Very very nice!! I knew you could do it. I would use some lithium titanate batteries as they are safe no fires and have a 30,000 charge cycles 5c rate and get it this into production
Great idea! I often thought that just designing these as small low rpm turbine engines that turn a small generator would make sense. Unlike a jet engine it doesn't need to spin at crazy high rpms to produce thrust, just fast enough to turn a generator. Actually your version is clever as theres no moving parts on the generator. Definitely a great bit of research youve done here, potential for a sellable design! 😎👍
Absolutely. The waste heat could still still be harvested and turned into hot air! The David(s) have made quite a technological achievement here though! The simplest solution would be to just run a small diesel generator (turbine or even 4-stroke), enclose it, and use a fan running off the generator to harvest the waste heat and pipe the exhaust away.
well done david....great channel, ive been tinkering with the idea...having a boiler just for hot water, diverter valve retrofit and blanking the rad pipes off....then throwing out the radiators but keep the installed pipework....installing a diesel heater in the boiler room and using the rad pipes for dispersing the heat around the house
I’m so pleased for you. I do remember watching your videos and wondering why the heater couldn’t be outside and pump the air through (to benefit the cooling.
Nailed it, great job, the only thing that made me wonder about a TEG system was if the TEGs would cook, I thought a water circulation system might help offset any spikes in temp but it looks like you guys have got it down there, great to see!
The water cooled TEGs did work the best. But the added complexity of the water cooling made it very unportable. But other David is building the water cooled version into his campervan.
CONGRATS!! Long time and lots of efforts, glad to see it pay off. Now make sure it's posted or patented before some greedy company steals it and sues you.
This is some of the best shit on the internet these day! Keep it coming!!! This is how the future is heated in the next decade. Efficiently and compatibility. Fuck your ESG Sustainability bullshit, this is way better than peat moss.
its not holding back because up to the 14,4V point where an AGM needs an additional 0,3V it charges just fine. and i'm 100% sure if you gave the battery 5 Amps @ 14,4V it'd suck it up like a cold beer. but 1A@12,6V is 12,6W. and beiing a positive 12+Watts thats impressive. even a to 12W reduced consumption was great !
Can't wait to see MK2 that is heater, hot water, self charging unit and maybe output charging to the bluetti unit ? Now that really would be a camper van game changer. Also making sure all materials and supplies are from the UK and not shipped into the UK. Exporting is ok lol
Please David can you make a video covering the GPIO functions of the AFTERBURNER. I would love to see more content on that. Congrats on the SP diesel heater BTW.
I believe you should make a collab with Ash Pollard. You two might have similarly interested followers. He lives up north in Sweden and does a lot of off grid and van life things inclusive vinter van overnighting.
Don't know if it's been mentioned already, but in the video the commentary keeps on mentioning 1A and 2A power being produced - but one is on the built in display, which is 12V, and the other one is on the usb tester which is 5V - so not all the same. A bit of a mix-up. As far as I can work out, the system is producing extra power at just under 1A @ 12V - not 2A. The 2A are on the usb tester at 5V - so not the same thing. Unless I am getting mixed up here. Very impressive results, nevertheless!
yeah one would think that at first ,,but if you have enough heat energy to sacrifice ,and aint out to power alot but just a small amount of power the heater takes it is apperently possible , it would be intresting to see how many btu he loses in heat as these types of energy modules are not really that efficient , but it is very impressive that they made it work...
There are no heat losses, we are basically running standard heater fuelling but with above 5.5kw heat output, around 2kw more than the standard heaters 😊
yes i know there will be no notisable heat loss in the application , as itis alot of heat and a reasonable small amount of power but the conversion loss would be intresting to know is it a 2kw? or a 5kw heater on standart settings? @@daveparf
@@daveparf - Exactly. If they could get enough mass flow over the exhaust and things, they could even get to the point of being a condensing system and harvest a lot more.
Good work! I guess the critical question is if it still will work when the heater is powering down as it would happen in a well insulated van in opposition to this proof of concept at full power?
