ferroboat
Well-Known Member
Oh dear david i don't know where the boost button is either.
Webasto heater advice please
- Thread starter ferroboat
- Start date
David2452
Well-Known Member
Does it look like this, standard EVO control MC 05
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com...OIf4gGsnFUjvnoUpXwNTx_mql4yKT6hULGiRzkvkzCOw
Knob on the right is obviously temp, Knob on the left is: position 1 = Eco. position 2 = normal running. Position 3 = boost. Position 4 = ventilation only, fan speed is then controlled by the knob on the right.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com...OIf4gGsnFUjvnoUpXwNTx_mql4yKT6hULGiRzkvkzCOw
Knob on the right is obviously temp, Knob on the left is: position 1 = Eco. position 2 = normal running. Position 3 = boost. Position 4 = ventilation only, fan speed is then controlled by the knob on the right.
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ferroboat
Well-Known Member
No, main panel is 120cm x 60cm fixed by 2 screws. Webasto logo in white in top left hand corner, then circular control lit with a green arrow in its centre when on, which also doubles as the diagnostic flasher. On the right hand side toggle switch with symbols for fan and flame. Mounted next to that is a timer panel with a red power light. There is a temperature sensor in between the 2 panels
David2452
Well-Known Member
Ah, then you have the timer module which has no boost or ECO manual select, the heater will come on at boost for a max of 1 hour and then when temperature is neared it will choose whichever setting it decides is most appropriate, if that is eco a lot of the time it could be part of the issue.
Stork_III
Well-Known Member
ferroboat
Well-Known Member
Are you are saying that as we are running on eco most of the time due to us having a timer system that this is causing the burner to have so much carbon on it (sounds like it could be it to me). Would it be a good idea to take some of the earlier advice and turn the power to full for 30 mins or so prior to turning it off? Presumably combined with using a cleaner fuel, i.e. ULS diesel.
ferroboat
Well-Known Member
You probably need a few more screws for that size panel.
Oh dear maybe is 12X6 Dohhhhh!
Heckler
Well-Known Member
I did a test and an article for PBO, stripped a D2, photographed the coke, put it back together and ran it on kerosene, I suspect it was actually 28 sec heating oil. When I stripped it again, the chamber was spotless. Espar, USA eber, recommend running a coked up Eber for an hour on kerosene to decoke it. A chap at Eber uk got all bent out of shape until I produced the USA advice.
My D3 got coked up, I ran it on kerosene for an hour and it sorted it. I have run it all winter this year on kerosene with no issues. 65p a litre instead of ? for red.
Stu
NormanS
Well-Known Member
Hi Stu, Sorry to say that I tried mine on kero. Used about 40 litres of it, but the starting didn't improve. The heat exchanger chamber was spotless, but a completely inaccessible bit at the bottom of the burning tube was coked up with very hard carbon. It is down beside where the fuel enters around a centre piece that looks like a spline.
I did eventually get it clear, partly by mechanical means, and partly by softening with ammonia. I believe people have had success with ultra-sonic cleaning.
Having fitted the new burning tube, it is behaving perfectly, and is so different, that I wonder if it was ever right.
ferroboat
Well-Known Member
I completly understand not to run it on paraffin. Can i use Kerosene (Heating Oil) as per advice on a Eberspacher?
David2452
Well-Known Member
No, it is the same thing (kerosine is just septic for paraffin) and unlike the heaters that Paraffin sometimes works on for loose soot and light carbon, the Evo is a sophistocated stepless burn rate piece of kit with a much smaler evaporator, it has a boost mode where it is working close to its designed limits and could overheat. However if you crank it up on the temperature dial before shut down it will help the situation I'm sure, as will having the burn rate with set CO2 analysis, something that has shown benefit over very large samples. Though running on paraffin has shown to help in some situations it has also shown to have no material benefit in others and the sample of both results is far too small to draw any meaningful conclusion from, if indeed any conclusion at all. All heaters coke up, either normally from high hours or prematurely from incorrect fuel / air ratio just like an internal combustion engine or even a solid fuel stove run on a low setting. The reason for flame outs and non starts in heaters with high carbon levels is that the seperate or combined glowpin / flame sensor becomes carboned and shielded from the heat, the resistance then does not maintain after the glow pin is not energised and the ECU reads that as no flame even if there is one and shuts the pump down and goes into burn down, I have seen the difference time and time again on computer monitoring after removing carbon from just the back of the pin without even touching the evaporator.
