DIY Diesel Heater

[Jeepeto]

Just wrapping up my latest project and wanted to share. It’s a 5KW diesel heater mounted into a Pelican 1600 with a Waterport mount that will be used to hang the heater from my trailrax. The thought here is that when it’s cold enough for a diesel heater, it’s too cold for a shower. I’m hoping this will be a big morale boost for my wife who historically struggles with sleeping comfort in colder months.

The case should be water/dust proof and seems to be doing fine in regards to internal temps while running. I’m still waiting on a different exhaust tube to show up that hopefully makes a better seal on the muffler and then I plan to wrap it in fiberglass heat wrap to further reduce case temps. It’s surprisingly quiet while running inside the case, and the fuel pump tick is less than I thought it would be, although I may still apply some Dynomat to the case to reduce it even further. All in all I’m quite happy with the project and can’t wait to get it out on the trail.

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[r.stevens]

I got an all-in-one unit and used it last weekend while camping in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. I believe the first evening it got down to like 31 degrees. I was nice and toasty warm in my rooftop tent.

 

[Jeepeto]

I got an all-in-one unit and used it last weekend while camping in Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. I believe the first evening it got down to like 31 degrees. I was nice and toasty warm in my rooftop tent.

? I did the same about a month ago, got an all in one unit and a step that hangs over the tire. I decided to try it out in my shop first just to see how well it worked, and it immediately became my shop heater. I figured it was a good enough test to order up a pelican case and do it proper. This way it doesn’t take up room in the Jeep and hangs nice and high close to the tent

 

[LKG]

Just wrapping up my latest project and wanted to share. It’s a 5KW diesel heater mounted into a Pelican 1600 with a Waterport mount that will be used to hang the heater from my trailrax. The thought here is that when it’s cold enough for a diesel heater, it’s too cold for a shower. I’m hoping this will be a big morale boost for my wife who historically struggles with sleeping comfort in colder months.

The case should be water/dust proof and seems to be doing fine in regards to internal temps while running. I’m still waiting on a different exhaust tube to show up that hopefully makes a better seal on the muffler and then I plan to wrap it in fiberglass heat wrap to further reduce case temps. It’s surprisingly quiet while running inside the case, and the fuel pump tick is less than I thought it would be, although I may still apply some Dynomat to the case to reduce it even further. All in all I’m quite happy with the project and can’t wait to get it out on the trail.

I climbed d

Just wrapping up my latest project and wanted to share. It’s a 5KW diesel heater mounted into a Pelican 1600 with a Waterport mount that will be used to hang the heater from my trailrax. The thought here is that when it’s cold enough for a diesel heater, it’s too cold for a shower. I’m hoping this will be a big morale boost for my wife who historically struggles with sleeping comfort in colder months.

The case should be water/dust proof and seems to be doing fine in regards to internal temps while running. I’m still waiting on a different exhaust tube to show up that hopefully makes a better seal on the muffler and then I plan to wrap it in fiberglass heat wrap to further reduce case temps. It’s surprisingly quiet while running inside the case, and the fuel pump tick is less than I thought it would be, although I may still apply some Dynomat to the case to reduce it even further. All in all I’m quite happy with the project and can’t wait to get it out on the trail.

I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole on these a couple weeks ago. Pretty sure I'll be building one of these for my camp trailer. Typical forced air RV heater burns through batterys like nobody's business.

How is the exhaust smell?

 

[PatriotX]

I run mine on K1 with some diesel lubricity additive to help pump longevity. [all-in-one]

There is no smell after initial burn-off, combustion and heating circuits don’t cross if muffler not aimed at intake.

A 15amp 12v power supply was not sufficient for initial glow plug draw, had to step up to 30A.

 

[Jeepeto]

I climbed d

I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole on these a couple weeks ago. Pretty sure I'll be building one of these for my camp trailer. Typical forced air RV heater burns through batterys like nobody's business.

How is the exhaust smell?

I’ve not done a whole lot of testing on battery drain, but initially I did run it off my jackery 1,000 in the shop. I was able to get a weekend of use on and still had over 60% battery left. The big draw is the glow plug at startup and after that it’s primarily the fan/fuel pump, this would lead me to believe it will vary depending on how high or low you run the unit. In my experience running the shop unit I would imagine low will be plenty sufficient to heat a RTT. I’ll report back after the first trip out and let you know how it goes.

The exhaust smell cleans up when the unit is operating at temp. As mentioned by @PatriotX the combustion exhaust should be aimed away from the fresh air intake port to avoid smell/CO in the living space. I’ve also heard of others running kerosene for less smell, but haven’t tried it. I have fed my shop heater anything and everything i can find, including used motor oil and it seems to chooch just fine. I’m sure you could experiment with biodiesel or used fryer oil as well for a nice French fry smell at camp ?

 

[LKG]

I’ve not done a whole lot of testing on battery drain, but initially I did run it off my jackery 1,000 in the shop. I was able to get a weekend of use on and still had over 60% battery left. The big draw is the glow plug at startup and after that it’s primarily the fan/fuel pump, this would lead me to believe it will vary depending on how high or low you run the unit. In my experience running the shop unit I would imagine low will be plenty sufficient to heat a RTT. I’ll report back after the first trip out and let you know how it goes.

The exhaust smell cleans up when the unit is operating at temp. As mentioned by @PatriotX the combustion exhaust should be aimed away from the fresh air intake port to avoid smell/CO in the living space. I’ve also heard of others running kerosene for less smell, but haven’t tried it. I have fed my shop heater anything and everything i can find, including used motor oil and it seems to chooch just fine. I’m sure you could experiment with biodiesel or used fryer oil as well for a nice French fry smell at camp ?

Thanks for the info, looking forward to the updates. Looks like the US market is a little slow to catch onto these little units, better late than never I guess.

 

[Jeepeto]

Thanks for the info, looking forward to the updates. Looks like the US market is a little slow to catch onto these little units, better late than never I guess.

I noticed the same. A lot of YouTube videos from across the pond but not much going on State side. I imagine it is going to be quite popular with the overland community in the coming years.

 

[Jeepeto]

Thanks for the info, looking forward to the updates. Looks like the US market is a little slow to catch onto these little units, better late than never I guess.

Time for some driveway experimentation.

On startup, with the glow plug running, it pulls ~97 watts. This cycle takes about 5 minutes and then the glow plug turns off once the unit is warmed up

On high, the unit pulls ~34 watts

On low, the unit pulls ~7 watts

This means the unit will pull a little over 8 watt hours to get to operating temp.

If you wanted to run the unit on low for an 8 hour night you’d end up pulling 8 watt hours to get up to temp and another 56 watt hours to run the fan and fuel pump for the night resulting in a total drain of 64 watt hours. You would have enough battery in a jackery 500 (assuming a full 500 watt hours) to last you a full week (7.8 days at 8 hours a day)

If you wanted to run the unit on high for 8 hours a night, you’d end up pulling a total of 280 watt hours per night. Or a little shy if your two night weekend trip with a jackery 500.

I cannot imagine a situation where I would need the full 5KW power of the diesel heater to stay warm through the night in our RTT. I very much expect to keep the unit on or near low and share heat between the RTT and the Jeep for the dogs.

The real world will be the true test but these are hopefully within the ballpark

 

[DubaiMarauder]

Thanks for the info, looking forward to the updates. Looks like the US market is a little slow to catch onto these little units, better late than never I guess.

Not really, look at what us truckers use for bunk heaters. Do a little research on Espar heaters. They're in almost every semi on the road, since we carry 200-350 gallons of diesel anyways.

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