By the way, I got my paperback book by Patrick Lockerby yesterday from A-on-line website for $15.80. Kind of a surprise I got the book so fast; it was made in Las Vegas, NV. It's great; it has all the information you'll need. Thanks, David!
Freaking brilliant dude! You've made a perpetual motion machine that runs on diesel. Lol... With the added benefit that it keeps you warm on those cold winter nights. Badass Sir! My compliments
Use a small 12.8 volt lithium (LiFePo4) battery and gain another 10 to 15% energy efficiency, these batteries absorb a charge much easier compared to lead acid or AGM.
I did notice that it absorbed the charge more when we had a bank of capacitors hooked up as well as the battery, i might add those back to the charge circuit.👍🏻
lifepo is fine tech but it hates freezing temps. and a heater is in direct vicinity to freezing/cool temps. you'd need to at least route a small part of the hot air through the (cylindrical) cell cravices AND avoid overheating 'em at the same time. but then it would be perfect.
Fantastic work on this series! Is there another video which shows how the internals are all plumbed in this final version? I'm surprised that you didn't use the mass produced computer water cooling kits.
Great project! But a 5kW heater at full speed is much to much for a Van and slowing it down will produce less electricity. Will this concept work also with a 2kW heater? A thought about cooling the TEGs: heaters are mostly used when it's cold. So if you can use the cold air from outside for cooling the TEGs, it's a nearly endless pool of cooling-capacity. In a camper-van you can heat up some water in a well insulated tank and have it available for shower and so on. And when the water is to warm for cooling the TEGs, you could use cold air from outside. so many possibilities...
Once you can develop a simple saleable version of this, I think a lot of us would be wanting one.. Using a TEG is an obvious option for self charging, and you seem to have struck the right balance here. Impressive. Would you need a larger TEG to be able to generate sufficient if it isn't quite as cold?
Excellent question. The TEGs output the most energy when one side is really hot and the other is really cold. But once the battery is charged we don't need as much energy. So in theory if you could get the controller to sense when the battery was charged it could swap to run at a lower heat output. Maybe in the next version. :)
Last night I run the heater for 20 minutes then shut it down, The battery voltage was at 12.55 to start with, 12.81v when I shut it down and 12.69v once the battery had recovered from the shutdown.
That is awesome, and very impressive! But..... will it only work when on max heat output or can it still generate enough power to be self powered on lower heat setting?
Excellent question. The TEGs output the most energy when one side is really hot and the other is really cold. But once the battery is charged we don't need as much energy. So in theory if you could get the controller to sense when the battery was charged it could swap to run at a lower heat output. Maybe in the next version. :)
@@DavidMcLuckie if it slready runs an arduino there are possibilitys to measure the charging current into the battery. if if drops below 200mA or anything the heater could power down.
Absolutely! That’s why we did it, I’m going to be fitting the water cooled version from (part 9) into our camper van in a few weeks, the hot water return will pass through a heat exchanger inside my water tank that we use for washing, so I should get 40-50C hot water from it as well as keeping the van charged up.
Ahh man I knew you could do it. Now sell me one! At what ambient temperature does this perhaps not work? Surely there is a point where there's insufficient delta present.
Question David,or idea, diesel heater pump,tick,tick, well could you use a pump that you get on a dialysis machine,the little roller that runs over the pipe, micro doser, zero speed to whatever, anyway loved the video buddy,well done😅
Sadly no. It has been tried. The pipe used either turns to jelly in diesel, or if you use fuel rated pipe it eventually splits with the constant squeezing.
Is your temperature probe on the cold side of the TEC/TEG ? 40°C is really hot. If not allready but you should have the intake air for the burner going over the cold side radiator to give it a high flow cold air. Also think the hot side shouldn't get above 150°C or so to prevent unsoldering to internals
wondering, can i add a couple of these heaters together, large shed.. just been watching your video then realised it was 4 years ago. must read my mind as this is what i have in mind my self. The 8k ones people say its a lie. so instead of having a small one at full power i thinking of 3 at half power , as you may be able to see, i havent a clue, blue remote ? new pump, new plug .. this channel is a good find. ;)
@@DavidMcLuckie Thank you. I was thinking possibly using the fan as a generator by adding a belt or something. I'm noooo expert on any of this. Thanks again.
