Appreciate any thoughts on the subject.

Brrr....!

-DP

denalipilot
Personally I like the Reiff
Have had them on a Lyc 540, and an 985 radial.
Along with a regulating pan heater they work great, down to -40 with a good insulated cover.
My $.02
GT

I have also owned both, the Tannis on my Mooney (IO-360) and the REIFF on my C-182 (O-470-50). Both sytems were/are excellent but I think the REIFF system is more effective, IMHO. Good Luck

I really like my Reiff, and Reiff's support is excellent, too. O-360 Lycoming.

Cary

I have a pan heater and cylinder band heaters. With just the tiny oil pan heater, the front of the engine block feels like about 75F when the thermoblock kicks on at 40F ambient in the hangar, no blankets, and the oil flap open.

I was up in Steamboat a while back, and had them both on while tied up outside with no blanket etc. The morning got down to around 5F, and when I arrived mid morning, it was around 15F. The front of the block was still about 75F even in all the wind.

I also have a pan heater, and thats all i need for my 300A i cover the front with a moving blanket seal around the prop and good to go.

If the plane is hangared, an EZ-Heat sump heater ($149) keeps the whole engine toasty if you also throw an old sleeping bag over the cowl and tuck it into the engine inlets. The blanket also saves electricity, as the heater has a built in thermostat that cycles at 165 F. Key to success, though, is to clean the pan well where the heating pad will be installed.

bumper

Well, thanks- at least to those that addressed Tanis vs Reiff. How much more explicit can a guy get??

I installed a Reiff system on my O-360 some 17 years ago, and its still going strong, though I recently had to replace the original silcone oil pan heat pad.

Not long after I installed that one, our maintenance folks started installing them on most of our work airplanes, and I've used them regularly when parked outdoors at -40. They work.

We did have many Tanis systems as well, and there are high heat and lower heat versions. The lower heat version takes forever to warm up. The high heat probes cost a FORTUNE, and they do fail. I've had several of them fail.

Don't believe ANY of the hype that EITHER of these companies spout about the other guy's stuff. They're both good systems, but I firmly believe the Reiff system is the better of the two, and less expensive.

Where you're at, nothing but the Reiff or Tanis will QUICKLY warm up an engine in the kind of temps you see there.

MTV

I went with the reiff turbo xp to go on my o-360 for two reasons 1)the ease with which to change the cylinder band if one fails and 2) the sump heater is made of aluminum not silicone. My friend has installed two silicone sump heater pads(non-tannis) on his plane. Both burned out quickly due to air spaces between the engine and the pad. He installed them very carefully to prevent the air space! Reiff claims this will not happen with there metal pads. So far my has worked flawlessly...

scoutdriver wrote:Both burned out quickly due to air spaces between the engine and the pad. He installed them very carefully to prevent the air space!

Yup. I there isn't anything in contact to take away the heat, they will get hot spots, which lead to more resistance at the hot spot and more heat and....you get the picture.

Use epoxy if in doubt. You can easily get thermal epoxy from an electronics supply firm. It has aluminum impregnated it it. Then "wring" the bead of epoxy from one end to the other to prevent voids, just as if you were pregging a composite layup. The idea is as thin a layer as you can, with no voids, to allow even heat distribution.

RTV works as well- I have 3M thermally conductive stuff.

Not a direct comparison, but:
I had a Rieff on the 0300 cont i had and a Tannis on the 0360 i have now. Reiff was cheaper by comparison (except i got an excellent deal on the Tannis which is why i went that way this time).

The Reiff Turbo XP (which is what i had on the O300 when i lived in Unalakleet) would reliably preheat the engine to approx 100 deg w/in 4 hours at temps in the -10-15 range. It takes the Tannis 6-8 hours to bring the O360 into that same range. Since i have to run a generator for power, that makes a big difference to me.
i felt like the Reiff system did a better job of distributing the heat to the whole cylinder, where as the head is much warmer with the Tannis system.
I did not have the O300 for more than a year before trading up to the O360, but i would think the metal Reiff oilpan "pad" has to last longer than the silicon pad. The guy who bought my plane with the O300 told me the system is still working great at 6 years now.

Both systems work, but for the kind of prolonged cold we tend to see, i prefer the Reiff (wish i had one now, its been a long, cold winter)


Chris

Ordered up the Reiff Turbo XP today. If it's all they say it is, I figure I can use it in summer to make a traegergrill smoky barbecue thingy with it and my cowling.

-DP