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CHINESE "WATER" DIESEL HEATER: Hcalory Tear down!

Mispronounced Adventures

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My faithful Chinese Diesel Heater has kept me warm on extreme overland winter vanlife adventures in my self-built camper. However, for snowy and cold conditions, my engine needs its own pre-heater or hydronic heater. Previously, there wasn’t a good value-for-money Chinese-made version/all-in-one kit. But now, Hcalory ⁠has filled that gap. In this two-part video series, I strip down the unit, take it apart, and explore its inner workings

hydronic heater are versatile, they operates by heating a coolant loop, which can be directed through plated heat exchanges for hot water or a hot air matrix for hot air in a leisure format. This design allows for efficient warmth distribution. For another engine it can pre-heat the engines coolant loop warming the block.

It is not recommended you directly heat water, but a coolant solution.

This video is part 1 of 2 reviewing the heater and working with Banggood.com

Here is my affiliate link for the Hcalory 12V 5KW Water heater / hydronic heater
https://www.banggood.com/custlink/DDv...
Coupon code: BGab5aad
Coupon price: $319.99
*Due to temporary stock shortages in the UK warehouse, it could only be shipped from the CN warehouse.

Other heaters in UK warehouse:
https://www.banggood.com/custlink/m3D...

Black Friday Sale!
https://www.banggood.com/custlink/GKD...

#banggoods #ChineseDieselheater #wintervanlife
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20 Comments

@MispronouncedAdventures Creator 2 years ago Pinned

What do you prefer hydronic diesel heater or air diesel heater? Or both and why?

I use both, the air diesel heater heats the van’s habitation area and my hot water. The hydronic heater is an engine preheater.

@collinsampson601 2 years ago

If you want to send me the casting I will X-Ray it and we can see the quality of the casting. Some Chinese castings can look OK externally but have a lot of shrinkage and porosity which would lead to early failure.

@NeuroDAVErgent 2 years ago

I picked up a hauntingly similar unit about a year ago on Amazon from a brand called VPABES, which oddly enough shows on their listing the branding of the heater to be Junyize - The controller is slightly different, but all the hardware is essentially identical. I've bench-tested it on both US diesel and 85 octane gasoline with good results. I'll be using it in my own van running gasoline.

Hydronic systems are great when you want multiple ways of collecting and distributing heat. Air heaters are always the simplest when only cabin heat is needed.

@kbwaldron 2 years ago

I have the Eberspacher S3 unit. There are two lines in the wiring loom that are meant for remote but can be connected to an unpowered thermostat such as used on a household furnace. If you are using a hot air register to heat air then that can be used to control temperature in the van as I have done. This is addition to the control unit supplied.

@robww5921 2 years ago

You need to send a video to living the van life about installation of this. In his preparing for artic trip he didn't think any existed for a sprinter so just used a heating pad.....

@compactcamperco 2 years ago

Great run through of this wee unit! Lots of info I have literally no idea about so really useful for a heating novice like myself! Thanks for sharing!

Looking forward for I watching the testing process next 🤙🤙

@cannaroe1213 2 years ago

While the Aluminium t-junctions will feel crappy, they are designed to be the same material (aluminium...) as the metal in the coolant loop (aluminium radiator and engine block) so it's actually the perfect material for your engine's coolant, usually.

@MrSnowMen 2 years ago

60'c could be a tiny bit hot, oh gosh, I've melted , I've melted if used for your shower
Thanks once again on a teardown.

@Dr.Thundy 2 years ago

I have both a Chinese diesel air heater and a DIY Webasto hydronic system (air, water, floor heating, and tied into engine heat) in my van. The hydronic system is complex, expensive, and infuriating at times, but gives me three ways of heating the fluid if needed. If I'm just looking for air heat, I usually just run the diesel air heater since it's cheaper to maintain and works quite well to heat the space.

@CoolMusicToMyEars 9 months ago

On Banggood they dropped price to £128 for that unit 😮 so I got two, they have painted it now as protection from road salts etc, very nice unit, Hcalory 👍

@truebluetravellers 2 years ago

Cheers Alex, just what i need for our trip, I’ll get one on order 👍

@bearhugman 2 years ago

Another informative and nicely edited vid. Thanks

@ChristianMilesOnLine 2 years ago

Thanks for this video - I will eventually be looking to replace a Mikuni MX40 water heater for use on narrowboat via radiators (Now 17 years old, still working but one day it will eventually fail) been looking at these Chinese versions but this is first decent review I’ve seen

@tramptruck4859 2 years ago

Very interesting video and a good explanation of how the different types of heater work.
My system uses an ebberspacher d2 for air heating and a webasto thermo top c for hot water via a calorifier and radiators. An additional thermo top c serves as an engine pre heater. The calorifier also has an immersion heater to allow electric heating of hot water.

@Rich-Travels-57 2 years ago

Nice alternative to the used units and looks like reasonable quality too

@David_11111 2 years ago

YAY

@stephenbulmer7148 2 years ago

Another very interesting video Alex. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and thoughts. Be interesting to see what you think of its performance after you’ve tested it. Cheers👍👍👍👍