Planar Night-Heaters.

[oldiebut goodie]

I wouldn't fit a heater and run it from the starter battery with the starter only being charged to 80%. It is no good being warm but cannot start the van afterwards. I always tell people who buy a heater from me to use a leisure battery whether they have stop/start/regen system braking or not.

 

[rover220]

2kw planar plenty. Draw around 1.5a once upto temp. Could get dodgy on a cold night and battery not at optimum.

 

[Dmin]

Hi All
Just had Planar 2kw fitted and really pleased with it so far. Can anyone provide any advice on the temperature control setting . I currently set the sensor (panel) to 20 degrees and when the van gets up to this temperature it stays on. Should it turn off when it gets to this point and restart when it drops? Also do others here a slight whining sound (fan or fuel pump). Thanks in advance.

 

[N1ck]

I fitted a planar to my van, have you got the digital display I set mine to the lowest setting one bar and it still keeps running all night
you will her the whine of the fan unless it it trunked a little further, mine came up behind the seat but I’ve boxed it in and extended the pipe so it blows out towards the sliding door and that made it quieter, unless you have the super quiet pump you will hear that ticking as well

 

[Dmin]

Thanks Nick. I have the pu 27 digital controller and set that to a set point. Just been experimenting with it and it seems that once it’s switched on it stays on. I just assumed that it would toggle on and off to maintain the temperature. Probably better that it stays on as the start up procedure is quite noisy and that would wake to whole campsite in the early hours. Glad that it is usual to hear the fan noise. Thanks for the reply.

 

[boxelder]

When it goes off, it has to run the van at pretty high speed for a few minutes I think, to cool the unit. This can also means it's blowing cool air, which will cool the van. Start/stop uses the most battery because of this, so setting it really low and leaving it on is best.

 

[Dmin]

Thanks Boxelder, that sounds totally logical and clearly best to have it running without draining the battery.
Thanks
Darren

 

[Grim Reaper]

I don't know if the planar is the same as the cheap webasto copies but on those, the heater never really 'turns off' whilst in use, once at desired temperature, the fan and fuel feed frequency will ramp down to an idle, and stay there so long as the temperature is maintained. If you open the doors and let the warm air out, it will ramp back up until its back at the desired temperature, then ramp back down again.
The only time the heater shuts down is when the power button is pressed (at which point it will actually speed the fan up again to clear any unburnt fuel in the heater before shutdown) or if there is a fault (like out of fuel or overheat/flameout conditions)

 

[Dmin]

Thanks that’s good to know and as we have the silent pump it’s fine to just let it idle away now that I know that is how it’s meant to work. Not great instructions come with the Planar.
Cheers

 

[rolling_stone]

I don't know if the planar is the same as the cheap webasto copies but on those, the heater never really 'turns off' whilst in use, once at desired temperature, the fan and fuel feed frequency will ramp down to an idle, and stay there so long as the temperature is maintained. If you open the doors and let the warm air out, it will ramp back up until its back at the desired temperature, then ramp back down again.
The only time the heater shuts down is when the power button is pressed (at which point it will actually speed the fan up again to clear any unburnt fuel in the heater before shutdown) or if there is a fault (like out of fuel or overheat/flameout conditions)

Ah okay... I was just about to about to post a question to ask what is wrong with mine - I thought (think) it's broken. I've been using mine for a year or so, and always just turn in on full and it has always stayed running the same volume/fan speed, kicking out heat, for as long as I've left it on... but this weekend, every time I turned it on, it took 3 minutes to get going properly, then after 9 minutes the fan slowed right down, but still pumping out heat, then after another 5 minutes it slowed down to almost silent. I thought it had turned itself off, but then if I pushed 'shut-down', it fired up the fans and did the whole shut-down sequence as normal. It does this every time now.

The only screen on mine that I seem to able to change is this one:



And I'm not even sure if that's 'fan speed' or 'desired temperature'.

But no matter what I do now it won't stay on for more than 9 minutes on full output.

Has anyone any ideas what's happening? Might a sensor have failed?

Thanks in advance.

 

[oldiebut goodie]

Behaving like the burner pad is choked - shouldn't be after only a year unless you have used dirty fuel ( unlikely if from main tank) or the CO2 level is wrong. CO2 level should be less than `12%.
I don't know what your controller is shewing but if it is full heat and the graph is fan and they can be changed independently the fan speed is too low for high heat. ( that is how I see it but I only work on Webastos )

 

[rolling_stone]

Behaving like the burner pad is choked - shouldn't be after only a year unless you have used dirty fuel ( unlikely if from main tank) or the CO2 level is wrong. CO2 level should be less than `12%.
I don't know what your controller is shewing but if it is full heat and the graph is fan and they can be changed independently the fan speed is too low for high heat. ( that is how I see it but I only work on Webastos )

OKay, thanks for this... so, not being very knowledgable about them, the the burner pad being coked is not something that should have happened? I guess it's tapped off the main tank, so no, it won't have used dirty fuel... so what might have caused this do you think? Is it any easy fix, or is it worth taking it back to who fitted it? Is it likely to be expensive?

Co2 level? No idea how to measure that

Thanks.

 

[oldiebut goodie]

Can't find a controller like that for a Planar - are you sure that you have a Planar or is it a piece of Chinese cheap copy?

 

[rolling_stone]

Can't find a controller like that for a Planar - are you sure that you have a Planar or is it a piece of Chinese cheap copy?

This is my controller:

 

[oldiebut goodie]

They must have updated them! My manual says PU16M.
Looking at the manual for that one it seems like that graph only shows full in ventilation mode not fan rotation when heating. So that should be fine.
A good installer would have checked the CO2 level after installation ( one forum member had an incorrect CO2 level on his new Webasto so it can happen) My CO2 tester cost me over £400 so I wouldn't suggest you do it yourself!
I have never had my hands on a Planar so I don't know what sort of screen they use for the burner.
I have just perused a couple of videos on t'net and they both had horrendous carbon build up - if they are all like that there is something wrong with the way that they are set up.
Not a lot of help to you I know, maybe the installer can diagnose it - I don't have diagnostic gear for anything other than Webasto myself.

 

[Ayjay]

This is my controller:

View attachment 90340

Same here.

 

[oldiebut goodie]

Having just watched a Russian video I have found out that the burner screen on a Planar cannot be replaced on its own - the whole burner tube has to be replaced. There is a user replaceable glow pin screen though like the Eberspacher Airtronics.

 

[rolling_stone]

Having just watched a Russian video I have found out that the burner screen on a Planar cannot be replaced on its own - the whole burner tube has to be replaced. There is a user replaceable glow pin screen though like the Eberspacher Airtronics.

Thanks - I'll give the installer a call... I don't even know where mine is exactly, so replacing parts on it is probably beyond me unless it's accessible inside the van

 

[Bish]

Hi, I have the hot air outlet on the left hand side of the driver's seat base. On the right hand side, in the step of the driver's door there is the other vent which blows cool/room temperature air. I don't understand why that vent isn't sucking in air rather than blowing it out. It all seems to work fine, I just can't get my head round why one vent is blowing hot and the other is blowing cool... Can anyone shed any light on this? Thanks.

 

[AussieMick]

The vent at the drivers door should be your cold air intake, at the risk of sounding rude, are you sure its blowing out, cause the heater only has 2 large outlets, one cold intake and one hot output. Sounds weird. Unless output duct is torn near the inlet or something strange like that.