HELP with Espar heaters

Hi there. Usually it is the ECU that makes the fan go on high like that, but you covered that with your friends ECU. It is probably the motor itself then. But, test thefurnace without the mini controller first. Unplug the controller from the main harnes, and jump the yellow wire on the heater side of the plug, to the red on the same side. This should turn the furnace on. If it turns on ok then it is the mini controller, if the fan goes up to high again, it is the fan itself. Is the glow plug going on while the fan runs on high?

Hello Brian, thanks for your help. It turns out that the ECU has quit. I retested with my friends ECU only this time screwing it into place rather than hanging over the side!! did not realise that there are sensors/magnets in the ECU that picks up on the fan motor. Heater working a dream now. Only problem is that I need a new ECU - can these be repaired/rebuilt or do they simply get thrown away?

Happy New Year by the way.

Regards

Stephen

Stephen good day. Usually it is the ecu, but you have covered that. It is either the blower now, or the controller, but probably the blower. Unplug the mini controller from the heater harness and jump red to yellow on the heater side of that harness plug.This is basically what the controller does to start the heater. If the heater fan runs full blast still, it is the blower, if not then it is the mini controller. One other thing: open the cover and check the fan wheel on it's suface near the ECU. There is a little socket in the rim which holds a small magnet that the ecu used for rpm monitoring. I have had one fall out and the blower went crazy. I found the magnet loose in the bottom of the case. I glued it back in the socket and it worked.

By the way is the glow plug working when this is happenning? You could take the cover off and slip the glow plug boot back to get access to the glow. It will be warm if it has been on, or you can put a meter on the glow leads. Let me know.

We do not repair them , and I doubt anyone else would. There are no schematics available. They are pricey, about $757.00 List price Canadian dollars here.

I can not even find a parts manual for a B7L. I looked at other manuals that cover gasoline and diesel versions, and the ECU's are different. The fuel pump is calibrated diferently. Sorry, we have never handled the gas versions, you could call Espar Canada at 1800-387-4800 and ask one of the guys in the tech dept., but I am sure they are different. Can you ask the seller to look at the numbers on the boxes?

I sent the seller a photo of my impulse generator and control unit for him to compare. I think he may just be assuming it's for gasoline. Hopefully I'll find out later today.
Thanks,
~Loren

Hey Brian,

I live in the kootenays & like to fish in the winter, I have a 22 ft Campion hardtop Should I be looking @ the D2 or D4 heater? Also how many vents would you recommend in the cabin? I was thinking one under the window that swivels & maybe one near the floor? Also where would you recommend buy the product from?

Sorry, a lot of questions.

Thanks

Grant

Hi Grant. I have installed about 150 heaters for Roton in Vancouver in the last 16 years. I can confidently say that you should go for the D2A. I would put a defog outlet, close able, and a foot vent in the cockpit. Also one down below, as you said. You have to have one wide open vent, I would do the foot vent as that one and the below vent close able. I can do a schematic for the ducting at a later time. There would be more than enough heat. The trick in smaller boats is to find somewhere to put the heater that will accommodate the ducting runs, the shorter the better. So all on the same side as the heater. You also need to be able to get the exhaust out the side of the boat the higher the better. I don't know that boat at all, so I can't tell you where it will go, but Jones Boys should be able to figure it out. They have installed a few heaters supplied by Roton. You also have to draw the combustion air from the outside, either from the side of the hull, or outside the hardtop area, so as not to draw oxygen from the living space. The fuel can be taken from an aluminum built in tank mounted below decks with a deck fill and hull vent.That will run about $450.00. 3 gal to 5 gals is plenty. 3 gal. will run the heater for 50 hours straight on full heat. The other option is a portable outboard tank, 3 gals. or 5 gals. with quick connects for removal of tank for filling. We(roton) must supply this tank as it has to have the p/u modified to a 2 mm id. That tank will run $75.00 for the large and about $60 for the 3 gal. It has to run on Diesel on a boat, gas is not allowed. I tried to attach the marine installation manual, but it would not work. Try going to espar.com and hit the red downloads tab and look for marine installations and then choose airtronic installation.
If you email me at [email protected] I can send you the price sheet. I am also the service person and love this heater, very reliable, easy to service. I have the same heater on my Lifetimer 2050. I haope this helps.
Best Regards, Brian Silk

