'Chinese' Diesel Heater

[wildebus]

Latest up date: heater has now started to squeal from inside the cover, I have contacted the seller, shall report on how I get on.

The first heater I got did that and it was the fan hitting the cover. You could take the cover off and see if the "shims" to align the cover are still in place? (I say "shims" - on the heaters I have had they have been bits of cardboard ripped from a box and pushed in place).

Whether it is an alignment thing or not, I think the only thing that could squeal in the heater would be the fan - if you want a replacement, I still have my first heater (kept for spares) and you are welcome to have the fan from it.

In fact, if you wanted, you could take the whole heater and see if you want to get it working? I think you have the knowledge to sort it out.
It never worked reliably ever due to a couple of things and by the time they were sorted (such as the fan alignment), I think it may have got too choked up and ended up just smoking instead of burning fuel and heating?

 

[StreetSleeper]

left the heater running till it ran out of diesel , got 21 hrs from 3.6l tank Tank wasn't filled right to the top and still some left in the bottom but the heater was drawing in air from the the intake fuel pipe

 

[StreetSleeper]

Well here's the warranty............ 30 day........ from the purchased date


1.30 days warranty from the purchased date. Please contact us via email before returning the defective item.

2.Our warranty does not extended to any products that are physically damaged or that are not under normal operating conditions as a result of misuse or improper installation on the buyer/user's part.

3.Return items should include the original packaging and all accessories. buyers MUST contact us for the returning address.

4.In all cases, buyers pay shipping fees at their own cost to return products for exchange or refund.

​

 

[Nabsim]

left the heater running till it ran out of diesel , got 21 hrs from 3.6l tank Tank wasn't filled right to the top and still some left in the bottom but the heater was drawing in air from the the intake fuel pipe

I ‘think’ that’s a fair bit worse than my DT4 Rae but mine runs off main diesel tank so not as easy for accuracy. I seem to think mine averages around 0.1ltr per hour but would have to search all my posts to see what it did last check. Not got to much use yet but may be able to see soon as back to Derbyshire to visit Charlie shortly, will be colder there lol

 

[StreetSleeper]

I don't normally run it through the night and there was no one in the van. I'm sure the heat of 2 people in the van would have made some difference to the amount of fuel that was used; I believe you can turn the pump down, which I have not done but will be looking into.

 

[mistericeman]

Between 0.10 and 0.23 litres per hour dependant on setting for Eberspacher D2....

I have to say in all the time I've been running one I've never noticed an increase over the base line consumption of 30 mpg drawing fuel from the main tank...
Even when we've been away in the depths, of winter with the heating on full chat 24/7...

I don't like being cold at all.

 

[wildebus]

Well here's the warranty............ 30 day........ from the purchased date


1.30 days warranty from the purchased date. Please contact us via email before returning the defective item.

2.Our warranty does not extended to any products that are physically damaged or that are not under normal operating conditions as a result of misuse or improper installation on the buyer/user's part.

3.Return items should include the original packaging and all accessories. buyers MUST contact us for the returning address.

4.In all cases, buyers pay shipping fees at their own cost to return products for exchange or refund.

​

Sounds about par for the course, sad to say.

The first one I bought never worked but waited until about 6 weeks from delivery to say enough was enough - by which time too late! got about £20 back and a replacement control board that was the wrong one.
After that, it was a matter of checking the next one on arrival and ANY problem ... rejection! That one I got all my money back from and still have the heater. The seller offered me a small amount and said I could get it repaired locally, then a bit more, then a bit more. After around 3 weeks I stopped communicating with him and just waited for the eBay case to time out and Paypal transferred the money back to my account.

I think these heaters basically will either work and carry on for at least a year minimum IF they manage to work to start with so overall not a bad buy as long as you make sure they work within the 30 days and can reject bad ones (having said that, the last one I got is still in the box and unopened after 3 months or more! should take my own advice!!)

 

[wildebus]

I don't normally run it through the night and there was no one in the van. I'm sure the heat of 2 people in the van would have made some difference to the amount of fuel that was used; I believe you can turn the pump down, which I have not done but will be looking into.

