Frozen washers (again)

[Top90]

Normally. Also heated mirrors if you have them.

Ah, I have a heated screen but I don't use it as the RR has a pre-warmer so it's already warm and defrosted before I come out.

I'll switch on the screen (baking the muck on the screen on) to see if the washer jets defrost or not...

[nige90]

Looks like I could make money selling washer fluid in Europe. I've never heard of anyone having frozen washer nozzles here.

When it gets really cold, you switch to the -45 formula. http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/4/Auto/3/AutoFluidsChemicals/WindshieldWasherFluid/PRD~0294173P/Motomaster%2BWinter%2BWindshield%2BWasher%2BFluid.jsp

Holy s**t......we average nearly 2 canadian dollars for ONE litre of our best which still freezes.

Fill a container now man

I envy your Canadian tire store (even if you do spell it wrong ), I recently bought a heated grip kit for a motorbike "like these" and they cost me £30, nearly 50 bucks in your money.

Incidently they were to bond to the bak of the mirrors on my MX5 as I couldn't get heated mirrors for it.

[Ex Member]

Normally $0.50 per liter is what you would pay, sometime down to $1.50 a bottle. http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/4/Auto/3/AutoFluidsChemicals/WindshieldWasherFluid/PRDOVR~0294199P/Pacer%2BWindshield%2BWasher%2BFluid.jsp I'm scared to even think how much I buy every year.....

[Dunc]

Some Mercs and i believe some Beemers have heated washer bottles too. That would make a very useable mod along with Si's heater coil idea.

Also, check some of these out;

Heated wipers!!!!

[muddychris300tdi]

Hi, a mate of mine gets his fluid from the local VW dealer and its rated down to -30. I'v added some extra pipe and wound it around my heater pipe on my disco and i'v not had a problem yet. Chris

[Simon119]

I have Halfrauds own brand washer fluid in the landy, says it's freezing temp is -15. Haven't had it freeze on me yet.

LINK

Simon

[TheRecklessEngineer]

You can make your own screenwash. The only real stuff in it is methanol and soap. Methanol I think be substituted by methylated spirit and for soap you can use fairy liquid.

Whilst fairy liquid contains quite a lot of salt that many people will argue will damage your paintwork, I think if you compare it to the salt on the road at the moment, I doubt there is much in it.

Neat methanol freezes at nearly -100. Should keep your screen clear nicely!

[Superpants]

My understanding was that the freezing was mainly caused in the jets by the methanol evaporating off in the last few centimetres up to the jet itself, which in turn means the water left behind can freeze. Not sure if that is entirly true but it sounded plausible! My money would therefore be on heated jets rather than on heating the fluid before it gets to the jet.

[Ex Member]

My understanding was that the freezing was mainly caused in the jets by the methanol evaporating off in the last few centimetres up to the jet itself, which in turn means the water left behind can freeze. Not sure if that is entirly true but it sounded plausible! My money would therefore be on heated jets rather than on heating the fluid before it gets to the jet.

Well.... It gets down to -40 C here any I've never frozen a jet and never heard of anyone freezing one. So....with the correct solution, I don't think there is any call for heated nozzles.

If you are really keen, you can buy washer fluid heaters. This is mainly to get better cleaning and de-icing of the screen. I've never seen anyone use one... http://www.windshieldwiperheaters.com/

[mmgemini]

FIXED......

It was a bit warmer today, well not at freezing point so I've been modifyiny.

Some time ago I put washer jets into the bonnet but I found that when travelling the water pulled away from the screen instead of hitting it because of the aerodynamics {AP} on the back of the spare wheel.

So today I drilled more holes, nearly under the spare tyre and fitted double washer just, I also drilled a hole near the jets to let hot air onto the jets from thup.

Tomorrow if it's as warm I'll cable tie the extra lenght of washer tubing to the heater pipe.

[tacr2man]

My p38 has heated jets , my 110 and disco1 dont but they dont freeze up , my washer fluid is good to -57 if used neat . I run at 50/50 and have had no probs with freezing. Might have something to do with if premix or for dilution . JMHO

[The Badger]

Just a thought, you could add a heated element into you washer bottle?

Like the ones you get to heat a drink – HERE

Use a timer relay, or use the power line from a timer relay to trigger on/off another relay.

It might work.

[MetalMagus]

Hi guys,

Been following this thread and started looking for ideas on how to heat the pipe.

