Planar Heater, anyone know how to make it work?

pvb said:
No, you are only one dealer out of 17 UK dealerships listed on Autoterm's website. PF Jones have 4 of those 17 dealerships.

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I am afraid you are wrong, as far as the factory are concerned there are two UK distributors the rest are considered resellers hence the green marker by the two companies. I can assure you that i sell a higher volume of heaters than PF Jones do and am considered the “Main” dealer by the factory. I also have another 10 sub dealers that do not show as well as seven of the service centres listed who are supplied through my company. I really dont know why you keep pushing people away from me, I have always been nothing but civil to you and have offered plenty of free advice to people on this forum way before I was involved in heaters. I ahve now been selling them for a long time, way longer than PF Jones and provide support for Planar heaters and Binar heaters wherever they were bought from.
 
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Anyway, Back to the original subject of the post. I suspect the solution to the problem is the OP needs to wait for the display and heater microprocessors to connect to each ither and then press any key to wake the screen and press the middle button to start it. I am 99% sure this will solve the problem as it would seem that hehas not waited for the electronics to connect and communicate properly. This is one of the reasons why we do not recommend having the heaters on a switched supply as they reset some settings to factory settings every time the power off and they can be shut down before the cooling cycle is complete which can potentially damage the heater. The fuse can be removed to prevent flattening of the battery of left for long periods with no charging of batteries.
 
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99% sounds like good odds so I will have another go this afternoon, we plan to go off in the boat tomorrow and I will be in serious trouble if it is cold in the evenings. I am not trying to cause upset but perhaps it would be an idea if the advice Owen is offering now could be incorporated into or added as an addendum to the controller instructions. I think my assumption that a blank screen and no noise meant that nothing was happening was not an unreasonable one?
With what I have experienced I think if I had known about the simpler controller I would have opted for that.
 
Quandary said:
99% sounds like good odds so I will have another go this afternoon, we plan to go off in the boat tomorrow and I will be in serious trouble if it is cold in the evenings. I am not trying to cause upset but perhaps it would be an idea if the advice Owen is offering now could be incorporated into or added as an addendum to the controller instructions. I think my assumption that a blank screen and no noise meant that nothing was happening was not an unreasonable one?
With what I have experienced I think if I had known about the simpler controller I would have opted for that.
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Please let me know if you have any further problem and I will gladly help. I am putting together videos showing commissioning process with these panels and a basic operation video which will be much clearer and easier to understand than a manual. The heater controls are actually very straightforward in reality its just the instructions make them seem more complicated than they are. Good luck.
Owen.
 
EUREKA!!!!! we have got heat
Turned on power, display showed message 'versions 50-2-1 connection' for about thirty seconds and then went blank, waited 5 minutes, (time to make a cup of tea) pressed various keys, the one that woke it was the right arrow key which lit the screen, then touched the square key to get the 'heating' display, stayed on for thirty seconds then went out, nothing happening but waited about three more minutes and noise began to emanate from the heater, did not start this time, but waited a few more minutes and the fan was heard again then noise from the exhaust eventually hot air in the ducts by which time the display had gone dead again, tapping the right arrow revived the screen and increased the temperature, ran happily for 20 minutes, tried tapping the square button to shut it down, took about a dozen rapid taps before 'shutting down' screen appeared, screen soon went blank again but purging continued for about ten minutes.
So I know what to do and I now know that the leds for the display only stay active for a short while. With a dead screen most of the time you have to listen and feel the duct outlets to tell what is happening. I somehow had expected a continuous display or at least a lit led when it was going. I still tend to agree with the criticism of the CP27 control.

Moral 'Planars need patience'

Thanks to Owen and all of you who responded, one more problem off my list.
 
Quandary said:
EUREKA!!!!! we have got heat
Turned on power, display showed message 'versions 50-2-1 connection' for about thirty seconds and then went blank, waited 5 minutes, (time to make a cup of tea) pressed various keys, the one that woke it was the right arrow key which lit the screen, then touched the square key to get the 'heating' display, stayed on for thirty seconds then went out, nothing happening but waited about three more minutes and noise began to emanate from the heater, did not start this time, but waited a few more minutes and the fan was heard again then noise from the exhaust eventually hot air in the ducts by which time the display had gone dead again, tapping the right arrow revived the screen and increased the temperature, ran happily for 20 minutes, tried tapping the square button to shut it down, took about a dozen rapid taps before 'shutting down' screen appeared, screen soon went blank again but purging continued for about ten minutes.
So I know what to do and I now know that the leds for the display only stay active for a short while. With a dead screen most of the time you have to listen and feel the duct outlets to tell what is happening. I somehow had expected a continuous display or at least a lit led when it was going. I still tend to agree with the criticism of the CP27 control.

