive and worth having a spare on hand .

[Riverwind]

Originally Posted by Atcowboy

I am on the side of those thinking it's probably fueling. Consistent bubbles are to be expected, and is sounds like you're describing inconsistent bubbles. I would suggest trying a short run with your new fuel pump from a temporary tank. It sounds like A the old one is working well enough to self prime, but can't support the flame. Repeated cold starts coke up the unit exacerbating things.

My personal set up has gravity feed to the pump (trying to draw or "suck up" fuel will kill these pumps) and then a head of at least 24" but is probably 36" long total. It has been working without any problems for a long time.

- AT

Yeah there are very few bubbles. By "few" I mean on the low-end of what I've seen on youtube and elsewhere, the odd time these vids show the fuel line in operation. My result seems typical of these, though I do seem to get somewhere on the low end of these samples as far as bubbles go -- I will put it in prime mode shortly and record results so you guys can see what I mean.

My best theory is that its fueling issue as well, specifically that its getting too much fuel -- would a lack of consistent bubbles be the same as too much fuel? ie more consistent bubbles passing through the line would work out to less fuel, right? While this sort of makes sense, its somewhat counter-intuitive, conventional thinking on fuel line issues is concerned with having too many bubbles, not too few.

My pump is gravity fed from the tank as well; the ~3ft hose from the tank drops straight down vertically to the filter, which is oriented horizontally, and connected to the pump by another 3-4 inches of hose, which lays horizontally between the two. the pump itself is at 45 degrees. The tank-to-pump run is all hose, and the outlet side from pump-to-heater is continuous run of hard nylon fuel line. When I disconnect the fuel hose at the intake side of the pump, diesel spills everywhere very quickly and makes a huge mess, the flow to the pump appears to be good

Anyway, I will decoke and install the lower capacity pump. I can't change much about the fuel line itself, this space and these distances are constants unfortunately, not variables I can adjust. I can do temporary test setups but I need to make this setup work or scrap the install entirely. Alternatively to going from the 22 ml pump to the 16 ml pump, I could order the 28 ml pump marketed for the 5kw heaters, and go in the other direction, increasing pump capacity instead of decreasing. Is there any reason to think this would help?

Originally Posted by newhaul

It appears your unit has that temperature and flame sensor the part you removed and I hope reinstalled in the same spot .
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Part-Univer...edirect=mobile
New ones are not expensive and worth having a spare on hand .

I was pretty careful with the logic board and sensor, I tend to err on the side of taking longer than planned and double-checking more than needed. Every now and then i overlook something, like i did with under-fueling my test setup, though this sensor is so simple, it just fits into its spot on the aluminum housing, and hte clip fits over it, I can't see what there is to mess up. It also seems to be working: when the heater was firing up properly earlier this week, it appeared to be behaving as expected, indicating high temps when the heater felt hot, and low when the heater felt cool etc. I will probably order a spare anyway, as you suggest, if nothing else will help me cross this off the list of possible defects in my setup -- and it will just about complete my collection of spare parts for this thing lol, I've bought extras of just about everything trying to hunt these bugs

[Atcowboy]

I think with very long fuel lines, even of the harder plastics, you could have enough bubbles in the line to make fuel metering erratic. Basically a similar problem to using the soft rubber lines they ship with the units. Maybe moving the pump closer to the heater, somehow. It may need a second pump to get the fuel there and even a return line so you're not pushing through the metering pump with the additional pump.

I will say that my 5kw unit is run generally on low, meaning I'll leave it on for 14 hours, over night, over and over again (lived on my boat for 2 years using it all the time). I've never had a 2kw unit, but a lot of the posts on this thread are about them. If you go back through this post I described my 2c that I haven't found the need to run my heater full blast all the time for it to be reliable. I think there's even a post with all the specific Amazon listings I purchased (probably out of date by now though) that I liked after personal experience with them.

- AT

[Riverwind]

Originally Posted by Atcowboy

I think with very long fuel lines, even of the harder plastics, you could have enough bubbles in the line to make fuel metering erratic. Basically a similar problem to using the soft rubber lines they ship with the units. Maybe moving the pump closer to the heater, somehow. It may need a second pump to get the fuel there and even a return line so you're not pushing through the metering pump with the additional pump.