Thought about the clothing that you can buy for motorcyclists that use teflon coated cable to heat the clothes. I found a useful article on instructables.com which could be modified to create a heated length of windscreen washer tube running inside the dash. I am no electrical expert and I would certainly test this off the vehicle before any install, but it looks possible. I have edited the text from the instructable to apply more to heating a windscreen washer. But the credit for the original article must go to vze1mk7d on the Instructables.com website. The theory goes:

This works on the same principal as a light bulb or a toaster. Pass electricity through a high resistance, and you get heat. In this case though, we are controlling how

much heat the clothing will put out by varying the length of wire we will use. To figure out how much wire to use, we will use ohm's law or

Current [Amps] = Voltage [Volts] divided by Resistance [Ohms]

The wire that was used has a resistance of .1 ohms per foot. So if we used 30 feet of wire, the total resistance would be 3 ohms. This is ignoring the resistance of the

connectors and wire going to the battery but it should be negligible in our calculations. The voltage of the batteries is 12 volts.

So 12V/ 3 ohms = 4 amps.

Now we know how much current our system will draw.

So you want to know how hot this will be

Power [Watts] = Current [Amps] x Voltage [Volts]

Based on our project consisting of a 12-volt battery and a current of 4-amps, the power consumption would be (4-amps x 12-volts = ) 48-watts. The heat output of 48-

watts, can be expressed in British Thermal Units (BTU) per hour by performing the following conversion:

BTU / Hour = Watts x 3.413

Put simply, one British Thermal Unit (BTU) is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1-pound ( lb) of water 1-degree Fahrenheit.

Thus the cable in our project would output ( 48-watts x 3.413 = ) approximately 164 BTUs per hour. If this value isn't intuitive to you, consider that 48-watts is similar to a 50-watt light bulb, and imagine the amount of heat that a 50-watt light bulb outputs. That may not sound like much, but when that amount of heat is contained in an enclosed space, you will find that it

is plenty warm.

If you want to go even hotter than that, just use a shorter length of wire. Just remember ohm's law and you'll be all set.

The above example I think would provide probably far more that we would need in terms of heat but I wanted to share the theory that I had come across. I suppose it would be a matter of experimenting with the resistance value and length of wire used to wrap the pipe. You could also introduce a dimmer circuit or a DC motor control circuit to begin adjusting things.

Cheers

Sean

[errol209]

Water has a specific heat capacity of about 3J/gram/K at 0^oC, so to raise 1 gram of nearly frozen water by 10^oK (or centigrade, they're the same thing) to well above freezing point we need 30J of energy. Now, assuming we're using 1/8 washer tube (ID about 3mm) 1 gram of water (or 1000 cubic millimetres approx) will occupy a length of washer pipe 1000 / (pi x 1.5 x 1.5) long, or 141mm. I'm guessing that the washer jets would use this amount in a second, so we need to supply 30J per second, which is 30W. Using the above data, you'd either need a way to fit a coil of wire 60' long into a space 141mm long, or accept that you might end up raising it to a higher temperature.

Of course, I have ignored heat loss to the rest of the world, and the fact that the washer fluid could actually be as cold as -15^oC, which would make the power requirement 75W or 20' of wire (ish). All in all I suggest you'd need some kind of thermal control, but that would be a simple inverse-linear voltage control circuit (three resistors and a big transistor).

Hope some of that helps

[Mo Murphy]

errol, I've come to the conclusion that you think too much

Mo

[hattymender]

A trip to Maplins and a busy morning.

Two 3w 33ohm resistors (40p each) and a switch. Tried them in parallel and (in my hand) they seemed a bit fierce at 12.75v from battery. In series they just got warm to 'a bit hot' . Two in series it is then, one for front and one back.

They're in a 'ceramic' block, about 20x5x5mm. This fits perfectly on the flat below the jets, glued them on with epoxy.

Getting wires to front a pain, bulkhead is double skinned behind washer jet and feeding wires a bit fiddly. As was feeding wire through roof lining to back.

Power on and nothing blew up! Can't report yet on how well it works as it's thawing today (well, it would wouldn't it?).

Jet housing seems to be getting 'warm' (as opposed to bl@@dy freezing, like my fingers). This is probably better than a melted puddle of plastic.

We'll see what happens in morning...........

[errol209]

errol, I've come to the conclusion that you think too much

Mo

Why thank you I have to use the Physics qualifications for something, otherwise it'd be a waste...

Happy to be of some help, albeit fairly thoretical^*

^* I have an O-level in big hammers, but they didn't offer it as an A-level

[errol209]

Two 3w 33ohm resistors (40p each) and a switch. Tried them in parallel and (in my hand) they seemed a bit fierce at 12.75v from battery.