I don't understand why these don't already generate more than the electricity they need to run. It's a little diesel motor, right? So, why not put a little dynamo on the thing?! That'd be a lot cheaper than the thermal-differential generator, no? Anyway, this is fantastic!
Legend. Kickstart the build please 🙏
❤
WOW. Now I'm just waiting for a DYI build-kit to be ready.
Very very nice!! I knew you could do it. I would use some lithium titanate batteries as they are safe no fires and have a 30,000 charge cycles 5c rate and get it this into production
12:13 It's sipping diesel and producing electricity nice!
Well done both of you (and the other contributors 🙂) This really is an impressive achievement!
Thats freaking awesome! Congrats on a huge leap forward
Outstanding build and know you have been building up to this point 🎉
That's a super cool project. Who would have thought it possible, well played, Sir 👍👍
Brilliant work by both David's and all involved
Fab. Definitely get it into production
Congratulations, David. That is a massive accomplishment. Well done!
Well done ! You got there in the end 👍
I've been waiting for this video😂it's so cool! Great job! Thank you for sharing with us!
Wow thats fkn amazing Dude I dident think it could be done MIND BLOWN !
Great idea! I often thought that just designing these as small low rpm turbine engines that turn a small generator would make sense. Unlike a jet engine it doesn't need to spin at crazy high rpms to produce thrust, just fast enough to turn a generator. Actually your version is clever as theres no moving parts on the generator. Definitely a great bit of research youve done here, potential for a sellable design! 😎👍
Absolutely. The waste heat could still still be harvested and turned into hot air! The David(s) have made quite a technological achievement here though! The simplest solution would be to just run a small diesel generator (turbine or even 4-stroke), enclose it, and use a fan running off the generator to harvest the waste heat and pipe the exhaust away.
Get this man a beer!
Just a beer though, this is thanks to you for helping me with my CDH board powered hydronic
well done david....great channel, ive been tinkering with the idea...having a boiler just for hot water, diverter valve retrofit and blanking the rad pipes off....then throwing out the radiators but keep the installed pipework....installing a diesel heater in the boiler room and using the rad pipes for dispersing the heat around the house
Well done 👍 you certainly persevered with this one 😁
This is really interesting! great video joined the Facebook group to learn a bit more!
A small combined heat and power plant ;) Super. Thats a smart invention
Ive been thinking about this exact scenario with my own diesel heater. Joining the FB group
Superb David, Well Done. I'm cooking lunch in the hot air outlet, inline cardboard box oven !
that is an awesome idea, thank you for sharing
Wow that lights off quick!!!Well done david.
It's just a standard burn chamber, but with a Webastardo controlling it. The stock ECU takes an unnecessarily long time to do the start sequence.
@@DavidMcLuckie yeah my glow plug runs for 4 minutes,totally unacceptable😂😂😂
@@jamie-hb8gy We've got that one down to 45 seconds on startup.
This is the first of your videos I have seen but that cool makes a lot of sense and is cool
Brilliant video 👍
I’m so pleased for you. I do remember watching your videos and wondering why the heater couldn’t be outside and pump the air through (to benefit the cooling.
Nailed it, great job, the only thing that made me wonder about a TEG system was if the TEGs would cook, I thought a water circulation system might help offset any spikes in temp but it looks like you guys have got it down there, great to see!
The water cooled TEGs did work the best. But the added complexity of the water cooling made it very unportable. But other David is building the water cooled version into his campervan.
Get these guys lots of beer, brilliant.
CONGRATS!! Long time and lots of efforts, glad to see it pay off.
Now make sure it's posted or patented before some greedy company steals it and sues you.
You Scottish ingenuity is amazing. You should try to sell the idea or put it into production. Congrats!
He says it’s cold with a heater blowing hot air less than 2 feet away…love the heater, that thing kicks @$$!
