You are definitely on to something. I run my heater 24/7 unless it dies out. If the heat output seems lower then normal I give it a little water treatment with spaced out misting squirts down the intake tube and I will also take the fuel line and simply dip it in a cup of water for 3 seconds and then back in the fuel can. It makes a night and day difference in the output! The ground is covered in snow and before I started my treatment, the ground was fairly white, 10 mins after my little treatment the ground is covered in crap that blew out of the heater. Thank you for the tip.
if it's doing this you really need to consider leaning out the mixture. The arduino project with exhaust temp monitor and CO + NOX + O2 monitor would be an awesome mod. If you run as lean as possible you'll end up with an oxygen-rich, very hot output - lots of NOX :( - but burn out all the carbon. If you keep going lean you'll lower the temperatures a bit and drastically lower NOX output the cost of sensors might be a limiting factor though
similar to that it's made by Coleman any camping and fishing outfitters carry it for camp stoves. I took apart filled the chamber with the fuel waited 15 min and scrubbed with a toothbrush lightly, dumped it out and rinsed with camp fuel took 8 minutes to dry it has a high evaporation rate when exposed to air and assembled and fired right up. But of course I had to watch your video first to disassemble it haha.
Naptha is a good carbon and soot cleaner, so much that it is the cleaner used in jet-A and even more in jet-B, also is the major compound in Chevron Techron fuel treatment, thanks for the always interesting videos
@@samuelkatherinediozarago7692 Naphthalene flakes and moth balls were supposed to do something in gasoline, I remember hearing from friends when I was in high school, but I don't remember if It was a good or bad thing, which is a byproduct of that being about 40 years ago 😉
@@goodmanboattransport3441 There's confusion between naphtha and naphthalene, they are not the same thing at all. Naphtha is similar to kerosene but burns more cleanly, most commonly encountered as Zippo fluid or Coleman fuel.
@@cambridgemart2075 Perhaps Zippo fluid, but definitely not Coleman fuel, that is a gasoline, commonly called white gas back in the day, it should not be used as motor fuel, as it has no lead (older engines) and poor octane rating. Naphtha is oily in comparison to gasoline, and if I could find Jet-B fuel, I would buy it and use it as a fuel system and injector cleaner in my Diesel engine, not straight of course, but a gallon or half to a tank of Diesel would probably work as well as the $8/quart stuff at Wally World. Jet-B has a high content of Naphtha as part of its formation.
@@goodmanboattransport3441 Thanks, I'm not familiar with Coleman fuel but an article I looked at said it was naphtha, clearly not a source to be trusted.
Interesting experiment. Might add my used engine oil (just oil) after filtering it in a ratio of 5 or 10 to 1 (diesel to used oil) and run that through the heater. Helps dispose of the oil in a useful way.
@@BenMitro Used engine oil can be "re-refined" and reused. It's very popular with taxi and high milage drivers as it works better in engines than virgin oils
@@miscbits6399 That's an interesting claim Misc Bits. I guess filtering out carbon and metals and volatiles then adding any lost additives to the original oil will technically bring it back. I can't understand why it would "work better with engines than virgin oil". I'd imagine after thorough filtering and top up of additives it would be identical to virgin oil? Any studies or papers you can point me to?
@@BenMitro perhaps it's been "heat treated"(in its previous life) so it is less prone to decomposition- I literally have no expertise in this field tho
For your PCBs, have you looked at panelling them to reduce cost per board? also JLC PCB will populate them for you for very little fees over the component cost?
I've a forced air diesel/keronsene heater that runs great; I want to use one of these to work along side my the diesel/kerosene heater, having this running off used motor oil... figure it will not do the job on it's own of heating up my garage in winter but should help lower the overall cost:)
A tip for you is to get one of the tiny solenoid pumps from the oil lubrication system of a modern 50cc scooter. Their displacement is tiny. The easiest way to wire it up and control it is via a solid state DC relay. Use an Arduino and the ‘blink’ example sketch to budge up a quick and dirty way to generate a control signal to the pump, and there you have a simple and properly sized water injection system for your test setup.
Interesting idea, After watching this... Running heater on pure diesel Redex :P Once heated on diesel, Change over to pure redex, and see if it continues to run on that.. Which i imagine it would... be interesting to see how clean that does or doesnt make it :D
missed it in another video I am sure...... but what did you use (yellow electronic beepy when you shake it thing) to check burner efficiency. I assume it measures something in the exhaust gases.
I love how they sell those treatment products at extortionate prices, when it's based on something you can buy for something ridiculous like 70p/Litre from a heating oil supplier... :P
@@DavidMcLuckie Palm oil's one such con, when I was selling gas analysers we got asked if we would bodge one to show how effective the palm oil engine and cat rejuvenator was,when all it did was chuck gobs of black smoke out.
