Portable Diesel Heater

[shaun1309]

Good afternoon,

Have just bought a boat (Tamar 2000 Enterprise) and its fitted with a Diesel Heater - 5kw 12v air diesel fuel heater 10l tank lcd display.

Part of the challenge is to understand why the fan continues to run when I've actually turned the device off from the LCD display.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Shaun

[hpeer]

Shaun,

It would he helpful to know what brand you bought. Also your title says “portable”, do you mean the heater can easily be moved or that it is installed in a movable boat?

We have Espar heaters. They go through a start up and shut down routine where the fan is blowing. Start up is about a minute. Shut down is considerably longer, at least 3 minutes but may be longer.

So running for some time after shut down is normal.

Then we there have a fan function. We can turn the fan on without heat, just for circulation. We never do it but we could.

[shaun1309]

Apologies....can’t see a brand but I think it’s some sort of “Chinese Heater”. When googling the picture there’s quite alot of info on YouTube.

It seems that when I came back to the boat this morning, the fan was still going even though power was off from the panel.

This has just happened. Been fine up until now...so seen the gradual shut down with the fan.

Just perplexed why it was running over night and even when I left it earlier....

[hpeer]

Shaun,

The obvious question is “How can fan run if power is off?”

Some heaters suggest a direct run ti the battery simply so you don't casually turn them off during shut down. But you have a breaker or switch.

It is possible, not likely, you have some wiring failure where the fan is getting power it should not. IMHO that is a sufficiently serious situation that you need to trace the wiring back and find the power source. It is probably an intentional connection. But then what is your panel switch doing?

Gettingnto know your boat. Fun.

[tkeithlu]

That reaally leaves you with two routes. One is to go do battle with the company over a problem that will be difficult to define. The company will not be set up to do service, only replacement, and will not be forthcoming on doing that, either. That's one price to purchasing a Chinese (or some other places) item. They don't spend money on customer service, they sell units. They don't repair them. As they say, Good Luck.

The other route is to add a main power switch, so that you can shut the whole thing down before you leave for the night. Simple, but now you have responsibility for making sure that the fan does run long enough to cool the insides so you don't melt and then set fire to the whole thing, and to your boat. That decision may depend on whether your clutzy brother-in-law might decide to stop the heater with the master switch.

I suppose there is a third route - figure what you have is a good replacement parts set and buy another.

[pcmm]

The temp sensor on the heat exchanger of the CDH's can go bad. this causes the fan to run as the ECU will think the heat exchanger is still hot when its not. Now when you shut down a CDH or other diesel heater, they have to go through a shutdown process which involves shutting off the fuel and continuing to run the fan while the fuel burns off and then for a number of minutes after to cool the case down so that the heat doesn't fry the ECU in the heater case.

Bad temp sensors are also responsible for the fan just suddenly starting without the unit being turned on also. Easy fix though as the sensor is right on top of the heat exchanger and visible as soon as you take the cover off.

[hpeer]

Here is a diagnostic and repair manual for an Espar D4.

May or may not he of help to you.

It may give you a better idea of how they work, ai think they are roughly similar.

https://www.eberspaecher-na.com/file...d__09-15-2.pdf