It will definately make a difference to the fuel consumption while running. But overall over time, maybe not, as you will get up to temp faster at a higher pump rate and so turn the heater off earlier - so same overall result I guess?

FWIW, IIRC, the pump draws 0.125ml per pulse, and you set/change the frequency of the pump pulses as you turn the heater up and down, so a higher rate will mean more fuel (that setting on the LCD Controller can be set to show either Hz (for pump rate) or Celcius (supposedly for temp, but it just changes the pump rate in the same way)).

 

[StreetSleeper]

David, I have not fully stripped one down but I can't see why they would not be reliable and run for years. I may strip this one down if the noise gets worse. I was tempted to hit it with something heavy just to see if the noise changed or better stopped.

 

[wildebus]

David, I have not fully stripped one down but I can't see why they would not be reliable and run for years. I may strip this one down if the noise gets worse. I was tempted to hit it with something heavy just to see if the noise changed or better stopped.

It does sound like your problem is a noisy fan - which is the only mechanical part of the whole heater and so most likely to fail probably.

Kind of reminds me of the last PC I built - I fitted a "silent fan" to it and after a while it started to make a noise and when I opened it up to look at it, the reason there was now a noise was because the label stuck on the fan saying "silent" had come unstuck, dropped down and the fan vanes were rubbing on it

 

[StreetSleeper]

Between 0.10 and 0.23 litres per hour dependant on setting for Eberspacher D2....

That makes me somewhere in the middle or there about

 

[StreetSleeper]

Today the diesel heater error code 6 popped up that's the error code for the fan; well we knew that was going to happen at some point. Took the cover off and played about with the fan, finally got it to run so while it was running thought I would check the pump speed etc. The pump speed was 5 something and it should have been 1, reset it and then reset the others to the correct settings; still useable so I will run it until I can't stand the noise or it goes bang but I would recommend you checking your settings.

Rae

 

[wildebus]

Ah, memories The fan error code was the first one I ever had - fan rubbing on housing. Never stopped turning, but enough resistance to generate the code (actually it is quite nice that there is fault checking of the fan action).
Well, you know where a spare is

 

[StreetSleeper]

Thank you for that and yes I will take you up on your very kind offer; the problem is you're 100 miles down the road from me but next time we are in Costco I daresay we could venture a little further south, that's if we are allowed to.

 

[Nabsim]

Can you buy a better quality fan, will the Eberspacher ones fit? Is still going to be cheaper swapping fan and glo plug

 

[StreetSleeper]

I think we can get it to be reliable, one or two tweaks, there really is not a lot to them

 

[wildebus]

Thank you for that and yes I will take you up on your very kind offer; the problem is you're 100 miles down the road from me but next time we are in Costco I daresay we could venture a little further south, that's if we are allowed to.

I could take the fan off and post it as a small parcel (£3) - or send the whole heater - around £8 for parcelforce?

 

[StreetSleeper]

David I will give you a phone tomorrow if that's ok

 

[StreetSleeper]

After easing the fan away from the main body I seem to have cured the squealing noise. So with that problem, hopefully, solved the last thing I wanted to make was some sort of induction filter; this was made from cutting up a surplus car air filter, the wire gauze that you see on the outside is normally on the inside with the foam wrapped around.

I tried it out first without the foam in place and then with the foam in place, there was no difference in how the heater ran, just a lot quieter from the intake.

Though it's a free flowing filter I made sure it was glued on the inside and around the outside. I used a hot glue gun and it seems to have done quite a nice job holding the foam to the plastic.

Last picture shows the finished article. Never to be seen as it's tucked behind the driver's chair nearest the wall. Hopefully, now no nasties will be sucked into the fan.

Rae

 

[StreetSleeper]

Tried to program the heater to come on in the morning, watched all the relevant YouTube videos and such, got set about doing the job, set the time no problem there then came the turn the heater on and off bit ...... on, no problem ..... off, it went straight to second timer of the day after two or three attempts we have given up and will try with another controller.