Diesel Heater Advice

[Riverwind]

DefinitelyMe:

Those symptoms you described strike me as entirely connected to air fuel mix. Your posts led me here.

I know you mentioned you changed some of the fan rpm and pump rate settings, but I wonder if you changed them ENOUGH. as I discussed above, I had to cut the pump rate by more than half AND increase the fan speed to overcome these symptoms. I didn't try, but I infer that smaller, more incremental changes to these settings would not have noticable effect. Once you can confirm your physical setup is to spec, and that air intake in particular is unobstructed, I'd strongly suggest looking to your pump and fan settings. Tbh, and though I greatly appreciate everyone helping brainstorm, I think the info suggesting it's fuel line issues or sensors or w/e else are a bit of red herring (for these symptoms in particular).

Err on the side of going too lean, and then adjust it incrementally richer. Diesel can combust fully in the presence of too much air, but it cannot combust fully with too little air. The coking comes from too much diesel combined with too little air, not from bubbles in fuel lines etc. Hope it works out for you. I'll likely hang around these forums the next week or two; will help if I can

Re: pump capacities, I think this is also somewhat of a red herring -- all else remaining equal, having a lower pump capacity will effectively reduce the fuel present in the combustion chamber, but same effect can be achieved by lowering the pump rate in settings, and/or increasing fan speed. My recent research suggests the Amazon kits typically come with 22 ml pump, but that also 16 ml, 18.5 ml, and 28 ml pumps have been paired with these units at times

[Cheechako]

One word: Kerosene

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

One word: Kerosene

A gallon every few months will keep it cleaned out . Good call

[Riverwind]

Good idea, certainly, but I was running on Kero and Kero diesel mix -- didn't seem to help the symptoms I was experiencing. Eventually even with 100% Kero I was getting e-10. Increasing air to the air fuel mix was the only thing that helped

[Randy Crawford]

I had the error-10 message affect me when I tried to start my heater for the second time. I attempted starting 3 ccx times with the same code showing. I watch that gentleman's video regarding code 10, thenI thinned out the diesel already in the tank with Kerosene using appx an equal amount. My heater started right up and I let it run 15 minutes before shutting it off again. It's just fine now.

[Riverwind]

I've had no startup issues since adjusting settings -- I am not sure I have the thing tuned perfectly, but it starts 100% every time. Currently I have the 'low' setting in the controller settings at 0.8 hz and 1500 rpm, the 'high' setting at 3.6 hz and 4500 rpm. Operating it at ~sea level.

new issue I am working on, when it gets wet out for a few days, the heater develops a rather loud grinding noise (~70dB, vs ~40dB when working normally), and takes a few days of dry weather to go away again. Best guess is the fan has some dust on it, and when its damp the dust absorbs water and makes the fan unbalanced. Just a guess though, have yet to open it up, just gonna ride it out for the winter unless it fails completely.

[GordMay]

A Cautionary Tale:

I had a friend, who liked to kayak, during the winter, looking at the beautiful snow-covered scenery.
Of course, it would get very cold out, so he would get very cold, too.

One day he had an idea, about how to keep warm.
He sawed his kayak down the middle [lengthwise], and strapped the two pieces to the bottom of a diesel-powered space heater, like pontoons on a catamaran. Then he sat on the space heater, and paddled out, onto the lake.

At first it worked, and he was toasty warm, as he floated along.
But then, suddenly, some of the diesel caught fire.
In only a few seconds, the whole contraption went up in flames, and sank into the icy waters, where my friend died of hypothermia.

Which just goes to show, you can't halve your kayak, and heat it, too.

His funeral is on Wednesday.
I've made him a wreath, in the shape of a buoyancy aid.
It's what he would have wanted.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by GordMay

A Cautionary Tale:

I had a friend, who liked to kayak, during the winter, looking at the beautiful snow-covered scenery.
Of course, it would get very cold out, so he would get very cold, too.

One day he had an idea, about how to keep warm.
He sawed his kayak down the middle [lengthwise], and strapped the two pieces to the bottom of a diesel-powered space heater, like pontoons on a catamaran. Then he sat on the space heater, and paddled out, onto the lake.

At first it worked, and he was toasty warm, as he floated along.
But then, suddenly, some of the diesel caught fire.
In only a few seconds, the whole contraption went up in flames, and sank into the icy waters, where my friend died of hypothermia.

Which just goes to show, you can't halve your kayak, and heat it, too.

His funeral is on Wednesday.
I've made him a wreath, in the shape of a buoyancy aid.
It's what he would have wanted.

. . .

[Dockhead]

Relevant to this thread may be my experience with the second generation Eberspächer hydronic M12.

I have long had a love/hate relationship with these things. My boat was built for cold climates with central heating and an old generation Eber Hydronic 10. That thing worked great -- when it worked. I rarely got through a year without a major repair, often costing more than £1000.

In 2018, when I was getting ready to go to the Arctic, I sent my Hydronic 10 to the distributer to fix its latest failure. Just the year before I had replaced the burner tube for more than a grand. Latest failure was the circuit board, and Krueger refused, saying it wasn't worth it, and I should buy the new M12.

I was angry but did what they said (bought from another place however, at a discount).

Now I've reached the 6th anniversary and the damn thing has been absolutely flawless. Six years without the slightest problem. I hope I'm not jinxing it by reporting this. I regret being angry when Krueger forced me to ditch the old one. Wish I had done it earlier.

Now I haven't used it all that heavily since I have not been living aboard without shore power any of these years -- as I did a few winters with the old one -- but it was used daily for most of one summer in the Arctic, and gets regular use. We occasionally need heat even in the summer in this latitude, and I sail year round.

An occasional run of kerosene would be really good for it but I just have too many other things to do to get around to installing a kero tank so I've just been using normal diesel fuel.

My opinion of these has greatly increased now. The new models let you access diagnostics through the normal control panel, so even if problems occur, you have a better chance of field repair. One of the things I hated about the old one was that it was a black box without the diagnostic box, so all you could do was pull it out (not a trivial job) and send it in.

Advantages of these over pot heaters is distribution of the heat whereever you need it, no free bulkhead space needed, no hole in the deck or chimney, makes hot water for showers.

Advantage of pot heater as ever is simplicity and total field repairability. Plus it's cozy if you have a glass door on it.

If I were building a new boat from scratch I would have both.