This is some of the best shit on the internet these day! Keep it coming!!! This is how the future is heated in the next decade. Efficiently and compatibility. Fuck your ESG Sustainability bullshit, this is way better than peat moss.
Great job, that Genisun is holding back the output somewhat as it's not tuned for that type of battery, but great job with the result well done!
its not holding back because up to the 14,4V point where an AGM needs an additional 0,3V it charges just fine.
and i'm 100% sure if you gave the battery 5 Amps @ 14,4V it'd suck it up like a cold beer.
but 1A@12,6V is 12,6W. and beiing a positive 12+Watts thats impressive. even a to 12W reduced consumption was great !
That’s outstanding
Congrats 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
The thing that gets me is, it's cold and you're cold, and there's a thing there belching out hot air from one end............ :P
Can't wait to see MK2 that is heater, hot water, self charging unit and maybe output charging to the bluetti unit ?
Now that really would be a camper van game changer.
Also making sure all materials and supplies are from the UK and not shipped into the UK. Exporting is ok lol
well done
nice, like the case, very swish.
Please David can you make a video covering the GPIO functions of the AFTERBURNER. I would love to see more content on that. Congrats on the SP diesel heater BTW.
Awsome!
Very nice indeed 🙂
Thank you for starting me down this road.
Prefect! looks good to. now can i get it for 150 pounds?🤣🤣. nice job.
Fantastic
Brilliant
Great!
Nice to see this come together! I guess the cost of the Tegs would mean we are not likely to see something like this being made commercially viable?
I believe you should make a collab with Ash Pollard. You two might have similarly interested followers. He lives up north in Sweden and does a lot of off grid and van life things inclusive vinter van overnighting.
So... with that you just add diesel? Dont need any more wiring!! THATS COOL!
That's right
Neat.
Don't know if it's been mentioned already, but in the video the commentary keeps on mentioning 1A and 2A power being produced - but one is on the built in display, which is 12V, and the other one is on the usb tester which is 5V - so not all the same. A bit of a mix-up. As far as I can work out, the system is producing extra power at just under 1A @ 12V - not 2A. The 2A are on the usb tester at 5V - so not the same thing. Unless I am getting mixed up here. Very impressive results, nevertheless!
I honestly did not think this would work, and that there'd be too many losses to actually be energy positive... cool
yeah one would think that at first ,,but if you have enough heat energy to sacrifice ,and aint out to power alot but just a small amount of power the heater takes it is apperently possible , it would be intresting to see how many btu he loses in heat as these types of energy modules are not really that efficient , but it is very impressive that they made it work...
@@kimmogensen5390if they're heat losses and you only want heat are they really losses?
There are no heat losses, we are basically running standard heater fuelling but with above 5.5kw heat output, around 2kw more than the standard heaters 😊
yes i know there will be no notisable heat loss in the application , as itis alot of heat and a reasonable small amount of power but the conversion loss would be intresting to know is it a 2kw? or a 5kw heater on standart settings? @@daveparf
@@daveparf - Exactly. If they could get enough mass flow over the exhaust and things, they could even get to the point of being a condensing system and harvest a lot more.
Good work! I guess the critical question is if it still will work when the heater is powering down as it would happen in a well insulated van in opposition to this proof of concept at full power?
Cool... or Hot 😮😅 nice project 👌 stay safe 🏴
Idk why no one has made this yet...
With used cooking oil swing over at tem ? No cost of fuel.
With a few led lights. You could get lights too.
Well done Chaps 🎉👨🔧👨💻👷♂️
feckin brill...
By the way, I got my paperback book by Patrick Lockerby yesterday from A-on-line website for $15.80. Kind of a surprise I got the book so fast; it was made in Las Vegas, NV. It's great; it has all the information you'll need. Thanks, David!
That's pretty neat in interested in what ecu you are running now
That is Simons Webastardo board, running with a few changes here and there as it's an air heater.
Awesome stuff! I can't wait to check out more about this! Oh, is all of this in the Facebook group? Maybe I'll have to logon and check it out!
Freaking brilliant dude! You've made a perpetual motion machine that runs on diesel. Lol... With the added benefit that it keeps you warm on those cold winter nights.
