Well, I cut the end off it. Might as well make something. Doing it again I'd weld straight onto the burn chamber and miss out trying to weld the casing. The EGR cooler - amzn.to/2plBwYn
Right..... Now I have a water heater so i dont have to take cold showers. I was gonna use a truck oil cooler and just set it on top of the wood stove but an egr cooler seems much better.
I like experiments such as this and the people who do them. In some ways it saves me having to do them, and it's always better to learn from other peoples experiences. Keep up the good work and regards..
Just think of the Romans underfloor heating and do the same by blowing hot air in a box with a steel plate on top to stand on and you have underfloor heating no hot water needed. Love your videos Thanks bob in the UK
I think if you put a roll of exhaust wrap on the cooler it would heat up much better, and lose less heat,and it won't burn you or anything els,worth a shot
Love watching your channel, Can you make a heat reclaim to make back feeding peltier 12v to recharge the battery. I've thought about the temperature difference similar to the wood stove fans that rotate when the fire get hot.
I've been thinking about this myself for quite a while too. My heater is the worst drain on my van battery. I've thought about building a box that fits around the exhaust that has about forty Thermoelectric Generators at least, buck converted up to a higher voltage, then wired into an MPPT controller and in to my campervans battery. Effectively charging the battery and supplying the heater with power at the same time. The more TEG's the better. The more you have the less efficient they need to be. They could theoretically be mounted in a safer manner as not to pop them with extreme heat or melting the fine wires. It could be fitted quickly around the exhaust when camping and a push on plug fitting under the van to connect it up. This will prevent waterproofing and damage that may be done if it was in place permanently. Under the van would be cooler allowing for better heat differential, win win. Now somebody build one please before I do 🤣
Out of curiosity how much heat does the EGR take from the exhaust when used in that fashion ? Also just an FYI but your Amazon link is DOA .Love your vids , Keep up the good work.
Would it be possible to throw a ball valve on the "water in" (the hose going to the EGR cooler) when you don't want to heat water and just want the dry heat from the heater? Or would that cause issues? I imagine the water left in the EGR cooler would just boil out and it would be fine.... Just not sure if I'm missing something.
surprised the Chinese are not knocking out a cheap diesel water heater (maybe they are just not seen one) in the same way they flooded the market with these air heaters.
@@DavidMcLuckie They will watch your video and have one on the market next week (albeit a lower quality one than yours) 🤪 Great Vid series with these heaters btw.
Hello David, After just coming across this video I wondered what you do with heaters, such as this, after you are done with them. I’m interested in this particular scrap heater if it is still knocking around.
I have set up mine on the gas output got the used EGR on Ebay £18 with free postage. Linked it into my hot water tank. Hot only hot air heating but hot water too. Plus 50/50 waste cooking oil
Very interesting experiments. Have you compared it to regular water type heater? Still might not be worth of hassle for some people, since you can get binar 5s/d water heaters around 500 euros. But experimentally wise, it´s great!
I tried to put an EGR heatexchanger directly to the burner steel tube, Then the overheat sensor on the alu housing in not measuring the correct temperature and unit will shutdown as it thinks there is a flame out. I think measuring the resistance of the temp sensor when hot and replave it with a fixed resistor value will help. Just make sure there is an other way of overheat protection.
Couldn't you just connect the heat exchanger to the actual exhaust? With out cutting the end off? Then you can get hot water and hot air at the same time? Camper and Motor homes often use a Truma heater that provides hot air and water using the same method. Many DIY ones don't have hot water as there is not a water heater version. If you expensive Truma heater dies, you could be spending a couple of thousand to replace it... You design is just what the market needs.
I think easy, floor heating or make in some pleaces of Van ;) small 120/140mm rad + silent pc fan and in the same time heat the water ;) If im wrong let me know. Regards,
So if heating water is the primary factor then this would be the setup compared to if heating a room was the primary factor then connect the EGR unit to the exhaust?
