My 2k does totally fine outside. Had it down to 10 ish farenheit. As others have mentioned, they like to be run hot to avoid soot build up
I’ve been happy with the 5kw. If you run it in a pelican style case outside the tent and duct it in you will lose some heat along the way. In addition if you want the bed area heated as well I don’t think the 2kw would do as well.
For those with heaters inside the bed, are you ducting combustion intake from outside?
I am, only because if you have a failure on startup or your power dies while it is running the exhaust can and does come back out the intake
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Outside is the proper way if you can make it work. If you route it inside, it acts like an air pump, creating a negative pressure enviroment. Simply put it, air inside the GFC is being sucked out through the combustion intake (inside), and exiting outside through the combustion exhaust creating a vacuum. That vacuum (negative pressure) creates a low pressure enviroment inside the GFC, and needs to equalize; it’ll pull outside cold air from all the many holes in the camper/truck bed making it less efficent and more drafty.
My thoughts are don’t give a reason for cold air to be pulled into the space your trying to heat up.
Best,
Ron
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I worked in lab environments, most are kept in positive pressure enviroments. Critical government building are both kept in positive and negative pressure enviroments depending on needs. This is especially true in a hospitals.
Anyhow, I thought I would make some quick sketches to explain some configurations. Theres a few ways to do this. Thinking about this since last night, adding a roof exhaust fan configures the enviroment into a negative pessure room which could be good as well.(@the_philxx thanks for the free fan)
Neutal Pressure with no real air exchange
Positive Pressure
Negative Pressure using fan. I’ll be switching to this setup to help exhaust the humidity when drying my ski gear. Also, reversing the fan with the shroud closed will act as ceiling fan to push hot air from the top back down to better balance heat gradiant.
What is all the same in all these configurations, the combustion exhaust and intake are on the outside of the truck.
Best,
Ron
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It’s true, on top of using a ionizer that basically ionizes the air as it comes in, in conjunction with HEPA filters. Had to build out a large sound stage for a big client and it required using the air ionizer from the vendor that did the white house
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Do they scrub the O3 from the ionizing process or is the production limited to x PPM?
I am in the process of making my portable diesel heater setup and I was planning on using the Anker 757 DC plugin to power the system. Will this work, or will the watts being drawn be too much?
How many amps can that power system handle? Diesel heaters will pull about 12 at startup… after that they are really low consumption so you would be fine.
I did a test run in the garage and to burn off the new Chinese smell. Hooked to a fully charged Bluetti EP3A showed a startup at 16-19 watts. After catching up with startup heating the heater showed a steady draw around 9 watts and an estimated consumption of the available battery at 21 hours. Good enough for me to be comfortable it’ll last at least a night until the solar/recharge is needed.
Just a little pre-spring update. I added this power block during the cyber sales around the holidays:
It has a cheap inverter which I’m tempted to swap out for a simple Blue Seas panel & a dual 12v port (dometic model, one standard CLA and one standard refrigerator port). Aside from the quirky overall design, this thing is a TANK.
I tried to kill the battery this past two weeks by charging phones, tablets, computers and portable battery blocks (the little ones for work trips) as well as running the Planar heater for 8 hrs this week to heat the garage…
And the battery is still over 60%. It can function as a starting / jumper battery as well, has internal management & heating coils, and seemingly will power whatever you can throw at it. I will build a nice panel in the GFC to hold the RedArc DC-DC/solar management module unit & possibly some additional ports, but this all-in-one is proving to be a very capable power station.
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How weatherproof is that unit? I’m thinking of a similar outdoor setup for early spring when it is more inclined to rain.