I will say that my 5kw unit is run generally on low, meaning I'll leave it on for 14 hours, over night, over and over again (lived on my boat for 2 years using it all the time). I've never had a 2kw unit, but a lot of the posts on this thread are about them. If you go back through this post I described my 2c that I haven't found the need to run my heater full blast all the time for it to be reliable. I think there's even a post with all the specific Amazon listings I purchased (probably out of date by now though) that I liked after personal experience with them.

- AT

I know its probably difficult to track down, but do you have any idea if your 5kw is running a 28 ml pump, or a 22 ml? (or something else?)

In my usage thus far i generally just run the 2kw on low as well, though I've followed the cautionary advice many have shared suggesting to run it on high every so often -- I tend to start mine on high for 20 mins, set it on low for 8 hours, run it on high again for 20 mins, then shut off. This obviously hasn't helped w/e this problem is I've been experiencing

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Atcowboy

I think with very long fuel lines, even of the harder plastics, you could have enough bubbles in the line to make fuel metering erratic. Basically a similar problem to using the soft rubber lines they ship with the units. Maybe moving the pump closer to the heater, somehow. It may need a second pump to get the fuel there and even a return line so you're not pushing through the metering pump with the additional pump.

I will say that my 5kw unit is run generally on low, meaning I'll leave it on for 14 hours, over night, over and over again (lived on my boat for 2 years using it all the time). I've never had a 2kw unit, but a lot of the posts on this thread are about them. If you go back through this post I described my 2c that I haven't found the need to run my heater full blast all the time for it to be reliable. I think there's even a post with all the specific Amazon listings I purchased (probably out of date by now though) that I liked after personal experience with them.

- AT

Actually you do run it on high for about 15 to 20 minutes every day on startup and shutdown . It's just how it runs . I do the same with mine. A few hours in the evening and again in the morning to warm the boat . Overnight I have goose down for my rack .

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Actually you do run it on high for about 15 to 20 minutes every day on startup and shutdown . It's just how it runs . I do the same with mine. A few hours in the evening and again in the morning to warm the boat . Overnight I have goose down for my rack .

I know it does that. I guess my simplified point would be, I have found the advice to undersize the heater so you have to run it hotter to not be necessarily true. Implicitly I also said, replacing with a 5kw may help just because they seem to work more reliably. The hard part, routing and install of supporting equipment is done. Depending on his budget, a new 5kw heater could be "cheap"

,- AT

[Atcowboy]

Originally Posted by Riverwind

I know its probably difficult to track down, but do you have any idea if your 5kw is running a 28 ml pump, or a 22 ml? (or something else?)

In my usage thus far i generally just run the 2kw on low as well, though I've followed the cautionary advice many have shared suggesting to run it on high every so often -- I tend to start mine on high for 20 mins, set it on low for 8 hours, run it on high again for 20 mins, then shut off. This obviously hasn't helped w/e this problem is I've been experiencing

Sorry,I don't know specifics about the pump. The Amazon listing for my heater is also so old it's 404 now. This is the first I have heard about different sized pumps. I thought the Australian's videos said 2kw, 5kw, and "8"kw all used the same pump.

- AT

[Riverwind]

Thanks to everyone here for sharing their thoughts -- I seem to have solved the issue for now, and am reasonably confident I figured out what was off.

Between my writing out the specific symptoms of smoking, popping sounds, extinguished ignition as soon as pump started etc., as well as everyone's focus on the fueling of my heater as somehow the problem, late last night it suddenly became obvious to me what was off: the stoichiometry of the combustion reaction just wasn't right. It seems dead simple to me now, but yeah i'm slow I guess, and it took me a while to turn my mind towards the actual combustion reaction, what it needed, and how this related to what I was observing.

When I got this heater off amazon, I had left the factory settings in place, assuming that these units came calibrated for sea level, and not finding much if any of the online knowledge suggesting my settings were unusual in this regard. Out-of-the-box, the heater is set to run the pump at 1.7 hz and the fan at 1500 rpm on lowest setting, and at 5.5 hz and 4500 rpm on highest setting; the heater then adjusts fan proportionally to any pump setting between 1.7 and 5.5 hz. This is sufficient to start the heater on 1st few attempts, but its just too much fuel, and the excess cokes the eff out the internals very quickly, especially when other fueling problems are added in, as I did early on.