Badass Sir!
My compliments
A diesel generator.
Nice work, pretty impressive - when you starting on the exhaust heat steam turbine version?
Use a small 12.8 volt lithium (LiFePo4) battery and gain another 10 to 15% energy efficiency, these batteries absorb a charge much easier compared to lead acid or AGM.
I did notice that it absorbed the charge more when we had a bank of capacitors hooked up as well as the battery, i might add those back to the charge circuit.👍🏻
lifepo is fine tech but it hates freezing temps.
and a heater is in direct vicinity to freezing/cool temps.
you'd need to at least route a small part of the hot air through the (cylindrical) cell cravices AND avoid overheating 'em at the same time. but then it would be perfect.
Lithium titanate batteries don't have heat issues and operate at c rates and resistance capable to some capacitors and are safe no fires
Fantastic work on this series! Is there another video which shows how the internals are all plumbed in this final version? I'm surprised that you didn't use the mass produced computer water cooling kits.
We did try some manufactured water blocks but they wasn’t ideal so I made some, I’m sure it’s all on the facebook page if you’re on there.
Great project! But a 5kW heater at full speed is much to much for a Van and slowing it down will produce less electricity. Will this concept work also with a 2kW heater?
A thought about cooling the TEGs: heaters are mostly used when it's cold. So if you can use the cold air from outside for cooling the TEGs, it's a nearly endless pool of cooling-capacity. In a camper-van you can heat up some water in a well insulated tank and have it available for shower and so on. And when the water is to warm for cooling the TEGs, you could use cold air from outside. so many possibilities...
Once you can develop a simple saleable version of this, I think a lot of us would be wanting one.. Using a TEG is an obvious option for self charging, and you seem to have struck the right balance here. Impressive. Would you need a larger TEG to be able to generate sufficient if it isn't quite as cold?
It was actually producing around the same output at 12 degrees on a previous run.
❤
So the generated Power comes from peltier tegs? How much and which manufacture / type?
Hi David. Does the heater have to be run at full speed for this to work or will it still produce positive amps while running on slow?
Excellent question. The TEGs output the most energy when one side is really hot and the other is really cold. But once the battery is charged we don't need as much energy. So in theory if you could get the controller to sense when the battery was charged it could swap to run at a lower heat output. Maybe in the next version. :)
next task ??? lets see if that can be converted for a webasto water heater lol
In theory you could. But you'll need to cast another cutom heat exchanger for the Webasto.
Well done David, proof of concept sorted. What would the minimum run-time be to replenish the batterys’ losses during start-up and shut down? Cheers.
Excellent question.
@@DavidMcLuckieI would imagine 1-4 hours
Last night I run the heater for 20 minutes then shut it down,
The battery voltage was at 12.55 to start with, 12.81v when I shut it down and 12.69v once the battery had recovered from the shutdown.
@@daveparf how many tigs mounted was needed to self run? Thanks for sharing
@@RustyShakleford1 4 TEGs
That is awesome, and very impressive! But..... will it only work when on max heat output or can it still generate enough power to be self powered on lower heat setting?
Excellent question. The TEGs output the most energy when one side is really hot and the other is really cold. But once the battery is charged we don't need as much energy. So in theory if you could get the controller to sense when the battery was charged it could swap to run at a lower heat output. Maybe in the next version. :)
@@DavidMcLuckie if it slready runs an arduino there are possibilitys to measure the charging current into the battery. if if drops below 200mA or anything the heater could power down.
not sure how youre doing it but i assume a heatsink on the intake and one on the exhaust with a stack of TEGs sandwiched between...
Maybe get in touch with Myfordboy and do a collaboration? He is great with casting aluminium and machining.
I've watched many of his videos. I found them very soothing to watch.
I bet the old tiddlywinks are keeping a close eye on this site lol
Do you have some details on some web page? What TEGs you use and how many of them?
Do you think this could be adapted for use within a campervan? Heat without electrical draw would be amazing
Absolutely! That’s why we did it, I’m going to be fitting the water cooled version from (part 9) into our camper van in a few weeks, the hot water return will pass through a heat exchanger inside my water tank that we use for washing, so I should get 40-50C hot water from it as well as keeping the van charged up.