Moral 'Planars need patience'

Thanks to Owen and all of you who responded, one more problem off my list.
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Glad to hear it is all running, I’ve never had one yet that didnt work out of the box without having an installation fault. Ive fitted personally 150+ heaters now and sold many more, most of them are mounted in Campers where they are mounted externally behind only a plastic under tray. I have still to have one that I installed have an issue. Some I installed well over two years ago now and with often daily winter use on salty roads I hope this this speaks for itself in reliability. When I install them I always run through the controls and have very little trouble with them. When the PU-27 was first released there were a few issues with software but they have been ironed ot now and being able to set a timer to start it in the morning while still in bed is very useful on my own heater.

It is possible to set the LED lighting to stay on whilst the heater is running and not go to sleep as it does with the factory settings. This is especially useful while starting for the first time.
 
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owen-cox said:
Glad to hear it is all running, I’ve never had one yet that didnt work out of the box without having an installation fault. Ive fitted personally 150+ heaters now and sold many more, most of them are mounted in Campers where they are mounted externally behind only a plastic under tray. I have still to have one that I installed have an issue. Some I installed well over two years ago now and with often daily winter use on salty roads I hope this this speaks for itself in reliability. When I install them I always run through the controls and have very little trouble with them. When the PU-27 was first released there were a few issues with software but they have been ironed ot now and being able to set a timer to start it in the morning while still in bed is very useful on my own heater.

It is possible to set the LED lighting to stay on whilst the heater is running and not go to sleep as it does with the factory settings. This is especially useful while starting for the first time.
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Owen, could you post instructions to set the LED lighting to stay on? That would be very helpful.
Many thanks for all of your assistance and advice.
 
Quandary said:
EUREKA!!!!! we have got heat

<snip>

Moral 'Planars need patience'
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I did say back in post #11 not to rush it :)

The reason a know not to rush it is because i did the same last week when i did my first installation of the 2D model. Because the screen goes blank it's tempting to think it's not turned on and press the square button, which of course turns the heater off.

Other than that i was very happy with the installation, so was my customer. The heater looks to be well made and all of the connectors seem well put together and waterproof, better than my aging Eberspacher. Much quieter than my Eberspacher too. I'll be happy to fit the 4kw version to my own boat and would be happy to fit them for customers. One tiny criticism, the exhaust insulation isn't very good for a boat, i used some Eberspacher stuff instead.
 
owen-cox said:
There will be drop down boxes with all the possible extras for each particular yacht ......... it is difficult for the factory to make the kits 100% compatible with every vehicle.
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Had a browse of your site today as I need to either repair or bin our 15 year old Eber before next winter. Would be helpful if the site had info on parts needed to replace existing models of heaters - exhaust and ducting converters etc. Got the info now by email from Paul.
 
Quandary said:
EUREKA!!!!! we have got heat
Turned on power, display showed message 'versions 50-2-1 connection' for about thirty seconds and then went blank, waited 5 minutes, (time to make a cup of tea) pressed various keys, the one that woke it was the right arrow key which lit the screen, then touched the square key to get the 'heating' display, stayed on for thirty seconds then went out, nothing happening but waited about three more minutes and noise began to emanate from the heater, did not start this time, but waited a few more minutes and the fan was heard again then noise from the exhaust eventually hot air in the ducts by which time the display had gone dead again, tapping the right arrow revived the screen and increased the temperature, ran happily for 20 minutes, tried tapping the square button to shut it down, took about a dozen rapid taps before 'shutting down' screen appeared, screen soon went blank again but purging continued for about ten minutes.
So I know what to do and I now know that the leds for the display only stay active for a short while. With a dead screen most of the time you have to listen and feel the duct outlets to tell what is happening. I somehow had expected a continuous display or at least a lit led when it was going. I still tend to agree with the criticism of the CP27 control.

Moral 'Planars need patience'

Thanks to Owen and all of you who responded, one more problem off my list.
Click to expand...

What a palaver. With my Eberspacher, I just touch one button and it comes on. :rolleyes:
 
I've got a 2kw Planar with the small PU-22 display. It's not intuitive but once you know the 3 buttons and lights it is no problem if using temperature mode.

To start
a. Press any button to turn on display.
b. Press left arrow button once. Lower left hand corner flashes to show temperature mode.
c. Press centre button once to start heater.
d. This will display a pre-set temperature and solid light lower left.
e. Will take up to 3 minutes to start.
f. When heat is felt adjust heat up or down using left or right button.
g. Steady lower left light shows heater is running.

To stop
h. Pressing any button once brings up heater display.
i. Press middle button once to shut down.
j. Lower left light now flashes to show heater is shutting down. Can take 3-4 minutes.
k. Light now flashes at lower speed to show that heater is shut down and power to heater can now be turned off.