I ran through my setup a bunch in my head last night without retrying the startup -- my previous attempt the night before had taken up almost 2 hours of failed start attempts, each resulting in e-10. The only possible conclusion I could reach was that my heater was running too rich -- actually not just too rich, but WAY too rich -- I was mildly dreading disassembling and decoking the heater again so soon, and even swapping to my lower capacity pump seemed like a chore, so around 1 am last night I decided to give the startup one more shot, recalibrated the heater's 'high' setting from 5.5 hz and 4500 rpm to 2.5 hz and 5000 rpm -- it started up instantly! and quickly reached full heat on the control indicator, too, much more quickly than it has even when working previously.

It was pretty smokey for a good 15-20 mins, I presume from all the failed start attempts the night before, but it really settled into these settings. I infer that the heater needs some minimum range between high and low setting, because when I had it at 2.5 hz and 5000 rpm for 'high', it let me turn the heater all the way down to 0.6 hz at 1500 rpm on 'low' -- this is lower than even the calibration settings allow the 'low' setting to be configured at. At around 1 hz the heater started losing heat, and after experimenting further I settled on 1.3 hz and 1500 rpm for the low setting, and 4.1 hz and 5000 rpm for the 'high' setting (primarily to allow enough overhead for the low setting to not be pushed too low, I would've been happy to leave the high setting around 3 hz and 5000 rpm if it didn't affect the low setting). My heater ran all night with these settings, no further problems. This morning I shut it down and started it up again, just to test, again came to life pretty much instantly.

Anyway TLDR, I will post again if it turns out this was somehow a placebo fix or if I have to make further drastic adjustments, but if you are getting symptoms like I was with e-08 then e-10, lots of smoke, popping sounds out the exhaust, flame out when pump starts etc., these are all symptoms of running much too rich, and you must find some way to get more air into the reaction. Eg. adjust the fan speed up and pump rate down. The method I used to arrive at suitable settings is not an exact science, but the end results for me are night-and-day so far.

Good luck everyone, and thanks to all who posted replies!

[hpeer]

Great post.
If thwre is someway to similar to adjust an Espar D-4 I have no knowledge of it.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Riverwind

Thanks to everyone here for sharing their thoughts -- I seem to have solved the issue for now, and am reasonably confident I figured out what was off.

Between my writing out the specific symptoms of smoking, popping sounds, extinguished ignition as soon as pump started etc., as well as everyone's focus on the fueling of my heater as somehow the problem, late last night it suddenly became obvious to me what was off: the stoichiometry of the combustion reaction just wasn't right. It seems dead simple to me now, but yeah i'm slow I guess, and it took me a while to turn my mind towards the actual combustion reaction, what it needed, and how this related to what I was observing.

When I got this heater off amazon, I had left the factory settings in place, assuming that these units came calibrated for sea level, and not finding much if any of the online knowledge suggesting my settings were unusual in this regard. Out-of-the-box, the heater is set to run the pump at 1.7 hz and the fan at 1500 rpm on lowest setting, and at 5.5 hz and 4500 rpm on highest setting; the heater then adjusts fan proportionally to any pump setting between 1.7 and 5.5 hz. This is sufficient to start the heater on 1st few attempts, but its just too much fuel, and the excess cokes the eff out the internals very quickly, especially when other fueling problems are added in, as I did early on.

I ran through my setup a bunch in my head last night without retrying the startup -- my previous attempt the night before had taken up almost 2 hours of failed start attempts, each resulting in e-10. The only possible conclusion I could reach was that my heater was running too rich -- actually not just too rich, but WAY too rich -- I was mildly dreading disassembling and decoking the heater again so soon, and even swapping to my lower capacity pump seemed like a chore, so around 1 am last night I decided to give the startup one more shot, recalibrated the heater's 'high' setting from 5.5 hz and 4500 rpm to 2.5 hz and 5000 rpm -- it started up instantly! and quickly reached full heat on the control indicator, too, much more quickly than it has even when working previously.

It was pretty smokey for a good 15-20 mins, I presume from all the failed start attempts the night before, but it really settled into these settings. I infer that the heater needs some minimum range between high and low setting, because when I had it at 2.5 hz and 5000 rpm for 'high', it let me turn the heater all the way down to 0.6 hz at 1500 rpm on 'low' -- this is lower than even the calibration settings allow the 'low' setting to be configured at. At around 1 hz the heater started losing heat, and after experimenting further I settled on 1.3 hz and 1500 rpm for the low setting, and 4.1 hz and 5000 rpm for the 'high' setting (primarily to allow enough overhead for the low setting to not be pushed too low, I would've been happy to leave the high setting around 3 hz and 5000 rpm if it didn't affect the low setting). My heater ran all night with these settings, no further problems. This morning I shut it down and started it up again, just to test, again came to life pretty much instantly.

