Cold weather engine warmer that I can power from my car?

[bobnoffs]

600 watts will be a pretty slow preheat.just a fyi if left on for 8 hrs. 450 watts to a 200lb jabiru would stabilize with a temp. 60-70 deg. above ambient. i would preheat 3 hrs if i could for oat of 20 deg.these were stick on pads.
seems that a small generator, probably need 2000 watts could do a preheat the fastest. and the little generator would come in handy for a lot of stuff.
you can increase the efficiency of the portable electric heater by .
1. have an intake hose for the heater. by putting this hose in the cowl you are not constantly heating 20 deg. air.
2. i put an inline duct fan in my output hose. probably almost tripled airflow fpm .

[akschu]

I lived in AK for 25 years and have a masters degree in preheating and deicing small aircraft.

If I have electricity I use a pan heater and ceramic heater (or hair dryer) for an hour or two.

If I?m in a hurry I use a MSR stove with a duct into the cowl.

Either way, the key is a fitted, insulated cowl cover.

Keep in mind this was on my 170a

[lr172]

Originally Posted by David Z

Would the car's alternator produce enough power to power a dedicated engine pre-warming system? Turn the car on, run the leads off the car battery into an inverter or sorts, and then you could, in theory, have 120v and hopefully enough power to preheat the airplane's engine. 600watts is 50a @ 12v. I'm sure most automotive alternators are capable of well over 50 amps.

I used a cheap 1000 watt inverter when I assembled my 6 on the ramp with no elec source. The problem is that your car's alternator will no likely produce 600 watts of excess current while at idle. The energy draw for an hour might fully drain the battery.

Modern alternators are typically north of 100 amps, but don't produce that current below around 2000 RPM.

Larry

[gmcjetpilot]

You can by an inverting Ryobi gas generator 2000W (2200W surge). Runs about 4 hours on a gal. Love it. Goes for about $500 Home Depot at today prices. I bought my a few years ago on sale for about $400. Home Depot often has coupons for 20% off.

It's equiv to the small Honda Generator with similar quality, and much better than a Harbor Freight Honda clone.

When I lost house power for a few days I put it in the back yard and ran a extension cord to run Frig, TV and a light. I could also run a small window AC unit with Frig disconnected. With Micro wave it had to be the only thing connected. It worked well in a pinch.

[fl-mike]

Perhaps a stupid question (Florida boy!), but can you just run a duct from the car exhaust pipe to the cowl?
Too much moisture?

[RV8JD]

Originally Posted by fl-mike

Perhaps a stupid question (Florida boy!), but can you just run a duct from the car exhaust pipe to the cowl?
Too much moisture?

Already asked in Post #14 (from another Florida boy!).

[Ralph Inkster]

Remember the spud in the t/pipe trick? If you do, you are dating yourself, like me.
I'd consider the exhaust of an idling car as warm, not hot, and would take forever to take the chill of an a/c engine. And yes it would be extremely moist.

Per post#19 - I heard stories from old time bush pilots about overnighting on some remote ice lake in -40+ temps, they would remove the battery and drain the oil and keep them near the camp fire, or they would be there for the duration...

[Tdeman]

Post 9 references something very similar to this, but the link didn't work for me.

In my opinion, one of these diesel "parking heaters" is great option. Entire systems cost about $200, puts out CLEAN hot air (with exhaust all going out the other end) and does so on about 1/8th of a gallon per hour at full bore. They only use about 10A to start, but once they're running pull only around 2 amps. You could easily run one off of an old Odyssey for the hour or two you needed to to pre heat.

I have one in my camper (plumbed to the main fuel tank, with the exhaust routed outside obviously), and it is an absolute winner. I spend most of my weekend nights camping in the snow, and I run the thing on low to keep the camper at "t shirt weather".

I would say this is much cheaper, easier, and more efficient than using a generator to power an electric heater.

https://www.amazon.com/Diesel-Heater...2843689&sr=8-6

[rocketbob]

A friend of mine made a preheater very similiar to this one and used it to preheat the APU on a Gulfstream in northern Greenland, outdoors, in the middle of winter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apetDu4o9e4

[bobnoffs]

i've never seen or heard of such an animal. very interesting, i want to find out more about this thing!