@@paulkaygmailcom Well that's the best part with coleman camp fuel you have to work fast it evaporates in seconds and won't cause burnout it's a fuel it burns hotter than diesel. Someone should design a heater that runs on it it leaves no soot or residue. The problem with diesel is the sulfur content the residue it leaves behind is oily and soot builds up in it causing ignition errors plugging up you screen and pilot hold. Mine runs 24/7 every 3 weeks it flames out and I have to clean it out and sulfur when heated at hi temp turns into a metal that why glow plug has the build up and some of the soot is hard science 101 sulfur while forging temper metals so to speak.
Have you tried adding Seafoam or Marvel Mystery Oil to the Diesel to see if that improves pump lubrication or combustion/deposits? Thanks for doing this research.
seafoam is mostly formulated to produce maximum smoke and impress the natives. It's not as effective in engines as many other products (or even water) The fuel cleaner being used is mostly intended to clean injectors, not chambers/exhausts - don't forget that diesel exahusts are incredibly oxygen-rich so should be fairly clean anyway as long as they get hot
I have a diesel heater in my garage. During the winter when it is below freezing, the heater won't start unless I pre heat it with a heat gun. Would adding 5% gasoline in the tank help? Are there any dangers 8n doing so? Thanks!
any chance of you having a play around with running waste oil again there's a lot of interesting ideas in the comments I think the one about putting steam into the intake could be a good idea if you put that EGR cooler you have on the exhaust and drip water into the water jacket so it steams and send it into the intake or use it to heat the oil and double up on everything pump injector etc so it starts on diesel and switches over to oil when it's up to temp I know it's not as simple as that but it can't be hard to solve the problem and it would help out a lot of people with energy prices being so high if we could solve the problem
roughly how much gas (petrol) would i need to add to say 1Liter of waste motor oil to burn n my diesel heater? should i mix in some diesel too? I have about 20 to 30L of waste 5w20 synthetic left over from oil changes. was going to take to recycling depot, but if i could burn it in my heater instead , i would
I wouldn't. It's not worth the effort to clean it afterwards. Unless you are planning a water injection system to go along with the waste oil burning so it will clean as it goes?
If you try that, please leave a video camera running. Either for the insurance company to figure out how you expired or evidence of success for the heater community. Win-win?
Could you try it with used sunflower oil? I guess it should be filtered by poring it from the frying pan through some cloth to get all the potato and snack residues out. I would be glad to heat up my small shed in the winter that way.
@@DavidMcLuckie Could let the exhaust pipe flow through a metal oil tank as a heat exchanger... just start with diesel or petrol mixture and switch to pure oil once it's hot enough. The tank will have to be closable though and have a one-way air inlet to prevent a vacuum, or else I'll get problems from the vapors.
Do you think it would be possible to inject adblue/ water in the burn chamber directly by drilling and tapping the aluminum housing and putt a injector on it?
Or maybe....drill into the aluminum house and burn chamber from the top an putt a stainless pipe directly in the flame with small holes in the end almost like a CIP nozzel.
I was thinking about this the other day. Being able to inject directly into the center of the burn chamber from the end. Might be time to sacrifice another heater. :)
@@DavidMcLuckie I don't think it would do any harm to the housing, we are talking about a small hole and a low pressure in the cumbustion camber. I think the placement of the nozzle and how it is designed is of more concern.
I think adding DEF to the combustion chamber is a bad idea, that stuff is designed to work with a catalyst under high heat to clean up the exhaust, I think you will find a crystalline buildup that will choke up the combustion chamber, and really do nothing positive for your heater. I get a crystalline buildup around the lids of my DEF containers that I refill at the truck stop, just from a slightly weeping cap gasket.
My heater bummed out after 2 months straight use, and used camping fuel the build up flowed out like 3-1 liquid wrench black and runny. then just rinsed it was clean
Most of the fuel system cleaners are simply kerosene + isopropyl. Why not try using 99% isopropyl and see how you get on? (then reduce to 75% for a steam cleaning effect if it'll still burn) - at £1-2/litre it's fairly cheap to test with
You seem to have a Diesel water heater there in the background around Min 06:00. Ist his a chinese one, too? Could only find air heaters so far. It seems, the water heaters are still only available from Webaste/Eberspacher?
First one I see on AliExpress - s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DDBlBpH Similar on eBay. There do appear to be a lot let choice at the moment compared to pre covid.
Here's a tip everyone should know ever try finding parts. well found a few places local where I live. Did you know that Walmart sells diesel heaters and parts. Fast delivery to better than ordering from distributors.
