fbh help...

[HarryM1BYT]

Originally Posted by mrdexter1

Read your article through and through which is a great help but to put the icing on the cake could you make it any clearer what pins to power up the fbh when not attached to the rover ??

You didn't read it thoroughly enough

If you look through the photos, there is one showing the PCB, the one marked with the date upside down, identifies the various plugs in red text. You must get the +ve and -ve the correct way round. 6 pin is control, 2 pin is the power.

[mrdexter1]

probably not !!!

So i went and stripped everything off and tested the fuel pump while there which worked perfect and i noticed on cutting the diesel pipe to the fbh it was clean and primed...
Cut the water pipes and the antifreeze was a lovely shade of red so not expecting any internal corrosion on the fbh.

coupled it up at home and used a 10 litre tub of water ...

breath held and, fan ran, silence and then the fuel pump did a little jiggle and she fired up and heated the water in a shade under 10 minutes having slowed then stopped... fired back up as the water cooled and is in perfect working order with no smoke bar a smidge on initial flame light....

wonder if they ve got another to spend another best £50 i ve spent !!!


just a quick addition -

once the fbh has topped out on its first cycle (having run at max to achieve it quickly), when it cuts back in it has cut fuel to top the heat up and is only using 0.3 l per hour which gets my vote as a heating system and saves my batteries running just a couple of watts more than my gas heating which is nothing to concern me ( 360w of solar is as good as useless for topping the batteries up in winter !!!! )

thanks...

[HarryM1BYT]

Originally Posted by mrdexter1

probably not !!!

So i went and stripped everything off and tested the fuel pump while there which worked perfect and i noticed on cutting the diesel pipe to the fbh it was clean and primed...
Cut the water pipes and the antifreeze was a lovely shade of red so not expecting any internal corrosion on the fbh.

coupled it up at home and used a 10 litre tub of water ...

breath held and, fan ran, silence and then the fuel pump did a little jiggle and she fired up and heated the water in a shade under 10 minutes having slowed then stopped... fired back up as the water cooled and is in perfect working order with no smoke bar a smidge on initial flame light....

wonder if they ve got another to spend another best £50 i ve spent !!!


just a quick addition -

once the fbh has topped out on its first cycle (having run at max to achieve it quickly), when it cuts back in it has cut fuel to top the heat up and is only using 0.3 l per hour which gets my vote as a heating system and saves my batteries running just a couple of watts more than my gas heating which is nothing to concern me ( 360w of solar is as good as useless for topping the batteries up in winter !!!! )

thanks...

They pumps don't fail internaly, the usual fault is the casing rusting away.

The glow pin draws around 15amps on initial firing, so the cable needs to be adequate for that.

A tiny amount of 'smoke' is to be expected, it is actually unburnt atomised diesel, rather than smoke. If it ever produces clouds, it needs a good clean out. You got an absolute bargain there..

[mrdexter1]

So the next step is to ask if the silencer is worth buying as it sounds like a jet taking off !!

Does it make a difference ?

[HarryM1BYT]

Originally Posted by mrdexter1

So the next step is to ask if the silencer is worth buying as it sounds like a jet taking off !!

Does it make a difference ?

I don't have one and I run mine up in the garage with the door open. Its inaudible outside the garage and I would not call it loud even in the garage. I can barely hear it sat in the driving seat, in the garage, engine off with windows closed. More of gentle whoosh than a scream. It does sound like a miniature jet engine, because that is what it is.

Some do report it as noisy, but mine is not. In the 75 it is mounted in the engine compartment, which is heavily sound insulated. Only the exhaust pokes out the bottom via the under engine cover. It does become much more audible with the bonnet up. Propably best to install it and see if you find it instrusive.

[mrdexter1]

just to update..

I set about testing the vehicles fan heater current consumption which was 3.5a on 1 / 6.7a on 2 / and 9.8a on 3 which pretty much rules out my use of that as a heating method as its far too high when you add the fbh amperage to any of those settings... There are some nifty micro heaters than can be coupled to it using 0.9a and able to kick out 2kw of heat but they are rather expensive.

So back to square 1 on the heating the van side of things but i still think for £50 its worth fitting the engine pre heater to do precicely that job and act as backup.

In the meantime i bought a bargain airtop 3500 and have stripped it down to find the burner pad is sooted up and requires a £29 pad as the flame dropped out every now and then. - current consumtion 1.3a low 3.2a high and it warms the entire van like lightning !!

couldnt believe how simple these things are on stripdown

[HarryM1BYT]

Originally Posted by mrdexter1

just to update..

I set about testing the vehicles fan heater current consumption which was 3.5a on 1 / 6.7a on 2 / and 9.8a on 3 which pretty much rules out my use of that as a heating method as its far too high when you add the fbh amperage to any of those settings... There are some nifty micro heaters than can be coupled to it using 0.9a and able to kick out 2kw of heat but they are rather expensive.

So back to square 1 on the heating the van side of things but i still think for £50 its worth fitting the engine pre heater to do precicely that job and act as backup.

In the meantime i bought a bargain airtop 3500 and have stripped it down to find the burner pad is sooted up and requires a £29 pad as the flame dropped out every now and then. - current consumtion 1.3a low 3.2a high and it warms the entire van like lightning !!

couldnt believe how simple these things are on stripdown

Don't dismiss the idea completely..

The fbh's current drops to almost nothing, once it has ignited itself. It then just powers the PCB, the water pump and pulses the fuel pump.

Your other large current consumer was the vehicle fan. Why not build the FBH into just a heating circuit, on its own? A length of copper pipe with a couple of elbows fitted with lots of fins then maybe add a few of the large size 12v computer fans to blow air over the fins. Couple the copper pipe to the input and output of the FBH, add a vertical pipe with a small tank to act as an header - you then have a very effective heating system, drawing at most a couple of amps.

To that, you could add an ordinary domestic switching thermostat to turn the 12v on/off and you have a controlled system.

you might even find a suitable finned pipe in a scrap yard.