David2452
Well-Known Member
Part of my standard workshop service is a heated ultrasonic bath using carburettor decarb fluid designed for the job and it makes for a very clean result consistantly.
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xyachtdave
Well-Known Member
We run our 3900 on white diesel in a clean tank, (I removed, cleaned, dried and put fresh fuel in) but have had nothing but aggro with our heater.
1 new ECU under warranty, two burners and two glow plugs in 3 years - not under warranty.
We too run it on its 'Eco' setting most of the time as it gets too hot left on the other settings and avoid flattening the batteries.
I don't know what the claims for amp hours are but I would suggest they are a lot higher than stated in the manual.
I'm beginning to wonder if I should have bought the smaller heater, which according to Webasto is too small for our boat, saved some money and run it on its maximum setting all the time.
I know 3 other people with the same problem, with the same heater and all keep being told 'dirty fuel' by service agents.
My local agent practically jumped for joy on our first warranty issue when I admitted to sticking a tea spoon full of Marine 16 Diesel conditioner in the tank. Get out of jail free card!
So in one sentence - The Eco, lower power levels and thermostat aren't worth having, the burner unit will need replacing every couple of years along with the glow plug unless you run it flat out all the time.
Webasto. Great when it's working.....
David2452
Well-Known Member
The power requirements are quite accurate, assuming full voltage at the heater.
You may well be right on your second point, what boat do you have? Specifying a heater is not just about looking up a table though it is obviously a guide, it is better to sometimes have a slightly under speced heater @ 2kw than the next one up which is 3.5kw, if my calculations came out at say 2.5 kw I would always reccomend a well installed and lagged 2kw provided the duct is not too long. There is so little money in the heater kits its not worth over selling and I can't imagine why anybody does it, it just makes for unhappy customers.
Broomowner
New Member
Webasto Evo 5500
I have joined the forum specifically to share with Ferroboat and others my experience of the Evo 5500 over the last two years. Forgive me if this turns out to be a long post - but a lot of points have been raised of which I have experience and which I hope will be of help to others.
Firstly, although new to this forum, I have been sailing / boating for over 30 years and at one time was a permanent liveaboard in Europe and the Med. It is only in recent years that I have continually experienced problems with Webasto heaters. One conclusion that I am coming to is that the best advice on here from David 2452 is to make sure that the heater is run at full power for at least 30 mins BEFORE switching it off. I am also rapidly coming to the conclusion that, despite the 5500 being marketed as being economical to use on the Eco setting, here lies the root of the problem.
I now own a Broom 345 and we limit our boating activity to the inland waterways. We use the boat almost every week - throughout the winter and therefore the heating tends to get some use! Two years ago when the former Webasto 32DL packed up - and having previously been through what turned out to be an uneconomic re-build route on a former boat, I decided to bin it and have fitted, the new Eco 5500. It may be a bit over the top in terms of capacity - but not by much since the Broom is a large volume boat.
It ran OK for a year - and then - what turned out to be my first mistake. The heater was running from one of the engine tanks and when I filled them up prior to the winter of 2011/12, I was advised - indeed the marina insisted that I had no option - to put fuel additive into the tanks to eliminate the possibility of diesel bug. They insisted that this was imperative in view of the increased likelihood of the bug in bio-diesel. (As it turned out, the marina wasn't even selling bio diesel!) Anyway, I did as I was advised - and the net result was that the heater carboned up within a matter of three hours. Yes - three hours and each time it was stripped down and cleaned, it did it again three hours later and packed up due to excessive carbon.