Terribly. I had a viewer contact me to say he'd been running on a veg oil blend and the heater choked solid after a few weeks. The veg oil just turns to a black tar like substance.
A simple explanation for diesel heaters. Vegetable oil has a high glycerin content and consequently has a tendency to cause excessive tar like deposits. Waste synthetic oils do not burn as well as waste mineral oils. Ignition temperature and fuel atomisation are also factors that would need to be addressed to make combustion clean and efficient, but ultimately, the design of these systems is basic. Run them on the fuel they are designed for and they will work . That said, nothing is maintenance free.
Any idea what I would need to run a factory espar "auxiliary" coolant heater out of a '11 sprinter in another vehicle? Can I just hook a controller to it or does it need a Mercedes ecu connected?
Yes. Waste oil thinned with petrol will burn. Maybe even throw in a little diesel cleaner. Haven't done a long term test yet. But I expect the burn chamber will need cleaning more often.
So I'm revisiting this episode as I thought it would be a brilliant idea to mix kerosene and waste engine oil to burn. First, it burns a lot hotter, I think because it slows down the kerosene burn time. Second, after about 10 hours it began to misbehave ie, difficult to start and uneven noisy burn (the sound of the burn gives lots of clues as to the health). So being an old school mechanic it occurred to me to spray some atomised water into the air intake by removing the pipe and spraying directly into the aluminium intake at full power. It made some funny sounds, nearly flamed out, but once it settled down it seems to have cleared it right out, it's now quiet, nice even burn and hot output. This is an old trick used on coked up engines to remove carbon. Seems to work a treat on my cdh, I was getting ready to take it to bits, but I don't think I need to now.
Hold ya horses! Actually what happened is that within 5-6 hours it went tits up. On dismantling, I found the stalagmite growth in the burn chamber. Two issues come to mind. The slow burn rate means the oil begins to pool. The heat evaporates the kerosene leaving a thicker oil. This then carbonates. This blocks the back of the burn chamber in the little cut outs that help shape the flame. Basically the amount of oil injected is too much for the size of the burn chamber, but the air flow is too high (for that oil). If I could slow the injection independent of fan speed, it might work, but it's simply not designed for that fuel. The stalagmite build up is different from carbon, it's definitely metal based and being that, I can't see any way round it. Even water misting doesn't seem to help there. All being said, at £1.67 for diesel, red up by 30p and kerosene the same, I'm still going to add waste engine oil, but take it on the chin that it'll need cleaning very regularly. Ho hum.....
One of the other RU-vid sites in England, the brothers work @ a Scrap yard and part of there job is Draining The Various fluids out of Equipment, and a High percentage of it is Hydraulic fluid. They've been heating their house with the Random petroleum fluids for Two Years using one of the diesel heaters. After it craped out, they took it apart, and all that was Wrong was the Screen was Clogged, cleaned it and the burn 🔥 chamber, and it Fired Wright Up, Now They run a cheap in-line filter. And All is well and now I Believe that there on year 4 now...
Hi. Great to hear a Scottish voice. New to this. Question for you, can you run one of these heaters on domestic heating oil like 28second kero. Cheers, jim
@@ronaldmasterbud1551 It is a catalyst, but it is used in the SCR exhaust systems to reduce NOX, which Diesel Engines are good at producing due to their inherently lean burn fuel to air ratio. The SCR systems have 3 components, first is the catalytic converter that burns up the HC, then the DEF Catalyst which converts the NOX into water and Nitrogen, and then the Exhaust Filter which removes the soot from the exhaust stream, when the soot load starts to create excess back pressure in the exhaust system, the computer adds an extra injection pulse to one cylinder as the exhaust valve opens to super heat the exhaust and burn the soot into ash, the new Diesel emissions systems are turning the stinky exhaust into a very clean exhaust, void of most harmful chemicals, it's quite amazing.
That's a good point. I wonder what the cost works out as running off free oil and having a burner chamber to replace every now and again. Must be cheaper than running on diesel.
Hell no! Don’t try waste oil on the chinese heaters! I have a big dedicated waste oil heater and the deposits that collects in its burn bowl is not good! You need to chisel them off if the needle gun doesn’t get it sometimes imagine that in the glow plug injection gauze, Thanks though Dave for trying it out
Yeah, I hear you, but its only oil when it goes through the gauze and if you have filtered the shit out, it should be fine. In the burn chamber it will no doubt cake up, but I doubt it gets to the temperatures needed to turn it into hard deposits, unlike your big heater. (Just a guess mind you...thankfully chinese heater parts are cheap, so I can afford to stuff them up - if that happens)
@@DavidMcLuckie I sent an email to your website a while ago asking if these heaters have a spare input on the board to turn these off and on? I haven’t pullled mine apart as yet