Anyway TLDR, I will post again if it turns out this was somehow a placebo fix or if I have to make further drastic adjustments, but if you are getting symptoms like I was with e-08 then e-10, lots of smoke, popping sounds out the exhaust, flame out when pump starts etc., these are all symptoms of running much too rich, and you must find some way to get more air into the reaction. Eg. adjust the fan speed up and pump rate down. The method I used to arrive at suitable settings is not an exact science, but the end results for me are night-and-day so far.

Good luck everyone, and thanks to all who posted replies!

Where are these settings adjusted I have had several of these in semi trucks . I never saw setting adjustments like you described but glad it all worked out for you .
Must be in your thermostat settings I always have had the simple ones less to go wrong.

[Riverwind]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Where are these settings adjusted I have had several of these in semi trucks . I never saw setting adjustments like you described but glad it all worked out for you .
Must be in your thermostat settings I always have had the simple ones less to go wrong.

Yeah I think you'll need one of the digital panel controllers -- I'm not sure it can be done with the more simple knob style in your photo (I bought one of those style too, as backup, though have yet to try it beyond confirming it works).

one youtuber in particular really helped me figure out how to tune the heater, here's his link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmCY...annel=Vortecks

Once I had concluded that my fuel-air mix must be too rich, his vid just popped up in my youtube algorithm, as though google read my mind. Anyway I followed the procedure described in that vid, accessing the config menu on the controller with code 1688. I used his finding for the high setting as a starting point, and this is how i got started up instantly. Then I tuned from there, settling on the 2.5hz and 5000 rpm by following his method. I then did the same to find the min pump rate for 1500 rpm (the lowest setting on my fan), resulting in 1.3hz. As described above, however, with my 'high' setting only at 2.5 hz and 5000 rpm, this seemed to force the 'low' setting lower than I actually had set it for, way lower in fact. So i incremented the pump rate of the high setting upwards til it no longer forced the low setting below 1.3 hz, resulting in 4.1 hz on high.

If anyone out there has the 2kw unit with 22ml pump, is at sea level, and is having same symptoms as described in this thread, try these settings as starting point, then tune further from there. This all seems to have worked really well for me, though this method is somewhat haphazard for my tastes. Would be curious if anyone has any ideas of how to refine this tuning process further, and really pinpoint the ideal setting (some elsewhere discuss using CO sensor to fine tune).

I am surprised this tuning aspect of these heaters isn't discussed more frequently in the material I came across in my research; makes me wonder if my fix was somehow just a fluke -- I didn't even disassemble or decoke or anything like I initially thought I'd have to. But the difference is so drastic so far, I briefly fired it up about an hour ago and it ignited the moment the pump kicked on, just like it should, and completely unlike the entire previous week of misfire "pops", clouds of diesel smoke, and e-10's.

Anyway hope this helps someone!

[DefinitelyMe]

Riverside, your posts are most illuminating. Yes, the symptoms you describe are exactly the problem I had, including the popping sounds, failure to start, igniting and then the pump stopping etc.

When I left it on for about five days straight it eventually shut itself down, and when I looked at the exhaust it was 80% blocked with carbon, which is a sure sign of it being WAY too rich. I gave up after that and bought a thicker duvet. I'm in Bermuda so it's a luxury, not a necessity, and it got to a point where it wasn't worth it. However:

I bought a new unit, and it looks like tomorrow will be the first time it gets used. I've moved my fuel tank so that the run is only about 12" and the rise to the unit is only about 4", with the filter and pump in there too.

My theory is that after the very first time I ran the unit, when I had a high point in the hose that developed an air bubble, fixing the fuel run wasn't enough. I could clean out the chamber and the accessible parts and get it running again, but the main atomising screen is inaccessible and it was coked up.

I will look at the fuel pump and see if I can see the capacity. Interesting to read about the difference in capacities being sold; I'd understood from the Aussie dude on YouTube that they are all the same. I guess that's not true now.