Portable Eberspacher

[Escape]

A couple of our friends used a heater as above when they took their little Fiat Panda 4x4 on a tour through Scandinavia. In February! They paid €125, I wired it up to the car with a switch in the dash, fresh air intake and exhaust were routed through the floor (it came with all the necessary pipework) and some ducting was added to make sure it would heat the entire passenger compartment or the tent at the back of the car. It did a good job, didn't use too much diesel and was sold on after the trip for €100. 🙂

[Bowie69]

Been quite tempted by one of those for LGT, but not pulled the switch on one yet, and just put another coat on.

 

Tempting though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gazzar]

I wonder is there a SIM remote for those integrated units? 

[PolarBlair]

12 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

These are all over ebay for ~£150, the 8kw claim is BS (they're nearer the 3-5 of the standard Eberspacher) but can't argue with the price & simplicity:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404064192269

Obviously the usual caveats about fire & carbon monoxide etc. apply as well as Chinese wiring but they seem to have a huge following now so all the common problems have been solved.

I thought about these too but you still need some form of enclosure for waterproofing and the exhaust and air intakes need routing somewhere. In some respects it could be more work to fit something like this into a self contained unit.

 

[landroversforever]

53 minutes ago, PolarBlair said:

I thought about these too but you still need some form of enclosure for waterproofing and the exhaust and air intakes need routing somewhere. In some respects it could be more work to fit something like this into a self contained unit.

 

By given that any of the heaters need air in, exhaust out, and have the heated air going through them they’ll never be waterproof?

[FridgeFreezer]

1 hour ago, PolarBlair said:

I thought about these too but you still need some form of enclosure for waterproofing and the exhaust and air intakes need routing somewhere. In some respects it could be more work to fit something like this into a self contained unit.

Depends how you're using it, the basic heater units are designed for vehicles, I've seen Eberspachers get dunked off-road and carry on ticking, and the Webasto water heaters are usually engine-bay mounted on cars.

Plus, it's still about £1000 cheaper than the fancy kit, I think there's a bit of slack there for some minor waterproofing tweaks

[PolarBlair]

50 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

By given that any of the heaters need air in, exhaust out, and have the heated air going through them they’ll never be waterproof?

I wouldn't expect them to stand up to being submerged. I'm just talking about cheaply replicating the Nakatanenga version. When in use, it looks like the internals are protected from rain, and when not in use, it looks like all the bulkhead fittings either have bungs or screw caps which let you transport it on a roof rack without worrying about water damage. The all in one heaters look fine, but would need to be fitted inside a vehicle, and at that point, take up more space than a conventional parking heater install.

[PolarBlair]

53 minutes ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Depends how you're using it, the basic heater units are designed for vehicles, I've seen Eberspachers get dunked off-road and carry on ticking, and the Webasto water heaters are usually engine-bay mounted on cars.

Plus, it's still about £1000 cheaper than the fancy kit, I think there's a bit of slack there for some minor waterproofing tweaks

I wasn't suggesting getting the Nakatanenga kit - rather replicating it with cheaper parts.

[FridgeFreezer]

4 hours ago, PolarBlair said:

When in use, it looks like the internals are protected from rain, and when not in use, it looks like all the bulkhead fittings either have bungs or screw caps which let you transport it on a roof rack without worrying about water damage.

And this is hard to solve why exactly? £50 for an old ali storage case and a few end caps (hydraulic / pneumatic pipe bungs, or 3D printed, whatever) and you're away. I'll build you one for only £995 if you want?

[PolarBlair]

1 hour ago, FridgeFreezer said:

And this is hard to solve why exactly? £50 for an old ali storage case and a few end caps (hydraulic / pneumatic pipe bungs, or 3D printed, whatever) and you're away. I'll build you one for only £995 if you want?

That's my point though - its what I was after with my original post. On Amazon you can get a small reasonably priced aluminim case for £60 and you could easily make a cheap version of the Nakatanenga case for substantially less. My whole point was that you could do it on the cheap and still have a versatile mobile heater comparable to something that cost well over £1k.

But the all in one heaters with the in-built fuel tanks are quite tall so to make it weatherproof you would need a suitable case which increases the cost or you would have to disassemble it to fit. Once you go over a certain size, those aluminium cases jump in price substantially.

Im not trying to disagree - I'm on the side of low cost DIY but I feel like we may be talking in cross  purposes.

[landroversforever]

5 hours ago, PolarBlair said:

That's my point though - its what I was after with my original post. On Amazon you can get a small reasonably priced aluminim case for £60 and you could easily make a cheap version of the Nakatanenga case for substantially less. My whole point was that you could do it on the cheap and still have a versatile mobile heater comparable to something that cost well over £1k.

But the all in one heaters with the in-built fuel tanks are quite tall so to make it weatherproof you would need a suitable case which increases the cost or you would have to disassemble it to fit. Once you go over a certain size, those aluminium cases jump in price substantially.

Im not trying to disagree - I'm on the side of low cost DIY but I feel like we may be talking in cross  purposes.

But what fridge is saying and I’m thinking too… those all in one heaters wouldn’t take much to make rain proof in the same fashion with no need to splash out on another case. 
 

[PolarBlair]

3 hours ago, landroversforever said:

But what fridge is saying and I’m thinking too… those all in one heaters wouldn’t take much to make rain proof in the same fashion with no need to splash out on another case. 
 

I think fridge suggested an old storage case for £50 which was pretty much what I was thinking too:

9 hours ago, PolarBlair said:

11 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

And this is hard to solve why exactly? £50 for an old ali storage case and a few end caps (hydraulic / pneumatic pipe bungs, or 3D printed, whatever) and you're away. I'll build you one for only £995 if you want?

Which is why I think we were talking in cross purposes.

 

I could be wrong, but trying to waterproof one of the all in one units that was never meant to exposed to the elements Vs putting the components in a waterproof box sounds like more work.

Bearing in mind that the intake filter definitely needs some form of cover and you would also need to put the controller in some kind of enclosure, then make sure the internals of the actual planar heater itself were protected etc. etc. 

Vs.

+ bulkhead fittings, job done.

I guess if you were really on a budget, you could keep it simple - stick one of the all in one units under a cover/tarp when in use, and travel with it stored in the truck. But I like the idea of being able to have it fixed to the roof rack ready to go when camping but staying protected and secure in transit, not taking up space in the truck. Lots of ways to skin a cat.