Hi Brian,
I have a Espar D3L C CM in our boat. The unit seemed to be running fine but last weekend just stopped after about 5 minutes of running. I have 12V at the power, the red light is on at the thermostat, there is no "clicking" sound from the unit (actually no noise at all). It has new full fuel. I have a small book that came with the boat but no other trouble shooting guide. Any ideas where to start?
Thanks in advance
Mark McMaster
Delta BC

Myles Powers said:

Brian,
I have an old D3L installed in 1985. Yesterday, it was going along well, made a metallic noise (like a bad bearing?) and halted. I'm thinking it's probably best to just go with a new D4 rather than suffer the cost of repair. Is the D4 close enough to the D3L that there will be minimal rework on the installation in my Cape Dory 36? That is, what changes should expect in the, mount, ducting and electrical.

Thanks,
Myles

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Hi Myles: I suspect this is a bit late, but if you still have the D3L I would be interested in hearing and perhaps purchasing. I have one that is rusted, but the blower is fine. Thanks, Paich

I have a relatively new (2010) Espar B5 with Digi-Controller. Last season, worked great. This season, it starts up fine but overruns the temperature set point (say 65F) and will run up cabin temp into mid 80's before I manually initiate a shutdown. I haven't come across any diagnostic instructions for these symptoms, so any advice would be appreciated.

Hello. We have installed a few Digitrollers on boats and have found them to be crappy thermostats, but good for retrieving diagnostics only. I have never seen any Espars run past what the thermostat setpoint is due to a bad ECU. I would say without a doubt that it is the Digitroller itself. One thing howerver is you should check the connections of the grey wire, and the grey with the red stripe, that connect the heater to the Digitroller. These carry the setpoint info and romm temp sensor info to the Ecu to tell the heater what heat level to be on. If there is a bad connection, loose, corroded, for example, it could be sent the wrong info and is just doing what it is told. In the latest fault I found with them, a D5A was running at medium, even though the cabin temp was 6 deg. C below the setpoint. The Digitroller should have been signalling the heater to run on high. It ran all night and never kicked up to high.

If all the wiring checks out ok, I would get the regular Espar room thermostat( black,with an on/off swithch and a temp dial) They work great. Keep the Digitroller as a diagnostic retrieval device.

Hope that helps.

Brian silk said:

Hello. We have installed a few Digitrollers on boats and have found them to be crappy thermostats, but good for retrieving diagnostics only. I have never seen any Espars run past what the thermostat setpoint is due to a bad ECU. I would say without a doubt that it is the Digitroller itself. One thing howerver is you should check the connections of the grey wire, and the grey with the red stripe, that connect the heater to the Digitroller. These carry the setpoint info and romm temp sensor info to the Ecu to tell the heater what heat level to be on. If there is a bad connection, loose, corroded, for example, it could be sent the wrong info and is just doing what it is told. In the latest fault I found with them, a D5A was running at medium, even though the cabin temp was 6 deg. C below the setpoint. The Digitroller should have been signalling the heater to run on high. It ran all night and never kicked up to high.

If all the wiring checks out ok, I would get the regular Espar room thermostat( black,with an on/off swithch and a temp dial) They work great. Keep the Digitroller as a diagnostic retrieval device.

Hope that helps.

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Thanks a lot Brian - will look into your suggestions. Thanks for generously sharing your knowledge in this forum.

Brian,
I recently picked up a used Espar D8LC. The blower seems to be on it's last legs and needs to be replaced. My initial research shows that the replacement cost for the blower assembly is around $1,000 - which seems crazy expensive to me. I feel that I really just need to replace the blower motor, which I would guess should not cost more than a couple hundred bucks. I have been able to take off the top part of the blower assembly to see that the motor is a Gefeg unit (Pg 7640-34/64-L). I am stuck in trying to figure out how to remove the motor itself from the housing.

It seems that there is a shaft coming out of both sides of the motor. As I said the top part was easy to open up by removing a small circular clip holding the plastic fan. I am guessing that you need to remove the bottom plastic part to gain access to screws holding the motor in place. The problem is that this looks like it might actually be glued onto the shaft. So my question is how the heck do you remove the motor from the housing?

