Project Cobbler's's Talbot Express - Time to move it on?

[mat_the_cat]

Mine's 0.022ml, despite being a 2kW (based on physical size as well as description). I've read that this will smoke heavily, but no problems so far...

[Bucketeer]

On 1/18/2020 at 8:44 PM, cobblers said:

It's -2 outside, and I'm in the van with the heater set to the lowest it will go, and I'm really warm. I'm sat here in my underpants with the roof vent half open.

That has sparked much jealousy.

This was the ceiling of my home yesterday morning.

[loserone]

Lush

[cobblers]

3 minutes ago, Bucketeer said:

That has sparked much jealousy.

This was the ceiling of my home yesterday morning.

Ouch! I've had my share of nights in the van where the water in the sink froze solid, it's not a lot of fun.

[cobblers]

I spent most of the morning making this contraption to dampen the pump noise. When I started I realised the box was too small, but instead of knocking the job on its head, I continued and made compromise after compromise until it was useless. In my head I had a nice couple of loops of supple 4mm tube off  each end of the pump to isolate the pump from the casing entirely, and the whole pump sat with a good couple of inches of soft sponge in all directions, but this was the best I could do with what I had to hand. Miles off!

 

 

It looked fairly neat, but it was about 10x louder than before!

I will order a nice big cast aly box and do it again one day, properly!

 

For now, I decided to go another route - Sit the pump in some closed cell foam, in a steel tube, then wrap that tube in more foam - the steel tube would act as another damper before the vibrations got to the chassis.

 

I'm pleased to say that this worked fairly well, it's a fair bit better than with the original mount, but there is still an audible tick noise outside the van. It's something I'll have another go at in the future, but it's good enough for now. I can barely hear it inside and don't mind the noise at all, and generally I don't camp in places where I'm very near anyone, but I am very keen not to bother people, especially if its really cold and I want to leave it running overnight.

 

[cobblers]

Went away last night - outside was about 0-1c ish (puddles were frozen over). I went out to the pub for some dinner and left the heater on low for 90 minutes. The result:

Perfect!

I'm going to 3d print a mount for the pump that suspends it off a load of O-rings a bit more elegantly and securely than the bodge that's on there.

 

I also fitted new tyres. I took the 215/65/16 Insa-Turbo Dakars off for a few reasons: They were soft and wearing quickly. While they were load rated for the actual weight of the van (2300kg) they had max 33psi written on the side, which wasn't really sufficient, but mainly because of the mega flipping drag they caused.

 

So I put some 235/60/16 Insa-Turbo Rangers on, these are a less aggressive tyre, fit the wheels better, are load rated properly and will take more pressure.

 

Now they're on and I've done a tank of fuel on them -  They look more "proper" on the wheels and there's less noise, but I reckon the extra width has cost me about the same rolling resistance as the tread pattern has gained me - It still feels like I've left the handbrake on a click. They weren't expensive and I should get a decent portion of the purchase price back from the sale of the old tyres. They do the job on muddy tracks and wet grass fine - I'm hardly mega offroading but the weakest link is the open diff and tiny amount of front suspension travel.

[Zelandeth]

The fact that these heaters produce a completely dry heat is definitely a bonus in these situations I reckon.  The ability to come back to a van which isn't only warm but is also dry is worth its weight in gold isn't it!

[cobblers]

Well I was singing the heaters praises to everyone, but when I went away on thursday I woke up at 4am freezing cold, the heater had errored out - E10 "flame gone out"

It senses the temperature of the casing and if it's below a certain level it stops pumping fuel in because it's gone out.  It failed to start up again, with a load of smoke.

Today I did  few checks - the glow plug can fail, but the heater was drawing 10A so that was fine. The heater body itself wasn't getting warm, so the fault wasn't with the temp sensor.

Perhaps the fuel pump was shit? I left it doing a priming cycle into a measuring cup for 5 minutes. Priming is done at 5 pulses per second, each pulse should be 0.016ml so I was expecting 24ml, but I got nearer 40ml.

I had a proper look at my pump, and it's actually 0.022ml pump, which I'm told is the wrong pump for a 2kw heater.

 

Eventually I bit the bullet and took the heater out of the van. I don't know why I was so reluctant to do it, it was out in 5 minutes.

Stripped it down on the bench and it's absolutely sludged and carboned up to high hell:

 

Absolutely disgusting! that's only after about 35 litres of fuel.

I cleaned it all up, put it back together and it's working properly again - It smoked the carpark out bigtime when it first fired up, burning off all the residual stuff in the exhaust. If it's sooting up like that, it's definitely running rich. My air piping is short and straight, so I reckon that I've probably just got the wrong pump.