The view at that time was that, despite the additive, I had actually got diesel bug in the tanks because if I had this would undoubtedly have resulted in this sort of failure. However, another member of the marina, an industrial chemist in the petro-chemicals industry kindly took samples from both tanks and found that there was no evidence of the dreaded bug, whatsoever. Interestingly, at the same time, at least two other owners in the marina - with the same heater - and having followed the same advice re the additive - experienced exactly the same problems.
Once again the heater was stripped down and cleaned - but this time, I fitted a seperate tank and have used nothing but white (road) diesel for the last year.
Now here's the rub. It has packed up again. Marina staff (Webasto agents) strip it down and clean the burner cartridge once again. Symptoms were that it would run for about two minutes, shut down, start up again and so on. When I did get an error code - which wasn't necessarily after three start up cycles - it was showing fuel failure. Looking at the diagnostic readout on the laptop which was plugged into it, it was clear to see that the glow pin / flame sensor was operating correctly for about a couple of minutes and then, gradually the resistance would drop and, I understand that once it gets below 0.6, it will drop out and switch off the heater.
As a consequence, I have replaced the whole burner cartridge and the glow pin / flame sensor and that seems to have cured the problem. (Cost of almost £250!!) My guess is that the burner cartridge was so badly coked up a year ago, that although attempts were made to clean it, these weren't thorough enough. Incidentally, I was actually advised by Webasto to run it on paraffin occassionally - and tried this a couple of weeks ago. It ran for a total of 7 hours with no problems - but it didn't seem to make much difference to the level of carbon on the burner gauze. (Perhaps it was already too bad). Interestingly, the diagnostics indicated that although the unit had only run for 1100 hours in total, two thirds of that time was at half power or slightly above.
(Webasto indicate servicing not due until 3000 hours when the service light should show up on the control unit)
One word of warning to others who might be in the habit of stripping their heaters down themselves. Having shelled out lots of dosh to the marina to repair my heater each time it failed, this last time I had a go myself. It's actually quite striaghtforward - but there is one important thing to watch. When fitting the new glow pin / flame sensor, the manual advises that the yellow wires should not be 'looped' but says nothing more than that. The real danger is that if the thick yellow wires feeding the glowpin manage to rub against the back of the fan on the motor unit, two things will happen. Firstly, the fan will rub through the insulation on the wires and secondly that shiny bit of foil on the back of the fan will be damaged. Believe me - I've done it and so, apparently, have lots of others. You might notice a very very slight whirring noise from the heater when it is running but that's the only indication you will get that you have got it wrong. It turns out that the circular foil disc is crucially important in that it acts as a heat shield for the fan and without it the fan / motor will soon be damaged by the combustion heat. Don't be tempted to run without it. Replacement foil discs are available in packs of 5 (speaks volumes that they are sold in this way) at a cost of about a tenner. I got mind from Butlertechnik near Lincoln who through all of this saga have been extremely helpful.
The upshot of all of this is that I am now convinced that despite the Eco setting - don't use it and stick to full power - with open windows if necessary!! Plus - don't be tempted to use fuel additive in the supply for the heater.
Sorry for the long post but I hope that my lessons over the last two year might be of assistance to someone.
I have joined the forum specifically to share with Ferroboat and others my experience of the Evo 5500 over the last two years. Forgive me if this turns out to be a long post - but a lot of points have been raised of which I have experience and which I hope will be of help to others.
Firstly, although new to this forum, I have been sailing / boating for over 30 years and at one time was a permanent liveaboard in Europe and the Med. It is only in recent years that I have continually experienced problems with Webasto heaters. One conclusion that I am coming to is that the best advice on here from David 2452 is to make sure that the heater is run at full power for at least 30 mins BEFORE switching it off. I am also rapidly coming to the conclusion that, despite the 5500 being marketed as being economical to use on the Eco setting, here lies the root of the problem.
