mtravel Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 I don't know Whale and Propex but I know that 95% of the motorhomes produced on the continent are equipped with Truma 6, almost always on gas with optional diesel. Both have the electric option, seldom usable in campsites and areas on the mainland due to both the power and the cost of electricity. Note: The burner in the Truma Combi 6D is manufactured by Eberspaecher. The remaining 5% mounts Webasto Dual Top which has the advantage of external installation under the floor. I had it and now I have a Truma 6D/E and I can testify that the Webasto is louder. You can't even hear the Truma inside. As for simple heaters, there are clones of Webasto made in China. As a cost halfway between the Germans and the Chinese the Planar, I suppose built in the Czech Republic or perhaps in Russia. I have heard that the latest Eberspaecher have eliminated the ignition plug resulting in less demand on the service battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 This boat-related article may be of interest https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/gear/diesel-forced-air-heaters-a-buyers-guide-79186 Glow 'pins' (instead of glow 'plugs') are mentioned. I don't know what these are, but there needs to be something hot to get the combustion process going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simian Posted April 20, 2022 Share Posted April 20, 2022 As it happens I've just ordered a Chinese diesel heater, paid the princely sum of £67.24 including 8% discount. This will be the 2nd one I will have installed. The first was in a M/camper a couple of years ago, this one will be fitted in a friends estate car used for winter wildlife photography. Hopefully this one will operate as satisfactory as the first with installation just a little more involved than a gas fuelled Propex. Apart from being left with a couple of redundant holes in the car floor and pocket money outlay (plus me to blame), what of significance can go wrong. :'( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 simian - 2022-04-20 6:13 PM As it happens I've just ordered a Chinese diesel heater, paid the princely sum of £67.24 including 8% discount. This will be the 2nd one I will have installed. The first was in a M/camper a couple of years ago, this one will be fitted in a friends estate car used for winter wildlife photography. Hopefully this one will operate as satisfactory as the first with installation just a little more involved than a gas fuelled Propex. Apart from being left with a couple of redundant holes in the car floor and pocket money outlay (plus me to blame), what of significance can go wrong. :'( The instructions say the fuel pump should be mounted with the outlet pointing upwards at 15 - 25 degrees. I found this wasn't enough. It works much more reliably with the fuel pump vertical, connected by a short pieced of good quality fuel hose and clips - not the ones supplied. This takes the weight of the pump, making its own rubber mounting so you don't need to bother with mounting brackets. Maybe just a cable tie to steady it. And being under the floor it reduces the noise inside the van. As the fuel tank wasn't far away we did the whole run with good quality rubber fuel hose and clips . So used none of the crap fuel hose or clips supplied in the kit. Or the rubber mounting - both being made of poor quality rubber that quickly perished and cracked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simian Posted April 30, 2022 Share Posted April 30, 2022 John52 - 2022-04-30 7:43 AM simian - 2022-04-20 6:13 PM As it happens I've just ordered a Chinese diesel heater, paid the princely sum of £67.24 including 8% discount. This will be the 2nd one I will have installed. The first was in a M/camper a couple of years ago, this one will be fitted in a friends estate car used for winter wildlife photography. Hopefully this one will operate as satisfactory as the first with installation just a little more involved than a gas fuelled Propex. Apart from being left with a couple of redundant holes in the car floor and pocket money outlay (plus me to blame), what of significance can go wrong. :'( The instructions say the fuel pump should be mounted with the outlet pointing upwards at 15 - 25 degrees. I found this wasn't enough. It works much more reliably with the fuel pump vertical, connected by a short pieced of good quality fuel hose and clips - not the ones supplied. This takes the weight of the pump, making its own rubber mounting so you don't need to bother with mounting brackets. Maybe just a cable tie to steady it. And being under the floor it reduces the noise inside the van. As the fuel tank wasn't far away we did the whole run with good quality rubber fuel hose and clips . So used none of the crap fuel hose or clips supplied in the kit. Or the rubber mounting - both being made of poor quality rubber that quickly perished and cracked. Yes, there's a few obvious refinements/improvements that many installers carry out. The hard wall nylon fuel pipe is reckoned to be the worthwhile upgrade, sometimes shipped as standard by some of the heater retailers. The manufacturer should perhaps specify pump mounting angle ideally @ vertical with minimum of 25deg. sometimes though there's not enough headroom in say a cupboard or even outside to mount vertical and maintain easy bends in the inlet & outlet hoses. It's possible to upgrade so much of these CDHs that in the end it reaches "Trigger's broom" syndrome! Minimal installation instructions is smart marketing I suppose, nothing prohibited customer decides, many more sales. Jeez the ads even show a heater spouting flames next to a young kid! After practising on 2 other peoples vans (lol) I decided to install a CDH in my own crate, taken me all of today and just about finished. Marine ply and insulation floor presents a small problem, that exhaust outlet gets red hot (600degs). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted May 1, 2022 Share Posted May 1, 2022 If you are fitting it in a wood floor you just need to chuck the supplied mounting plate away and get a decent Turret plate to dissipate the heat and keep it away from the wood - eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402842822906?hash=item5dcb4da8fa:g:uXsAAOSwP2RcohmA simian - 2022-04-20 6:13 PM The hard wall nylon fuel pipe is reckoned to be the worthwhile upgrade, sometimes shipped as standard by some of the heater retailers. Well the problem is that diesel is hard to light - you need to spray it through a jet to vapourise it first. The heater does this by sending it in high pressure spurts - only about half a drop at a time. But if you have a soft walled pipe in between the pump and the heater it works like a shock absorber evening out the flow of fuel. So it comes out the jet in a dribble and doesn't burn. The hard walled pipe they are supplying now is better than the soft plastic pipe they used to supply. But ideally you need steel fuel pipe between the pump and jet - which is what I have got by having the pump outlet and heater inlet together, connected by a short bit of high presure rubber hose. Doesn't matter if you use soft pipe to go from the tank to the pump - I have done. Other problem is that where the fuel is pumped under high pressure you can get turbulence around obstructions like the pipe joins, or even inside the pump, so the fuel turns to vapour. These little bubbles can trap in the pipework or pump and build up till they work like a shock absorber - same as the soft wall fuel pipe. If the pump is pointing directly upwards this doesn't matter because the tiny air bubbles go straight into the combustion chamber before they can build up to the point where they become a shock absorber. But, in my experience, if the pump & pipework is only pointing up by about 15 - 25 degrees you still seem to get air bubbles trapped in pipe joins, or maybe inside the pump where the pump cylinder joins the outlet pipe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simian Posted May 1, 2022 Share Posted May 1, 2022 John52 - 2022-05-01 6:26 AM If you are fitting it in a wood floor you just need to chuck the supplied mounting plate away and get a decent Turret plate to dissipate the heat and keep it away from the wood - eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402842822906?hash=item5dcb4da8fa:g:uXsAAOSwP2RcohmA simian - 2022-04-20 6:13 PM The hard wall nylon fuel pipe is reckoned to be the worthwhile upgrade, sometimes shipped as standard by some of the heater retailers. Well the problem is that diesel is hard to light - you need to spray it through a jet to vapourise it first. The heater does this by sending it in high pressure spurts - only about half a drop at a time. But if you have a soft walled pipe in between the pump and the heater it works like a shock absorber evening out the flow of fuel. So it comes out the jet in a dribble and doesn't burn. The hard walled pipe they are supplying now is better than the soft plastic pipe they used to supply. But ideally you need steel fuel pipe between the pump and jet - which is what I have got by having the pump outlet and heater inlet together, connected by a short bit of high presure rubber hose. Doesn't matter if you use soft pipe to go from the tank to the pump - I have done. Other problem is that where the fuel is pumped under high pressure you can get turbulence around obstructions like the pipe joins, or even inside the pump, so the fuel turns to vapour. These little bubbles can trap in the pipework or pump and build up till they work like a shock absorber - same as the soft wall fuel pipe. If the pump is pointing directly upwards this doesn't matter because the tiny air bubbles go straight into the combustion chamber before they can build up to the point where they become a shock absorber. But, in my experience, if the pump & pipework is only pointing up by about 15 - 25 degrees you still seem to get air bubbles trapped in pipe joins, or maybe inside the pump where the pump cylinder joins the outlet pipe. Font of all CDH knowledge is to be found on FB apparently. I'm not a member. The 3 heater installations I've carried out have utilised only the parts supplied. It's up to my friends to upgrade as they see fit, I don't care for any comeback! They're aware of pipe pulsing pressure losses etc. I can't say for certain, but I suspect that the supplied green fuel pipe is high temperature resistant silicone. Substitute rubber or otherwise synthetic fuel pipe alternatives may not be as resistant. The turret plate gets just as close to the exhaust outlet and cut wood floor edge, but presumably acting as a heat sink seems to dissipate the 600deg. I've had to mount the heater 40mm above the floor on a frame so had to fabricate/weld up a custom made turret, more the profile actually needed, ie not a perfect circle. With one of my 2 Propex heaters retained, I'm now contemplating setting up as a mobile crematorium.! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lloyd Posted May 1, 2022 Author Share Posted May 1, 2022 Think I’m just going to stick with the Whale heater until such time as LPG is extinct…. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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