Thanks for your help,
Greg Davids
s/v Pura Vida
Berkeley, CA

Hello Greg, sorry for the delay.

Unfortunately that blower unit is made as a throwaway and not meant to be taken apart. the worl we live in now!

It may be possible to heat the stainless shaft and brass collar that the plastic wheel is held on with. The brass will expand at a higher rate than the stainless. You might have to heat it up with a high powered soldering iron, or somehow funnel a heat gun output fine enough? The plastic wheel is the problem and I don't know how much heat it will take. You can hold onto the plastic wheel and hold the whole thing in he air and tap the s/s shaft after heating, it may break loose. Chip off the glue first, and also measure the gap between the plastic wheel and the housing, as the wheel will have to e put back on with the same gap, or the fan will spill air out the gap.

I may have one in the shop. I will check in the morning and try it. I will let you know tomorrow night.

Best regards, Brian Silk

Thanks for the reply Brian. Definitely annoying about how they put the blower structure together. It is as if they went out of their way to design the blower so they could periodically sell this necessary replacement part at a grossly inflated price - instead of giving access to just the OEM motor at a reasonable replacement cost. Grrr.

I picked up a small pinpoint butane torch and will give a go at removing the plastic wheel. I also look forward to hearing what you might have in your shop. Thanks again

Greg Davids

Greg, sorry I do not have one to try it on. So good luck

Brian

I have a D5W SC hydronic unit. It came and was initially used with an external pump. I now want to plumb an internal pump so it can be a plug-and-play replacement for the main unit I am now using. Are you familiar with this unit? Can you advise me regarding adding the necessary pump-control wiring?

Thanks, John

Hello, I am familiar with both units. Are you referring to the external fuel pump or water pump?

Dear Brian,
I wonder if you can advice me where to start looking when my D 12 L gave up showing these symptoms:
It still worked during my Holiday trip, on half speed. At full power the thermal switch tripped.
Now it does not start at all and the plug is cold after the start up sequence.
Fuel filters are clean and the pump is pumping (obviously a lot of fuel in the unit by now after all start up trials)
Airways are open and clean
The blower fan blows happily in the ventilation mode.
During my starting attempts the wall thermostat began to act strangely. The led stayed green all the time when i turned the knob from min to max, and the starting sequence didn't start at all.
Then after a while the led turned red, but only very close to the max setting. yesterday I tried again and the starting sequence begun at pos. 6 on the scale. - But no heat.
So - strange symptoms to me!
The unit is installed 1989 so maybe it is time to replace it. What do you propose as replacement?
Many thanks,
Stefan

sorry for the delay. on holidays. You want to check and see if the glow plug wires are supplying power. First disconnect the wires from the fuel pump, no more fuel is needed now. Remove the wires from the glow plug, two push on connectors, put a meter on them and see if you have voltage. Should be near11.5 v. If you have power then the glow plug is dead, open circuit.If you have no voltage then the ECU is dead.Do you have two pumps or one? Most d12s have a primary pump and the secondary ESPAR pulse pump( the one the tics fast) If you have no voltage then the ECU is dead. How many times has the fuel pump pumped for the complete 3 min. start cycle? If it is more than 4-5 times, it could be dangerous to start it now. Espacially if the exhaust insulation has absorbed diesel from the exhaust joint at the elbow. The elbow should have a copper drain coil on it to drain off excess fuel in the elbow, it should be dripping diesel out the bottom by now. If you have started it many times it should be stripped down and have the excess diesel drained and cleaned out. If the exhaust insulation is wet, it should be washed with deagreaser and rinsed well before starting it up again.

The thermostat issue is probably not related, unless you have low voltage to the heater, or corrosion on the plug at the heater that supplies power to the thermostat, or a bad rotary control(h/l dial)- you can unplug the white plug at the furnace and jump neg(brown) to mauve- makes it run on high. and then connect red to blue, that makes the heater start- this bypasses the thermostat and rotary dial. BUT do not start it it it has many starts of fuel in it.

There is no D12l anymore so your only choice is a D8LC. 8 kw versus your 12. What kind and size of boat is it?