2 x 33 Ohm resistors in parallel is a resistance of 16.2 Ohms, giving power output of (V² / R ) of 10W or so (5 Watts each from a 3W resistor ) no wonder they got hot!

In series its a much more sensible 66 Ohms or 2.46W total.

[MetalMagus]

Water has a specific heat capacity of about 3J/gram/K at 0^oC, so to raise 1 gram of nearly frozen water by 10^oK (or centigrade, they're the same thing) to well above freezing point we need 30J of energy. Now, assuming we're using 1/8 washer tube (ID about 3mm) 1 gram of water (or 1000 cubic millimetres approx) will occupy a length of washer pipe 1000 / (pi x 1.5 x 1.5) long, or 141mm. I'm guessing that the washer jets would use this amount in a second, so we need to supply 30J per second, which is 30W. Using the above data, you'd either need a way to fit a coil of wire 60' long into a space 141mm long, or accept that you might end up raising it to a higher temperature.

Of course, I have ignored heat loss to the rest of the world, and the fact that the washer fluid could actually be as cold as -15^oC, which would make the power requirement 75W or 20' of wire (ish). All in all I suggest you'd need some kind of thermal control, but that would be a simple inverse-linear voltage control circuit (three resistors and a big transistor).

Hope some of that helps

Errol,

Thanks for the extra info.

It got me thinking again, and I found some resistance wire that Maplin sell which has a resistance of 4.2 Ohms/metre. If my sums are correct, and they're probably not, but anyhow I worked it out that you can get 65W from 121 turns around 3mm ID pipe which for 28SWG wire would cover 45.5mm of tube in length.

Cheers

Sean

[errol209]

Errol,

Thanks for the extra info.

It got me thinking again, and I found some resistance wire that Maplin sell which has a resistance of 4.2 Ohms/metre. If my sums are correct, and they're probably not, but anyhow I worked it out that you can get 65W from 121 turns around 3mm ID pipe which for 28SWG wire would cover 45.5mm of tube in length.

Cheers

Sean

*beep*

You might have made a mistook ...

3mm ID is about 4mm OD for a metal pipe, so one turn is going to be:

(4 + .375 (the thickness of the wire) * pi), or 13.74mm of wire (circumference = pi * diameter).

To get 65W you need (13 * 13 / 65) or 2.6 ohms (from R= V² / W).

[Just as a check, 65W is (65 / 13) Amps at 13V, or 5A. Power is current (I, in amps) squared * R, so 5 * 5 * 2.6 = 65W.]

Which is (2.6 / 4.2) metres or 610mm. This is only 44 turns or (44* .375) = 16.5mm long.

(Much easier to follow in stages, and to check)

You will need good thermal conductivity to get this to heat the pipe up and not glow red hot! Remember that resistance wire isn't insulated, so either we use a non-metallic pipe and epoxy the wire on (which I like) or try and electrically insulate the resistance wire first (yuck).

[MetalMagus]

*beep*

You might have made a mistook ...

3mm ID is about 4mm OD for a metal pipe, so one turn is going to be:

(4 + .375 (the thickness of the wire) * pi), or 13.74mm of wire (circumference = pi * diameter).

To get 65W you need (13 * 13 / 65) or 2.6 ohms (from R= V² / W).

[Just as a check, 65W is (65 / 13) Amps at 13V, or 5A. Power is current (I, in amps) squared * R, so 5 * 5 * 2.6 = 65W.]

Which is (2.6 / 4.2) metres or 610mm. This is only 44 turns or (44* .375) = 16.5mm long.

(Much easier to follow in stages, and to check)

You will need good thermal conductivity to get this to heat the pipe up and not glow red hot! Remember that resistance wire isn't insulated, so either we use a non-metallic pipe and epoxy the wire on (which I like) or try and electrically insulate the resistance wire first (yuck).

Knew my maths was dodgy

But learning all the time. Thanks for keeping me right.

Like I said it's all theory and food for thought or experimenting. By the time I get round to getting something together that works global warming is chance to have beaten me to it and made the idea redundant.

Cheers

Sean

[western]

when you 2 have perfected this washer jet heater unit, are you going into full production partnership, so the rest of us can get one ??????

glad you know what's going on, cos I'm a bit confused, was a long time ago when I did stuff like that

[errol209]

Knew my maths was dodgy

I was beginning to doubt my own

Anyway, happy to help a fellow vapour-ist (so much to do, and so litle time between domestic tasks )

[errol209]

when you 2 have perfected this washer jet heater unit, are you going into full production partnership, so the rest of us can get one ??????

You mean someone might aktually want one?

[western]

would prevent my washer jets from freezing & would mean I don't have to bodge make one