Yes. If all you wanted was hot water then I'd run the full heater output through the EGR cooler. If you want to heat an area with hot air and scavenge extra heat for water then plumb the EGR cooler into the exhaust output.
Brilliant 👍 thoughts on using it to heat a small swimming pool (7000L) I’m already using a 5kw heater to heat the air of the poly tunnel which covers the pool, would be great to use the exhaust gas as well. Mark, Southampton. 🍻
@@DavidMcLuckie I later spotted a video from Oz with someone trying the same idea, unfortunately didn’t produce enough heat so scrap that 😂 Will have to stick to copper pipe coil in the gas BBQ 👍
Well over the past few days I have seen some interesting videos and have come to the question; what happens if you had a supply voltage failure? What chance you think you'd get a flame blow back to the thermo-compresser fan? How hot does things get when the fan stops without the cool down period etc could you get other issues? How warm would the leftover exhaust gases become if you used 2 EGR's on the exhaust pipe? That is all I can think of at the moment, thanks for your videos I have now subscribed as I enjoy most of what I have seen, all I'd say is leave in the talking to yourself banter lol we all do it :)
Great idea was looking into a regular heat exchanger and was worrying about the carbon buildup in it. That part should work better with a flange to remove and clean when needed. Any ideas to remove carbon from parts without taking it to bits?
They make EGR cleaner sprays. If you made a hole you could seal up again, perhaps with a bolt, you could design it in such a way you could spray EGR cleaner in without having to dismantle the entire assembly.
David McLuckie I don’t suppose you’ve got any close up pics you could email me please mate? I’ve ordered the EGR and I’m going to attempt a copy of yours!
I literally traced round the end of the EGR cooler onto a bit of flat plate. Chopped round it with the plasma cutter, cut a 50mm hole in the middle and drilled two bolt holes. I added a chamber of 50mm tube and another bit of flat plate. If I'd had a piece of tube that matched the ID of the exhaust I'd have welded that on and just clamped the exhaust. But I didn't so I drilled a hole to fit the exhaust in and welded it on. If you send me a message from my website I'll send you some pictures if it helps.
What year make model is the EGR cooler out of? You have the right idea, skipping the aluminum housing. The burner is stainless steel so extending that tube to a flange would be dead easy. You do need to give it enough length to combust fully, and you want to insulate it so it gets as hot as possible and has the best chance of completely breaking down the carbon before it starts cooling in the heatex. That took some of your heat and was probably also the reason it was hard to weld to, it was sucking up the heat as fast as you could put it in:) Did I miss the total amount of water you are using in your rig or the flow rate of the pump? We need that to calculate the BTU collection rate.
Why not just put the Diesel burner in place of the gas burner in a small water heater?? You don't need a water pump, and the risk of boiling disappears, you could possible hook it up to the thermostat to have it autostart? That would provide the heat mass storage for stable temperatures and provide hot water.
Did you ever did a calculation on heatextraction this way ? I took your advice and welded a Webasto thermo top V burn chamber to the chinees burner chamber. The burn chamber is now double in length and feed into a Webasto water housing. I still need to test this setup, but I like the simpleness (is that a word?) of the chinees controller.
Hi, thanks a lot for your videos. I will turn my air heater into a water heater. I am wondering how i can implement a sensor on the water side to turn the heater off at a sudden water temperature (about 70 celsius). Could you help on this, or any ideas? Thank you so much.
Hi bud. Ive having a recurring issue where the pump seems to generate bubbles from nothing. Within 2 days use 3/4 of the fuel line is air. Ive cycled it over and over remove pipe and primed then put back on and still come to find loaded with air the following day. Its doing it now. And jts had over 5lnof diesel through it
I had that when I was doing the Webasto shower, the pump just made bubbles. It might be worth trying another pump. I killed the one that made bubble with a dead short from a 50A supply, it wasn't happy.
@@DavidMcLuckie thanks for that. I may ask seller sort it send replacement or somthing a its brand new and already anoying me. I had to fix the rear fan too was jammed upon arrival.