I ordered a spare 0.016ml pump a while ago, I'll swap them over and give it a try.

[brownnova]

A proper heater Is what we need for our van... we could use it all year round then... 

[cobblers]

They're £95 well spent, you can be very comfortably warm any time of year for about £1.50 a day in diesel. Mine's giving me some grief but everything I buy or go anywhere near does, most people have no issues with them at all. 

[brownnova]

Where did you buy it? I forget... I could go looking back through the thread but I’ma lazy bastard... 

[cobblers]

Just ebay, most of them are 5kw ones which are a bit fierce in a van this size. There's a lot of 5kw ones advertised as 2kw - Genuine 2kw ones are 32cm long, that's the way to be sure. 

[brownnova]

Excellent, thanks. I’ll look into it. Need warmth in the van if we’re going to keep it! 

[Zelandeth]

The 5kW one heats my coachbuilt van up from 0C to 20C in about 20 minutes.  It's very impressive.  Just be mindful of how hot the exhaust gets when choosing a place to put it.  I need to improve the ducting arrangements in my case though - which I reckon will probably cut the time it takes to warm the van in half.

Sure I've heard quite a few reports from people of these choking themselves up if they're run at low power settings for long periods and need to be run flat out regularly to burn the crud off...if it's been over fuelling due to the wrong pump stroke size I imagine that to be far worse.  Surprised that wasn't smoking like a Deltic though with how much gunk is in there.

I've seen some incredibly sooted up oil fired central heating boilers over the years - a few which you really had to wonder how they could work at all!

[cobblers]

Not doing a lot of miles in this lately, I gave it a run to work and back to keep the batteries topped up. 

A few miles down the m1 I gave the windscreen a squirt and the wipers siezed half way up the screen! When I got back I popped the linkages off and found the passenger wiper to be mega stiff. That's what I get for leaving it stood! 

 

Whipped the spindle out to free it off, 

Not looking good, I stuck it in the media blaster for 30 seconds to see what was under the flakes. 

Turns out the seal on the spindle is fine, it's just rotten through! Look how much its necked down! They're the same diameter a the way down when new, 

I was going to build it all up with weld and whatnot, but when I got the welder out, I'd left the regulator on, so obviously there's not a fart of gas left! 

Looks like I'll be buying a new spindle then, thankfully still available, but a bit salty at £40.

I've also ordered a passenger sill and drivers rear arch which I might tackle now I've got some time on my hands and it's not going anywhere. I may well still farm it out though, I've got a tame welder a few miles away and he's not got much work on. 

[cobblers]

I was going mad without the van! I went on a mega 25 mile bikeride today - it set off from work because it's nearer to "nice places" and bumped into this on my travels, and it gave me an idea,

All the campsites are shut, so just camp wherever. 

Mine is much less glamorous both in surroundings, and vehicle:

Hidden down at the "welding end" of the works carpark where the cameras don't point.

It's not Edale, but it will suffice. Inexplicably for a residential area, the 4G signal is crap! and I can't quite pick up the wifi from work either! I tried to order a chinese for my tea, but it's going to be a 3 hour wait so instead I'm eating a 2 year out of date military ration and some crisps that have been in the bottom of my hiking bag for about 150 miles.

 

[mat_the_cat]

Only two years out of date?

Amateur :-p

 

 

[LightBulbFun]

on a semi related note it reminds me of when I was setting up to do the iMac repair documented in my thread recently

I pulled out the flux and thought to myself "nice only expired in april... 2019...." LOL

(and then I proceeded to solder with it still LOL)

[Zelandeth]

Thank you for reminding me, I'd been meaning to pick up a few ration packs to stick in the van in case of emergencies.  We've already been out in it one day and found everything was closed on a Sunday and barely were able to scrape together enough for a meal.  Just having a few in there seems smart.

Man they've got expensive since I last bought them though!  Sure the 24 hour packs were around £10 delivered last time.  Granted, that was a long time ago...and I imagine the preppers are probably having a field day at the moment which will have pushed prices up.

...Or I could just get some of the consumer ones, but that feels like cheating.

 

[cobblers]

Yeah, I always keep a couple of them in the van for times like this. I usually schedule a pub dinner on most of my camping/hiking trips hence why they're out of date. Sadly it'll be a long time til I'm eating lamb hotpot with a pint of stout in front of the fire in the nag's head

I'm not sure if it was the age of it or not, but even when I was absolutely flipping starving, this "Lithuanian Ration Menu No. 2 - Stewed Beef and Groats" was not nice and smelled exactly like cheap dogfood. The self heating pack on this one was a bit fierce as well! I don't know what groats are and I don't think I want to google them.