I now own a Broom 345 and we limit our boating activity to the inland waterways. We use the boat almost every week - throughout the winter and therefore the heating tends to get some use! Two years ago when the former Webasto 32DL packed up - and having previously been through what turned out to be an uneconomic re-build route on a former boat, I decided to bin it and have fitted, the new Eco 5500. It may be a bit over the top in terms of capacity - but not by much since the Broom is a large volume boat.
It ran OK for a year - and then - what turned out to be my first mistake. The heater was running from one of the engine tanks and when I filled them up prior to the winter of 2011/12, I was advised - indeed the marina insisted that I had no option - to put fuel additive into the tanks to eliminate the possibility of diesel bug. They insisted that this was imperative in view of the increased likelihood of the bug in bio-diesel. (As it turned out, the marina wasn't even selling bio diesel!) Anyway, I did as I was advised - and the net result was that the heater carboned up within a matter of three hours. Yes - three hours and each time it was stripped down and cleaned, it did it again three hours later and packed up due to excessive carbon.
The view at that time was that, despite the additive, I had actually got diesel bug in the tanks because if I had this would undoubtedly have resulted in this sort of failure. However, another member of the marina, an industrial chemist in the petro-chemicals industry kindly took samples from both tanks and found that there was no evidence of the dreaded bug, whatsoever. Interestingly, at the same time, at least two other owners in the marina - with the same heater - and having followed the same advice re the additive - experienced exactly the same problems.
Once again the heater was stripped down and cleaned - but this time, I fitted a seperate tank and have used nothing but white (road) diesel for the last year.
Now here's the rub. It has packed up again. Marina staff (Webasto agents) strip it down and clean the burner cartridge once again. Symptoms were that it would run for about two minutes, shut down, start up again and so on. When I did get an error code - which wasn't necessarily after three start up cycles - it was showing fuel failure. Looking at the diagnostic readout on the laptop which was plugged into it, it was clear to see that the glow pin / flame sensor was operating correctly for about a couple of minutes and then, gradually the resistance would drop and, I understand that once it gets below 0.6, it will drop out and switch off the heater.
As a consequence, I have replaced the whole burner cartridge and the glow pin / flame sensor and that seems to have cured the problem. (Cost of almost £250!!) My guess is that the burner cartridge was so badly coked up a year ago, that although attempts were made to clean it, these weren't thorough enough. Incidentally, I was actually advised by Webasto to run it on paraffin occassionally - and tried this a couple of weeks ago. It ran for a total of 7 hours with no problems - but it didn't seem to make much difference to the level of carbon on the burner gauze. (Perhaps it was already too bad). Interestingly, the diagnostics indicated that although the unit had only run for 1100 hours in total, two thirds of that time was at half power or slightly above.
(Webasto indicate servicing not due until 3000 hours when the service light should show up on the control unit)
One word of warning to others who might be in the habit of stripping their heaters down themselves. Having shelled out lots of dosh to the marina to repair my heater each time it failed, this last time I had a go myself. It's actually quite striaghtforward - but there is one important thing to watch. When fitting the new glow pin / flame sensor, the manual advises that the yellow wires should not be 'looped' but says nothing more than that. The real danger is that if the thick yellow wires feeding the glowpin manage to rub against the back of the fan on the motor unit, two things will happen. Firstly, the fan will rub through the insulation on the wires and secondly that shiny bit of foil on the back of the fan will be damaged. Believe me - I've done it and so, apparently, have lots of others. You might notice a very very slight whirring noise from the heater when it is running but that's the only indication you will get that you have got it wrong. It turns out that the circular foil disc is crucially important in that it acts as a heat shield for the fan and without it the fan / motor will soon be damaged by the combustion heat. Don't be tempted to run without it. Replacement foil discs are available in packs of 5 (speaks volumes that they are sold in this way) at a cost of about a tenner. I got mind from Butlertechnik near Lincoln who through all of this saga have been extremely helpful.
The upshot of all of this is that I am now convinced that despite the Eco setting - don't use it and stick to full power - with open windows if necessary!! Plus - don't be tempted to use fuel additive in the supply for the heater.
Sorry for the long post but I hope that my lessons over the last two year might be of assistance to someone.