@@DavidMcLuckie I've since got a new pump this also makes cavitation bubbles but pumps great. I've 2galons of petrol I want to use too as itle only go off before it gets used elsewhere. I've been mixing it at about 45% petrol to 55% diesel and finding it will run without going out also not burning badly. I did try petrol only and was resly hard to stsrt and went out alot after glow plug stopped. Ile be going back to pure diesel after I've made use of of petrol
Hiya pal I have three diesel heaters one in the shed one in the campervan and a portable one but they all seem to be clogging up running red diesel is there any reason for this at all because I've tried everything but they seem to run for a day and then when I go to starting back up again the following day they don't seem to start up when I take them apart the full of carbon and that can you tell me why please cheers
I'd say either the settings are too rich or the red diesel is a lower quality. It shouldn't be, as it's just normal diesel plus red dye. Do you know what settings the heaters are running?
I'm afraid I can not. I don't have any insurance for doing that kind of thing, and if anything happened to you or your van I'd be personally liable. But I can help with any questions you might have.
Why not run the burner heat though a radiator as exhaust radiant heat or inter cooler as you said or a Veg oil heater thin the oil down for it to run on more efficient won't need petrol mix then love your videos 👍
8kw kina heater dont start the pump are ok iff i try it but the heater dont will start wat can it be i see your youtbe channal i will call you exsert on this so do you tru you can help mee with that best regart from frank norway
@@DavidMcLuckie no its not and the fan are not start i hear the clik in the pump ,maby i shal tru to chans the heatplug wat you think ,thank you fore answer me
wonder how much heat you can safely take out of the exhaust gas before it starts affecting the flow of exhaust gases Alu Tig issues could be a different flavour of alu, not enough gas shield (the fins on the exchanger likely were allowing the shield to drop down the sides away from the joint) if it happens again on a different weld, get the gas flowing and manipulate the torch around, if you hear the gas flow change you have an issue with the torch or the gas hose into the torch (had that in college, lecturer had watched me weld and was puzzling over why the welds weren't looking the way they should, checked the gas flowmeter, checked the welder settings again and then tweaked the torch around - hiss, no gas, kinda gas, hiss) Watch yourself with that CO, heard of guys hitting the deck from CO poisoning and workmates dragging them out in the nick of time, don't want to see an end card saying "RIP David McLuckie" Methylene Chloride aka Dichloromethane is another one to watch (its in industrial paint stripper still and what they use in alloy wheel stripping tanks) its heavier than air and metabolises into CO, which makes you feel light headed, stoned, pass out and then die in a short space of time, my old man was using it in a mechanics pit years ago, workmate heard him hit the deck and pulled him out, stuff had displaced the air from the pit and down he went....
I have to apologize, I screwed this calc up by having the wrong temp rise. It now has the correct numbers. 1 BTU will raise 1# of water 1 degree F. I saw 11C in 60 seconds before the pump went wonky. That is 19.8F in 60 sec. I am guessing there is about 2L or 4# of water in play here? That is around 79 BTU/MIN or 4752 BTU/HR. 3400 BTU per KW so 1.397KW/HR out of a 2KW heater? The unknown here is the actual volume of water in play, which could alter the numbers considerably. If we knew the amount of fuel burnt over that same time(BTU input)we could also gauge efficiency...
Cool, If you can, try and measure the fuel burnt for the same amount of run time. 12KBTU is pretty impressive though(I could heat my house with that:)). I don’t think Ford marketed that van in the US, but there are also other stainless shell and tube heat exchangers I have been looking at for around $125. That plus heater and pump(+my time) starts to close in on the cost of the Chinese coolant heaters(under $500 US) but I really like to know ALL the numbers like you are showing, so thanks for that and your well done videos. Since parts are available for these cheap, it is also tempting to cobble together my own burner assembly...
