Simple controller for diesel heater, test with new pump driver and display.

This test was with the new dosing pump controller fitted, features stability and resilience to external factors and LCD display.

[@loweredexpectations4927]

How was Romania ? Hope you had a great time. It only backfires when you aren't expecting it ... that's just the way it goes, haha. Seems to work really well for a manual controller... The problem with a project like this, you will never stop coming up with ways to make it better.... every time you use it you will be like " what if" and then add something else to it, haha. I like it ! I had my ecu fail on me today... it tells me the pump is bad, but the pump checks okay, and when I installed my old ecu it works ... I made a note to shout you out at the first of my video for tomorrow ... I think more people would like this if they knew about it.

[@shanehogarth6373]

Hey Joel. Romania was great, it's a grand place, despite the bad publicity it sometimes gets. I used to work out there during the early 90s and fell in love with the place. We have a second home there now and I have residency. In fact next time I drive out, (we flew this time) I am taking a heater with me for installation out there. I am also building a waste oil burner assembly to go inside my traditional Romanian "terracota" log burner, but need to get it right first time really as we live in a small alpine like village in the mountains and I will soon be pissing the neighbours off if it belches black smoke smelling of burnt engine oil. Will be making a series of videos about this too, but this is going to be later on in the year as I wont be going back now for a couple of months due to some family stuff we have going on here. But look out for that as I think you will be interested. Yes it's true, the more I develop this controller the more ideas I have that could be incorporated. My original objective was to build a simple controller that would allow simple control of the fan rpm and pump rate individually using cheap ready made parts that anyone could pick up and duplicate, I sort of want to keep to that but there becomes a fine line really; in all honestly once the parts total cost gets up to around £50, you have to ask if its worth continuing down this route or just pick up an Arduino or Raspberry PI and go along that path. For now though I intend just to develop this a little more in the same way. Interestingly, quite a few people have commented to me and on other channels how they would prefer basic controls, rather than digital/app/programmable based, and this is always what I had in mind. A shout out would be great thanks, that would be really appreciated, really impressive how your channel has grown, well done for that. Cheers man.

[@shanehogarth6373]

Sorry I forgot to reply about your mother board. They are not the most resilient things sadly. I had a faulty one in my original heater that is installed in my basement and ended up replacing it. Another subscriber has also been telling me about their experiences with a dodgy mother board too, they seem to suffer from typical chinese soldering sadly. I am unable to link you direct to that but have pinned their comment on my "Second test" video. Good luck with that.

[@loweredexpectations4927]

@@shanehogarth6373 I'm glad you had a great time... Sounds wonderful. It would be cool to see your waste oil burner / install. Yes, I agree... a very basic controller with maybe a few fail safes would be ideal for testing and would make it, presumably, easier for the average person to slap together. I have the problem of never finishing ANYTHING because I always find a new way to improve or change ... and that just keeps happening. Having an end goal is a good way to know when you are finished, lol. I just posted my video up for today. I was a little busy today as it is -24C and we got snow... So I was clearing snow and trying to keep the heater running, haha.

[@loweredexpectations4927]

@@shanehogarth6373 Thanks. I checked all of my solder connections and continuity between the board and pump... everything checks ok, but as soon as I plug it in, or sometimes delayed, it gives me error 7 .

[@Mwwwwwwwwe]

Yippee getting a mention from a youtuber I'm famous 😜 I'm guessing you could use a 5A npn transistor like a TIP31c to drive the pump(if you install a freewheel diode) instead of a mosfet- the saturation voltage for a tip31 is only 1.2 volts(compared to a mosfets 4-9 volts) so shouldn't need to mess around with input voltages Just another thought if you replaced the fan speed potentiometer with 6 equal value resistors in series which you could "jumper"/ bridge toget you could have a ghetto precision 6 speed fan controller Great work! Your vids deserve more views!!! It makes you appreciate all the preprogrammed protocols the stock controller has- there is some intelligence Before seeing your vids I thought it would be easy to control these by hand.

[@kellygb9278]

Now just think!, if you had yours up & ready, I could have bought your ECU & not have given the business to the Big Box store 'A' Anyway, you saved my sanity as to what to do to fix my unit Up & cooking in the USA

[@curtwuollet2912]

I think these days, i'd start with a small plc. It would be easy to change and programmable so you could tie fuel to air. No need to build hardware to try something. But, a noble effort.😊

[@shanehogarth6373]

Thanks for the comment. Programming isn't really my thing tbh. I've put my toe in a few times over the past four decades and each time I realise it's not for me. My latest venture into programming has been with an Arduino Uno and SDR stuff, but my interests are elsewhere really. Watching this video makes me realise how much time I chucked into this. It was fun, a little bit educational, but probably not the best use of my time and money 😅

[@s9josh778]

First time viewer here. I assume you attempted to burn waste oil and ran into a limitation on the OEM controller? What was the limitation?

[@shanehogarth6373]

Hi Josh, thanks for viewing and for the comment. The main issue with burning waste oil in the longer term is a build up of deposits in the burn tube. Take a look at Joel's channel @loweredexpectations to see this in detail. My original controller was the type that doesn't allow any adjustment of pump rate and fan speed and I really wanted to experiment with this aspect. I then purchased another heater that did allow some adjustments, but on the whole was frustrated that adjustment of these parameters is limited and you are still tied to a relatively fixed map other than minimum and maximums and anything in between is determined for you by ECU map. So I decided I would have a go at building my own, and it's been both educative and fun. I could have gone down the Arduino path but decided to use the KISS approach, but now I am started to get carried away and distracted with taking the original build a bit further. Thanks again.

[@loweredexpectations4927]

I hope all is well... no videos in 10 days. Cheers.

[@shanehogarth6373]

Hi Joel, thanks for the message. Yes things have been a bit hectic, without going into too much detail, my daughter in law died a few weeks ago and have been tied up dealing with this side of things. As soon as the new temperature controller arrives I will be installing that and uploading a video. I may make one of the waste oil burner in operation too just to keep the interest going. Love the air pressure thing, was thinking, you can pick up a BMW air suspension compressor for peanuts these days from breakers, E39, E46, E53, and lots of others use these as well as older Range Rovers. One of these would provide the air required, a small tank could be added on a pressure switch. Would save having a big compressor running all the time. Cheers for checking in, will be back real soon. 👍

[@loweredexpectations4927]

​@@shanehogarth6373 To be clear, I wasn't trying to rush you into a video... I just realized that I hadn't heard from you or seen anything from you in a while. Sorry to hear about your daughter in law. I like the idea of the suspension air compressor... it would be plenty of air. I have been playing with the idea of a industrial fish tank bubbler (a suggestion from a viewer named Lance) and am currently designing a burn chamber around one of those and a SNA nozzle. This is what they use in a kerosene (torpedo heater) and the operate at only 3-4 psi. Take care.

[@shanehogarth6373]

@@loweredexpectations4927 No I realise that and didn't take it that way, but am conscious I need to keep it going. Yes, fish tank pump, tyre inflator, I guess there are a few possibilities. www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=e53+suspension+pump I actually have one in my garage but a bit far to ship it to you🤣. Looking forward to watching your latest video in a while. Cheers Joel.