Trouble
l. If left light flashes quickly during operation = malfunction. Press any button to bring up a code.
 
pvb said:
What's the huge difference?
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The noise levels and the reliability are way better. Webasto use brushless fan motor too because it is much better. There are a few of us that fit various brands of heaters and the most experienced ones put the heaters in this order. Webasto best, Planar next best but half the price. Eberspacher not so good, expensive and noisy nice manual though. , Chinese heater worst, most noisy ( direct copy of Eberspacher but not well copied) and several have been know not to shut down on overheat sensor.
The reality is that Eberspacher havent changed the design of their heaters except for an upgrade of controls in 20 years.
Planar are currently designing a completely different and new fuel pump that will be near silent.
 
NormanS said:
What a palaver. With my Eberspacher, I just touch one button and it comes on. :rolleyes:
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I believe the key presses the OP has described are due to lack of paitience again it can take half a second for the display to react and I suspect he has then pressed other buttons in the meantime. Trust me its as simple as one press of any key to wake display then press middle button once. Then the same to stop. Its hardly ardous.
 
owen-cox said:
I believe the key presses the OP has described are due to lack of paitience again it can take half a second for the display to react and I suspect he has then pressed other buttons in the meantime. Trust me its as simple as one press of any key to wake display then press middle button once. Then the same to stop. Its hardly ardous.
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No, you are wrong, I admit to a certain lack of patience but you need an awful lot to put up with the palaver involved, it is exactly as I described with the display responding for a few seconds and then going out, I am surprised that you can not accept that that creates a degree of mystery, I had also expected that I could get heat within a couple of minutes of deciding I want it, not after something like 20 minutes. Absolutely nothing happens within 'half a second' and to say it does is extremely misleading.
I bought from you mainly because of the respect I had for the service your father provides to the sailing community, contradicting the established facts which I took care to describe accurately does not encourage me to give you the same respect. And when I am at it, I am sufficiently provoked to go on to say that while the heater may be okay the tacky wee controller you sent with it looks and behaves like something bought in a toyshop back in the 1980s.
Nothing happens as quickly as 'half a second' or in 'a few seconds' , you are misleading your customers to claim that it does, and once I knew about the display not showing anything most of the time and the slow response I was not 'pressing other buttons in the meantime'.
Implying your customers are stupid is not going to sell heaters, it has certainly changed my attitude to recommending you.
But the heater works for now, eventually, so I am away sailing.
 
Quandary said:
No, you are wrong, I admit to a certain lack of patience but you need an awful lot to put up with the palaver involved, it is exactly as I described with the display responding for a few seconds and then going out, I am surprised that you can not accept that that creates a degree of mystery, I had also expected that I could get heat within a couple of minutes of deciding I want it, not after something like 20 minutes. Absolutely nothing happens within 'half a second' and to say it does is extremely misleading.
I bought from you mainly because of the respect I had for the service your father provides to the sailing community, contradicting the established facts which I took care to describe accurately does not encourage me to give you the same respect. And when I am at it, I am sufficiently provoked to go on to say that while the heater may be okay the tacky wee controller you sent with it looks and behaves like something bought in a toyshop back in the 1980s.
Nothing happens as quickly as 'half a second' or in 'a few seconds' , you are misleading your customers to claim that it does, and once I knew about the display not showing anything most of the time and the slow response I was not 'pressing other buttons in the meantime'.
Implying your customers are stupid is not going to sell heaters, it has certainly changed my attitude to recommending you.
But the heater works for now, eventually, so I am away sailing.
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I am sorry you feel I was blaming you in any way for this as that was far from my intention. I have posted a video of how it operates and obviously if your heater operates in any way differently from this then it is indeed faulty in some way and of course I would happily replace it under warranty. I am still unsure why this was brought to a public forum instead of dealt with via PM or by telephone as I suggested at the beginning. I believe your issues come from the power being removed every time you leave the boat for a time which as I have stated is not how it should be installed. The controller when correctly fitted works exactly as per the video posted. Please confirm if yours does this or not. I have also shown how to put the display on full time when the heater is running which seemed to be a problem for you too.
I feel sure that a quick phone call while you were on board would have been the easiest option as I suggested in my PM to you. I also gave you my personal mobile to call me on as I wanted you to be happy with the heater. I offer again the option to change the control for any of the others we have and I would also have told you about the last resort method of making it work if all else fails. If you wish further assistance please get in touch and I will be pleased to assist as always.
 
https://flic.kr/p/24FKzQN
A photo of one I installed yesterday so people know what we are talking about. Personally I dont find it offensive at all and a big improvement over the old one but everyone is entitled to their opinion. Developing new hardware takes time and the factory are constantly improving the equipment but these are now stable and reliable and are also supplied with a mounting plate that screw to the interior.
 
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