Simple, 2 tanks of water so your intake temp is constant. You need to know the mass flow of water, temperature difference between inlet and outlet and specific heat capacity of water. Mass flow (kg/s) in the equation will give you Watt's instead of Joules. I prefer metric units , more convenient for me.
You've just given me an idea to put the heat exchanger on the exhaust pipe and then youve got hot air for the room and hot water for the radiators in the room. I wonder if that will work? That would completely change everything in my narrowboat.
Yes putting it on the exhaust and scavenging the waste heat is the way to go. I cut the end off to see inside, I just added the EGR cooler to the end because I could. :)
One thing to think about is that when you increase the combustion chamber volume you also lower the pressure. Thus possibly creating issues for the air-fuel mix or pressure the diesel needs to ignite and burn fully.
G’day David, I’ve just installed a Chinese diesel heater in my caravan, and even on the lowest setting, it’s way too hot . Only option is to shut it off when I start sweating! Also, there seems to be a slight difference with the display as I can’t get into the advanced settings. Any clues would be great!
great content dude ! do u have a link to this 2kw heater ? u seem to be dialed in with this things. im camping in the back of my pickup cap. little buddy not good back there. to hot in one source and its to close to the ceiling of the cap and no way to avoid that...melt downs... looking to try one of these 2kw , rigged up in there. are ALL Chinese heaters the same ? Certain place u might recommend ? Thanks for the knowledge
How hot would the water run if you were running cold to hot, for a camper shower and not cycling the water? If the water was coming from an external tank sitting at low temps and used in a shower.That system would be awesome for a radiator system to heat a camper.
I’ve been watching quite a few of your videos mate and noticed one fundamental thing could you turn down the voltage on your power supply to your pump which would intern run over the surface area unless the flowWhich might help the heating of the water and optimise the burn in the chamber still?
Yes. Ideally you would have some temperature dependant speed control. Slow at first then speeding up as the water gets hotter, so as not to have boiling water in it at any point.
You could just attach the EGR cooler straight to the exhaust as long as it creates no restrictions close as possible to the heater. Probably won't get as much heat transfer as straight from the burn chamber but I'm sure it will still be hot enough to boil water. ?
You are correct. If it is unmodified. I think I can chop more off the housing as it will no longer be needed and should be able to extend the burn chamber and put a v band on it or something. Well spotted though.
This is fantastic! I live on my large sailboat, on anchor, and plan on travelling around the globe. So, I recently purchased a Vevor 3kw diesel heater and had thought of somehow converting it to heat water for my boat. I have an electric water heater, but don't like using so much solar generated electricity for hot water. Thank you for this video and all the thought, time and energy you have invested. The EGR? What brand, model, etc. is this unit? Thanks, Ken
@@DavidMcLuckie Funny story: I purchased an 8kw unit on ebay. A 3kw arrived in the mail. Obviously a mistake. Anyway, they credited me $63.95, so I will make it work for now, as a trial.
David, I have watched your diesel heater videos and you are very knowledgeable in how they run. I have installed one in my trailer and have cut the exhaust pipe and not installed the muffler. In your opinion do I need the muffler exhaust to create back pressure? Thanks Gerhard
As an idea of you make a revision for this isnto hole saw the head and used a tap and die to be able to thread into the adaptation flawlessly. Also alow you to be able to install a bung if wanting to use it as standerd
Does it have to be adjustable? The bench power supply is quite expensive, but if you just need a 12V supply with enough amps to run a heater one of these would do - www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-12V-24V-5V-10A-12-5A-15A-20A-30A-Universal-Regulated-Switching-Power-Supply/181881169501?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=480998532345&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
if you ever see an Xbox 360 power supply (the grey brick type) snap them up because they are 12v 14.2A and make great power supply's for projects, that's what's powering my diesel heater.
That would be an interesting addition to the exhaust on an old aircooled Lister engine on a narrowboat. It would let you get hot water from the engine without having a watercooled engine. Looking on ebay they are pretty cheap.
