Best Way to Control a Planar Diesel Heater

[StephBarnard]

For those of you that have installed a Planar heater on your trailer, a few questions:

(1) In the settings menu do you control the heater by the "T panel"? If not, why?

(2) In the same settings menu have you "check-marked" the Ventilation mode?

We recently finished the permanent install of a Planar 2D heater and set the heater to be controlled by the "T Panel" and (per the advice of the Planar folks/distributors in Surrey, BC) we also check-marked the Ventilation setting. We understand that if the Ventilation setting is check-marked the fan will run continuously as long as the unit is turned on. We were hoping it would be like our home heating unit that blows warm air into the house when the indoor temp is below our desired temp and then, when the desired temp is reached, the fan turns off.

Our concern is that if the fan is running continuously it could drain the battery quicker than we'd like (we do have a LiFePO4 battery and 100 watt solar panel), especially since we have an on-board fridge.
In the controller's manual is says that if the Ventilation setting is not check-marked that the heater will run continuously but adjust the heating power as needed to maintain the set temperature. So, in this mode do we need to be concerned that the diesel supply will be depleted too quickly and/or worry that the constant use of the fuel pump will drain the battery?

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Victorian]

The fuel pump or the fan are very unlikely to drain the battery. They only draw 0.something amps. But you will drain your battery if you run it on the thermostat as the pre glow before each fire up will need roughly 8-12amps each time. If you are in a small space, than this could happen very often.
I always recommend people to run the heater on low as long as you can without restarting several times. Simply open a window if it’s getting too hot. That method is also best for the heater as they love to run hot…. Biggest enemy for any diesel heater is a short operating cycle. They are like a Diesel engine, need to run for longer time to be trouble free.
what control panel do you have?

we use the manual pu5 ( my faiv) and the pu28 digital

 

[StephBarnard]

The fuel pump or the fan are very unlikely to drain the battery. They only draw 0.something amps. But you will drain your battery if you run it on the thermostat as the pre glow before each fire up will need roughly 8-12amps each time. If you are in a small space, than this could happen very often.
I always recommend people to run the heater on low as long as you can without restarting several times. Simply open a window if it’s getting too hot. That method is also best for the heater as they love to run hot…. Biggest enemy for any diesel heater is a short operating cycle. They are like a Diesel engine, need to run for longer time to be trouble free.
what control panel do you have?

we use the manual pu5 ( my faiv) and the pu28 digital

Thanks for the advice. We have a PU-27TM controller.

 

[FurthurOnTheFly]

We have a Planar installed in our sprinter and have been running it on power mode for months now. However recently we've been boondocking in a spot long enough that I decided to experiment with the settings and try running it off the T panel hoping for the same results as you... A thermostat that would cycle on throughout the night.

The experiment lasted less than 2 hours and we went back to just putting it on power mode and setting a timer to come on in the early morning.

What we found with the T panel mode is that it will not cycle on until the temp gets 5 degrees below your target temp...by that time you're freezing... Then when it turns on for whatever reason it just constantly ran at a lower power/fan speed so after running for 45mins the temp only came up 3 degrees and never hit the target temp.

I agree with Victorian, it's easier to just turn it on and let it keep running on low, which we do in the evening right up until we are going to sleep. Then we set a timer to come on around 6am so it's toasty in there when we wake up.