bmurrish wrote:

182 STOL driver wrote:Great to see you in person and that great looking 180 at Meadowlake airport . Made it home to Nevada last night . Lots of Snow when I showed up on Thursday . Not too bad a day on Sat.

Fly safe -Blue skies and Tailwinds
Bill Reid

Bill,

Was a pleasant surprise to have you show up at my hangar. It is always nice to be able to faces to names on this site.

Bill

Bill:
I was there to do a ANNUAL on Mike Donnley's 1956 182 --- over closer to the runway The flight to and from via United Airlines --- Not a pretty
sight me in a little seat >>> TSA (too stupid for Arbbeys) don't plan to go again on airline -next time I'll fly myself or have Mike come here. Good looking
little airport your at.

I've been looking at camping stoves and came across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5bK_ivwXs4

I used to wrap my engine in a electric blanket then wrap space blankets around that, set to high.

Then I had a up draft portable heater that fit perfectly on the floor under the dash, place that in, set to 90

Go have breakfast, walk back to the hangar and I was ready to roll.


However with my new local sporting an average daily temp of 110 °F I dont have that problem anymore.

NineThreeKilo wrote:I used to wrap my engine in a electric blanket then wrap space blankets around that, set to high.

Then I had a up draft portable heater that fit perfectly on the floor under the dash, place that in, set to 90

Go have breakfast, walk back to the hangar and I was ready to roll.


However with my new local sporting an average daily temp of 110 °F I dont have that problem anymore.

I crossed the Colorado river ---Hoover (Boulder ) Dam this afternoon at 114 degrees OAT coming back from ranch -about 4-5 pm. No need for preheat -air conditioner was going full tilt boogie .

Jaerl wrote:I've been looking at camping stoves and came across this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5bK_ivwXs4

The MSR stove is the stove that comes with the Northern Companion preheater. Works good too

Well, I made one. Haven't tried it yet, but the idea is I just start it up when I get up, and just let it run while I get coffee/chow, pack up, whatever.

With my somewhat limited space, I wanted something I could just run off the gas in my tanks. I already had the little coleman Exponent camp stove ($40 on ebay new) for the same reason. I just hold it up to my quick drain/sump and fill it, pump it, and light it. It will run about 45min or so on a good pump. For a cheap stove with that mission, I love it - works great.

It has a metal ring around the burner that was a perfect place to clamp on some ducting. I added a square duct adapter so it will fit in my lower cowl opening (gonna make a couple little hooks to I can just hang it form my radiator bracket).

Stove is 22oz. Ducting is nothing. Folds up to about 1 sq ft. Will get a small plastic bin to store it in.

Should work adequately for my engine (Rotax 912S) which tend to kick-back if really cold. We'll see.

I guess I need a second Exponent now for my coffee

In looking at the setup above, I wonder what keeps the combustion at the level of the stove? Once the whole setup is heated up and oxygen depleted/reduced the vaporized fuel could rise to the top of the chimney and ignite in the more oxygen rich environment at the top - inside the cowl. I would recommend more space between the burner and the chimney or some way to ensure adequate O2 for burn enters from below. Make sure the chimney functions as a just that and not a blowtorch.

Thanks Matt - good comment. The ring that the duct attaches to is actually open on the bottom/inside to the air, so there is a quite a bit of space for O2 to enter. Thats actually how the stove works when you have a pot/pan on top, it draws air from below/inside the that "floating" ring.

Still, I'm going to test it before attaching it to anything. Well, I might try it on my mother in laws car first.

When the pot is on the stove, the metal tabs shaped in a "star" hold the pot about 1/3" above the ring. May not seem like much, but makes a difference. If you turn the stove too high without adequate airflow the burn will move progressively up the chimney and make a bit of a stuttering sound. If you're lucky the dryer vent portion will be the first to melt. Have seen it... More airflow can make things a bit less efficient, but gives a wider margin of safety. Don't EVER step away from the plane while doing this and would certainly recommend an extinguisher handy. You'd probably have only a few seconds to act. More than a few planes have been lost this way.

Generator plus


Engine cover plus


Aero Therm=problem solved


Aero Therm makes a heck of a tent heater too.
Generator has 12V charger just in case.

Wow Rob. She's gone from suck to blow!

Matt, you are right that air can draw from the sides AND bottom when just a pot. The duct just closes off the sides. The bottom is still open. I just ran it for 30 min. outside - the flame burns as normal. You can't see in the pics well - there is still a little better than 1/2 inch open (vent) all around the bottom perimeter inside the ring. Did not see any evidence of the flame burning any differently. Didn't hear sputtering either.