I already have a heater on the way. Do you have a parts list?
Self powered until it runs out of fuel 😂
Ahh man I knew you could do it. Now sell me one!
At what ambient temperature does this perhaps not work? Surely there is a point where there's insufficient delta present.
Question David,or idea, diesel heater pump,tick,tick, well could you use a pump that you get on a dialysis machine,the little roller that runs over the pipe, micro doser, zero speed to whatever, anyway loved the video buddy,well done😅
Sadly no. It has been tried. The pipe used either turns to jelly in diesel, or if you use fuel rated pipe it eventually splits with the constant squeezing.
Great work but I wonder how long it will take the Chinese to clone this?
This is why we aren’t showing the insides just yet 😊
Is your temperature probe on the cold side of the TEC/TEG ?
40°C is really hot.
If not allready but you should have the intake air for the burner going over the cold side radiator to give it a high flow cold air.
Also think the hot side shouldn't get above 150°C or so to prevent unsoldering to internals
These TEGs can handle 250C
As other David said. These are proper high temp TEGs. Colder would be better for energy production, but still well inside the running specs.
Have you tried to add a bit of propane to get the burn chamber hotter?
Shhh. Yes. But shhh. :)
Very good work, where do we go from here then?
The million dollar question 🤔😂
start a bizz and sell those units.
wondering, can i add a couple of these heaters together, large shed.. just been watching your video then realised it was 4 years ago. must read my mind as this is what i have in mind my self. The 8k ones people say its a lie. so instead of having a small one at full power i thinking of 3 at half power , as you may be able to see, i havent a clue, blue remote ? new pump, new plug .. this channel is a good find. ;)
The 8KW we can purchase as just the 4KW with marketing. A real 9KW does exist and it's twice the size. I just haven't seen any outside of China.
could i add 2 or 3 of the 4kw system to make 1 heater. i have a large garden shed, shame i cant get central heating for it.@@DavidMcLuckie
@@Milldog2023Keyword = planar 9 D = Sold by Autotherm ( 8 kW + ) If that can help you
I want one
Does this mean I need to go back thru all of his videos to figure out what this is all about?
I can give you the short version. Diesel heater burns diesel to produce heat and electricity. Heats things and charges own battery.
@@DavidMcLuckie Thank you. I was thinking possibly using the fan as a generator by adding a belt or something. I'm noooo expert on any of this.
Thanks again.
Good job! I'm left wondering: what's the feasibility and the pros & cons of doing such a thing with a diesel water heater?
I don't understand why these don't already generate more than the electricity they need to run. It's a little diesel motor, right? So, why not put a little dynamo on the thing?! That'd be a lot cheaper than the thermal-differential generator, no? Anyway, this is fantastic!
What's the weight empty/full, and fuel capacity?
Hi can you use a 65ml fuel pump on 8 KW diesel heaters they list them on Amazon for diesel heaters??
Technically yes. And this heater might be able to get enough air to burn it all. :)
Wheres the build video or explain how its made?
At the moment I can't share the exact details of the internals. But it's a home made heat exchanger, with TEGs, and active cooling.
So how many TEG plates or what size plate did you use to achieve that amount of current?
Four TEGs, I think they were 50mm.
@@DavidMcLuckie thank you, I was just thinking to do something similar when I found your video.
Will it keep running if you replace the battery with a capacitor?
It would keep running. I'm not sure how well it would work for starting and stopping though.
@@DavidMcLuckie Ok. Cool project!
How much did it cost to do
are the temperature units f or c? it looks around 1f based on the video, but they use c over there don't they?
C 👍🏻
well nobody outside the us uses frankenstein temperature.
Have you run the exhaust through an old cast iron rad yet 🤷🏻♂️
Personally no. But plenty have with great success.
Mind your 1.8amps is at 5v tho? Or am I missing something.
Same as the 0.75amps at 12v
Yes, but that's over and above the 2A required to run the heater.