[Sir Snipes]

Ha ha I had a look as i was curious. They're just whole grain kernels.

[cobblers]

That's a bit of a relief,  texture of them made me suspicious that they were either mushed up testicles, brains or some other spongy organ matter.

[cobblers]

Stuck between a "camp in the carpark" again or pack my rucksack and walk to find somewhere out of the way, I was reminded that my best mate's wife rents a few fields to put horses on. They're not particularly glamorous, but they'll do for me! That's my weekend sorted!

[cobblers]

 

It's not the peak district, but I'll take what I can get. Great to get the van out - I had a bit of a run out on the mountain bike, couple of burgers and now I'm into a few beers.  Absolutely great stuff.

This field is about 3 miles away from my mates house, I can't believe he doesn't have an auld caravan or something on here, it's a really nice place to be. 

[cobblers]

I received my Afterburner controller for the chinese diesel heater the other day. I don't really need a heater at the moment, but by the time I can get back to my regular thrice monthly peak district camping routine, I'm pretty sure I will.

This afterburner thing is an open source replacement for the wank flashy controllers that come with these heaters. I could have got the PCBs made and built the whole thing myself, but while I have the equipment, I really don't have the time, so I paid about £80 for one ready made, posted from Australia. I could have saved about £40 doing it myself, but I'd have had a wank 3D printed case, and every time I use the 3D printer there's about a 25% chance of me getting  in a right mood and smashing it into small pieces with whatever blunt instrument was immediately nearby. A tip for anyone thinking of getting one - don't. They're all absolutely toss, it doesn't matter whether you spend £100 or £10000 on one.

 

Anyway, back to the afterburner thing. They replace these cheese flashy chinese controllers

With this,

Which looks quite a bit more discreet and adds all kinds of proper control to the heater. Proper linear temperature control rather than the shite all or nothing control they come with. Reliable timers, bluetooth with a decent app, frost mode, and loads of config tweaking stuff. The main thing I've noticed is that they also have WIFI . 

So I'm sat here at home, and I can turn the heater on in the van which is parked 10 miles away at work.

flippin technology eh! You can even see how much fuel it's used so you know when to fill up.

I've got it set on a frost timer to kick in at 1c to stop all my pipes freezing, I can't see me needing that for a while.

[mat_the_cat]

Brilliant! I was toying with the idea of getting one, purely for the ability to cycle the heater off and on, but you've just sold me! I thought they'd be more expensive for a ready made unit too.

[somewhatfoolish]

Have you got a link for that controller? I was due to replace a fucked heater unit with a cheapnese replacement when THE EVENT happened and I was considering what to control it with, as it's for a techno-giffer the simpler the better but the on/off/turny knob ones seem a bit too basic.

[cobblers]

8 hours ago, mat_the_cat said:

Brilliant! I was toying with the idea of getting one, purely for the ability to cycle the heater off and on, but you've just sold me! I thought they'd be more expensive for a ready made unit too.

$165AUD total including shipping, I think it converted to £87. I got the "top notch" model with 6 GPIOs that I'll never use and an altitude/humidity sensor as well. It only took about a week to arrive. 

 

4 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Have you got a link for that controller? I was due to replace a fucked heater unit with a cheapnese replacement when THE EVENT happened and I was considering what to control it with, as it's for a techno-giffer the simpler the better but the on/off/turny knob ones seem a bit too basic.

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend them if you're not "interested" in it, if you know what I mean? it's way too easy to end up in menus changing settings with a a few button presses etc etc - If you don't need a timer, the basic knob controllers are the best in my opinion, just set it in "hz" mode and it's pretty foolproof.

It's a bit of a kerfuffle to buy one, the guy (Ray Jones) runs a facebook group with all the details:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/388958075385659

Have a good read on there for info on the thing, then email him to order one.

[Zelandeth]

Seeing this has just reminded me that I needed to chase up my order for one in kit form. 

Looks like the software side of things has developed quite a bit from when I first looked at this.

[cobblers]

I asked about a kit, and he doesn't do them anymore. He's got a pick and place machine making them up now, and he says it's way quicker to just assemble them than it is to make a kit up. I can imagine it is.

He supplies the files for the PCB, it's under 100mmx100mm so you can get 5 boards made for $2 at JLCPCB. someone made an RS components list of parts, you just need to get the OLED and ESP32 from ebay.