I could put some vent holes in the adapter piece attached to the ring.

I'll run it a few times to make sure I don't see anything funny.

Thanks for the sage advice!

What kind of lash-up do you have going on there, Rob -- looks like you're recirculating the warm air inside the cowl through the heater again? Good idea, never seen that before on an engine pre-heat system.

My little 1200 watt heater made from an old clothes dryer heating element..just added a little used scat tube about 24" long to stick into the engine compartment. Puts out warm air (not hot) and the little squirrel cage fan and heating element do a nice job. My cost was for building was about$1.98. I built the adjustable stand out of an old brake drum..heavy will not fall over. This is not meant for taking along in the plane because of the weight, but the heating part is light and can be removed from the stand and carried.

emflys,

Be advised you probably also should place some sort of fine mesh screen in your ducting to help catch any sparks coming off that little stove, preventing them from rising up into the engine compartment. The Northern Companion has this feature, and it seems essential to me. Those stoves put off some tiny burning embers at times.....

The main thing, whatever you're using to warm up your engine, is GIVE IT TIME! Engine pre-heat is not something you want to rush. Remember that the air cooled engine is essentially a heat exchanger, designed to transfer heat from the core of the engine to the air moving over it. So, the reverse works as well. Problem is, the most expensive parts of that engine (the crankshaft, cam, etc) are all in the very core of the engine, and thus it takes a while to get that heat to penetrate to the core of the engine.

In really cold temperatures, if I was pre-heating with combustion heater, I'll heat for as long as I think it'll take, then shut off the heater, keep the engine covered, and conduct my preflight inspection, uncover the wings, etc....in other words, letting the engine "soak" a while, trying to allow that heat I applied to reach the very core of the engine. An air cooled engine that's warm to the touch may still be cold at it's core.

MTV

Rob..................what's the price on the Aerotherm heater???
I went to their website and they don't show pricing..........
that generally means lots

It's a good looking unit tho............

MTV, thanks for the screen suggestion. I added that on to the end of the ducting

I also tested today at lunch....sort of. It's warmed up a here, so not a test under typical conditions for which the heater would be used, but here are the results.

I used my remote meat thermometer that has a probe about the same length as my oil dipstick, so I plugged the cowl with rags, burped the motor (returned all oil to the tank) and placed the probe into the oil tank. It stabilized at 53F. Not exactly "cold" in cold start terms.

I just made two little hooks that held the heater ducting right at the bottom face of the coolant radiator (Rotax is partly liquid cooled. I wonder what the coolant temp was at the end??).

Per Matts recommendation, I then sat and watched, fire extinguisher at the ready.

Pics of set up and data.









So, what if it were say 29F out, which is what it was the last time I wished I had a pre-heater. Not sure it would follow the same dynamics - most likely not. But, I can also run longer. Probably an flawed extrapolation



The intake manifolds near the carbs felt like they were about 90F even after the heat being off for 3 or 4 min. Not sure what it would be inside. Imagine that would help fuel atomization.

If I could get from 29 to 50F in 1hr or so, I would be happy. We'll see if it can do that. The Rotax 912S puts up a fight starting below about 35-40deg. Close to 50F though and no issue.

Just a suggestion...................any time we use a flame to preheat we keep the heater
well off to one side of the aircraft.....that way if an inadvertant drop of oil or gas falls from the
engine compartment there's way less chance of it igniting.

I realize those Rotax engines run way cleaner than the Cont. or Lyc....but you can never be too careful.

Nice setup tho......

I,ve used an old blowtorch and a 4 foot piece of exhaust flex tubing since the 70's......
( there I go showing my age.... )

Brilliant thread...what makes BCP such a great site...

Cold snap in Britain recently had many starting their engines in less than ideal temperatures.
Pre-heaters are mostly unheard of here.

Friend heated oil in boiling water to help dilute the colder oil...seemed to help.

From what I've read about early-day northern flying, it was SOP to drain the oil when you parked for the night, and heat it up on the stove in the morning before pouring it in the engine.

I just ordered one of the Goldenrod Dehumidifiers. I am using a little space heater and a blanket right now but I don't feet comfortable with that cheap heater near all the gas and oil. There are two "Goldenrods" in the engine compartment of my boat and it keeps the whole area warm. They use them in gun safes too and should be safe to sit right inside your cowl. Here's a link to their site.

http://www.goldenroddehumidifiers.com/introduction.htm