I installed a NuWay propane heater stove, originally made for heating ice fishing shacks, in the right rear corner. It requires no electricity and is a dry heat. I run an 8’ propane hose to a five-gallon tank kept outside that can last about a week at below freezing conditions. Often I turn it off when sleeping. It is a lot simpler [no moving parts] than the noisy diesel heaters and priced similar to the Chinese diesel heaters. Exhaust vents out a 3" diameter stove pipe. That pipe goes out a hole in the right hatch at a 45 degree angle from the stove. Yes, you do have to cut an oval hole in the hatch of your beloved GFC – but it is worth it for a simple, solid solution to heating. The stove is bolted to the 1/2" plywood floor. I have about one foot of stove pipe coming straight up off the stove and then a 45 degree elbow and then about four feet of pipe going outside. Each section of pipe is secured with large radiator hose clamps. When you cut the oval hole in the hatch leave a postage-stamp sized rectangular piece of the aluminum hatch sheet at the top of the oval. Bend that tang up and use another hose clamp to secure the 4’ stove pipe to the hatch via that tang. Rock solid and the 12,000 BTU NuWay stove [their smallest] is all the heat you will need. I usually run it on a low setting. When travelling I have a piece of aluminum plate covering the hole from the inside. Held in place by four cairrage bolts and wing nuts and sealed with silicone rubber gasket.
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Sorry, my friend. I am a tech dino and don’t know how to post pictures. If you look in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” they have my mug shot as the last person on planet earth without a cell phone! Right, pictures would really tell the story about this heater installation. The set up is as described, robust and simple, good for battlefield conditions. My GFC #2898 is not built out at all. I did not want to get into cascading complexity of systems such as electrical, solar panels, and all that. I am trying to get away from it all, not bring it all with me. The Chinese diesel heaters are complex with an electrical motor, fuel pump, tubing, fan, etc. I did not want liquid fuel inside the camper. The NuWay propane heater is just a spot-welded sheetmetal box 14" tall [including the legs], 7" wide, and 9 1/2" long. 12,000 Btu, smallest of three models. Built by a family in the upper Midwest. Simple one-knob control with a thermocouple so if the flame goes out the propane turns off right away. With the 5 gallon propane jug outside on the ground you can turn it off at the source at night once the camper is warm and things are done for the day. Important that the stove be bolted to, in my case, the 1/2" plywood floor in my Colorado. The stove is in the right rear corner so it does not take up much room. The stove lighting door and control knob face forward into the camper so you can dink around with the control without opening the tailgate. Important that the stove pipe arrangement be super robust for use in a storm. I have a 13" piece of pipe coming straight up from the stove top. The stovepipe flang at the top of the stove is pretty stubby so I permanently bolted the 3" pipe to that flang. Then at the top of that short section of pipe there is a 45 degree elbow and then the 4’ section of pipe goes through the hatch and far outside so there is no danger of melting the tent fabric. Except for the attachment to the top of the stove, all other parts of the pipe are secured with radiator hose clamps. Where the male part of a pipe fits into the lower female part, you have to take a hack saw and cut about a 3/4" curf lengthwise in the female flange so the hose clamp will be able to compress the joint. I have one such curf at each joint. Using hose clamps allows for easy removal of the 4’ pipe section for travelling. If you used sheetmetal screws the holes would eventually wallow out. As for cutting the oval hole in the side hatch there is a formula for that, but the pipe at a 45 degree angle and the hatch at slightly off vertical … working that formula will make your brain smoke! So I just took a section of 3" pipe and held it at the correct angle and used a small scribe to project the oval onto the hatch material. Then I cut it out. Be sure to leave that postage-stamp sized [or longer] rectangle of hatch material at the top of the oval. Bent up at 45 degrees, that rectangle becomes your tang for hose-clamping the 4’ section of pipe to the hatch. One consideration about propane is that it doesn’t work very well at elevations like 7,000’ – God’s way of telling you to stay out of the mountains in winter. During warm weather the whole thing can be removed from your GFC in a few minutes. Build a small plate to bolt over the hatch hole for travelling.
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Hey @Tmbrbst - I’m going to call a spade a spade here and say there NO CHANCE you can install a heater but can’t learn to put a photo into your posts. Take a look at this video for how to best interact/ reply within our forum.
If you jump to the 6:15 mark, Jono discusses how to post a photo. Give it a watch, and then give the people what they want… photos of this awesome setup.
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Yeah def gonna need photos of this!
Question for you about this heater, how are you powering it? Can it be powered by something like a Jackery? I love the look of this unit and, although expensive, if I can power it easily enough I might purchase one. Thank you!
The Planar unit is highly efficient, however on startup it does pull a bit of power. I tried mine on a Goal Zero Yeti 500X and it was too much draw. My little GZ hit the overload limit every time. Compare specs to your Jackery perhaps? Now running a LiPO4 battery connected to 12v ports directly and it works like a charm.
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