Thanks Brian,
Superthanks for your kind advice. I will do all you suggest and hopefully have heat for the fall season. The heater has had some problems before but I have been able to solve them. Some years ago I moved the air intake from behind the sofa to a cockpit cupboard solving the problem with the overheating safety thermostat tripping that you have described in an earlier thread. The boat is a Princess 55 built 1989.
(http://www.princessownersclub.com/quinna3project.html )
Friday cheers from Helsinki, Stefan

Brian silk said:

sorry for the delay. on holidays. You want to check and see if the glow plug wires are supplying power. First disconnect the wires from the fuel pump, no more fuel is needed now. Remove the wires from the glow plug, two push on connectors, put a meter on them and see if you have voltage. Should be near11.5 v. If you have power then the glow plug is dead, open circuit.If you have no voltage then the ECU is dead.Do you have two pumps or one? Most d12s have a primary pump and the secondary ESPAR pulse pump( the one the tics fast) If you have no voltage then the ECU is dead. How many times has the fuel pump pumped for the complete 3 min. start cycle? If it is more than 4-5 times, it could be dangerous to start it now. Espacially if the exhaust insulation has absorbed diesel from the exhaust joint at the elbow. The elbow should have a copper drain coil on it to drain off excess fuel in the elbow, it should be dripping diesel out the bottom by now. If you have started it many times it should be stripped down and have the excess diesel drained and cleaned out. If the exhaust insulation is wet, it should be washed with deagreaser and rinsed well before starting it up again.

The thermostat issue is probably not related, unless you have low voltage to the heater, or corrosion on the plug at the heater that supplies power to the thermostat, or a bad rotary control(h/l dial)- you can unplug the white plug at the furnace and jump neg(brown) to mauve- makes it run on high. and then connect red to blue, that makes the heater start- this bypasses the thermostat and rotary dial. BUT do not start it it it has many starts of fuel in it.

There is no D12l anymore so your only choice is a D8LC. 8 kw versus your 12. What kind and size of boat is it?

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Stefan, you are welcome. You will need a gasket if you take the heater apart, Espar part # 251226 01 00 04. If you are inside the unit then you should clean the atomizer. Ther are 6 holes that are hidden between the two parts of the atomizer. Very hard to explain. If you do decide to take it apart, email me at [email protected] and I can send you a photo of how to get at the holes.

Looking at your boat I think that the D8LC would actually heat the boat just fine. If there are problems with some areas some slight ducting re-design maybe necessary to improve flow. The D8LC does not move as much air as the D12L.

Inbox erased. To the person with the b5ws hydronic could you please get me the AUS. FUHR Nr. off the habel on the heater. It starts with 25 and then space and then four more digits. There have been some changes in design. I need the specific version to troubleshoot.

Good day. that temp. sounds OK, but I measure at 6" from the end hood of the heater. It is common to get 275-290 .deg. F at that point. Try that distance and see what it is.

let me know what you get.

Thanks Brian,

I checked the temp and read a constant 218F at about 6 inches from the outlet, as measured on the surface of the composite duct using an infra-red themometer; it peaked after about 15 minutes of running on HIGH and was constant from then on. So it should be good. Further downstream there are metal wye fittings that show higher temps which indicates the effective insulating property of the composite ducts. I appreciate your help and enjoy reading your advice on this thread.

Thanks, Tim Eldred

Greetings Brian, It looks like you're the only one in the universe with knowledge of the D3L units.... So, I hope you can offer some help with a unit i just aquired. Fan runs, but no fuel pumping. I had power to the pump, but no ticking or pulse. I started taking apart connections to check for bad contact. TYhere's a relay (?) of some sort that apperas to make the pulse, but when I removed the plug lots of dried flakes of solder came out, due to 2 of the 6 connector pins being being "gone"...... Any idea what this module is, and if any are available? There are no identifiying numbers of any kind on the black housing. It has 2 rows of 3 connectors (6 total)...... Reading the other posts on this topic leads me to believe this is the pulse generator, so it makes sense that my problem lies here... (this problem anyways...) Black module with white connector measures 2 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 3/4". Any help would be very much appreciated, and thanks again for your participation on the forums..Kevin Cape Cod, MA