Chinese Diesel Heater - Workshop Install
Introduction: Chinese Diesel Heater - Workshop Install
I needed heat in my single-garage workshop but did not want to use an electric heater. I wanted to use a cheap (under £100 on eBay) Chinese Diesel Heater (intended for heating large vehicles such as camper vans).
There are dozens of videos on YouTube showing various installations in workshops, but none were mounted outside the workshop, and many were quite <PERSON>.
I wanted an external, boxed, mounting to:
1. Reduce the high sound levels from the burner/fan/pump.
2. Keep the diesel out of my workshop, due to its smell.
3. Get a straightforward layout for the components.
The heater was mounted on the external wall of my garage, a half-brick was removed to allow the hot air duct to enter directly into the workshop. I chose to mount the diesel tank in an adjacent shed, alongside the heater.
This Instructable is not a step-by-step 'how-to' (as mentioned there are dozens of these), more an overview of what I did, in case it is of use to someone else.
I gleaned much information from a brilliant series of Australian videos.
I have also posted a video, based mainly on this Instructable.
Supplies
Having watched the series of videos linked to above, when I bought my heater, I looked carefully for one marketed as having
* an output of 5kW
* photos which showed a 'straight-through' exhaust silencer (as opposed to one with a kinked or bendy path)
* a small-diameter hard-nylon fuel supply pipe (not a 6mm diameter, floppy, soft plastic pipe)
* an LCD control panel
* a four-way remote control (on, off, up and down)
* a fuel filter
On receipt, the fuel pipe was soft and floppy! I purchased a length of suitable pipe from eBay. In all other respects, the heater was great (and worked brilliantly first-time) and was delivered quickly.
eBay purchases (March 2021)
The heater was listed as "12V 5000W Air Diesel Heater LCD Display Display 2KW-5KW for Car Truck Motor-Home" Sold by connectingrodeclub. Not sure of the location, but it came in a few days. £82
I ordered a power supply "DC12V Top Quality LED Transformer Driver Power Supply LED Strip Lights MR16/CCTV" (150W 12.5A). Sold by electricalsone located in Coventry UK. 98
£14
The nylon pipe was listed as "NYLON TUBE METRIC PNEUMATIC Air Line Flexible Hose AIR FUEL - HIGH QUALITY" (4mmx2.5mm BNTM04/025). Sold by fletcher3691 located in Chelmsford UK. £1.60
Step 1: Details of the Heater and Its Enclosure
This step is just an opportunity to show numerous close-up photographs of the build and note down a few details (many gleaned from the videos referred to in the introduction).
* The exhaust pipe can eject water vapour, so I have tried to avoid a water-trap by making it fall steadily.
* I shortened the exhaust pipe, as it was too long and very inflexible. This caused a problem, because the original had smooth unions formed at each end - this was impossible to replicate on the end that I had cut. I had to insert a small piece of steel tube to join the pipe to the silencer.
* The silencer has a drip-hole in the bottom, which can drip onto the ground in my installation.
* The power supply must be able to provide at least 10A at 12V. The glow plug takes a large current (8A?) and the fan/etc takes 2.5A. I believe that many installations have low-voltage error problems due to poor batteries or lack of current capacity. I chose a 12.5A supply.
* Keeping the red and black power supply cables as short as possible has got to be a good thing, due to the large current demand noted above.
* One draw-back of using a mains-powered supply is what happens if there is a power-cut when the heater is operating. The suggestion is that the residual heat in the unit will mean that it will destroy itself by overheating/melting if there is no power to run the cooling fan. I think this suggestion is likely to be true! As I never have power-cuts, the likelihood of having one when the heater is running seems remote - I hope!
* I mounted the pump at an angle of 30° - 40° with the output end uppermost. 98