Wiring up a night heater (car not truck, water not air)

[AquaHydroChem]

Hi there
I have acquired a webasto night heater and I need to know how to wire it up
The heater has 2 stickers on it

-----------------------------------------------
One of them with a big number on top "1K0 065R" when I put this in the search engine it brings me up the correct heater off sellers on ebay but this number dose not work on the webasco site
The sticker also says:
SW: 1312 HW; 031 Germany
21.4.2005 xxxxx xx WOS 101

Webasto Zuheizer Diesel/PME
Appl-ID 9007184H
HG-ID 90083720
SG-ID 9010046A

And the other stickers says its a Webasto CE 00 0018 02 1232
HEIZGERAT Typ: thermo top V
Spannung/ EL.Leistung 12V/ 42W
Warmestrom max: 5kW
Brennstoff: Diesel/ PME
zul. Betriebsuberdruck: 2.5 bar
---------------------------------------


I have spoken to the manufacture webasto and they have told me this heater will only work in a VW car as it is wired to the ECU

The device has a burner and a water pump on it which is supposed to be plumbed up into the heater matrix of your car so it is pumping hot water round the engine system with the fan on at a night time. the burner runs off of diesel
Now I wish to use this device in a van, I want to plumb it up into a house hold radiator and have my own external temperature thermostat on it.
I also wish to use it as a hot water pump for showers etc.
So all I really need to do as far as getting this device working is to switch the water pump on and ignite the burner, basically bypassing everything ells.
There are 2 wiring plugs from this device that exit the unit at the same place
One plug has 2 thick wires a brown and a red/yellow
The other plug has 3 thin wires, one purple/orange the other purple/yellow and the other orange/brown

Anyone have any idea which wire dose what please?

 

[Iggifer]

Definitely the wrong section. Will get you moved

 

[stillp]

How are you going to avoid the carbon monoxide and other combustion products from poisoning anyone in the van?

 

[jj4091]

Look at the wiki on here http://forum.club8090.co.uk/index.php or ask your question in the forum

 

[mikeyd]

It may be coincidence (and I know nothing about modern VW wire colours), but an orange/violet (purple?) and orange/brown pair are often used in can-bus wiring. If so then you are going to have to bypass the can controller in the heater before you can get it to fire. Don't take my word for it though, as I said I don't know anything specifically about this and it may be coincidence.

Brown for ground and red/yellow for +12V (when ignition on) is (or was) common in car wiring.

 

[ericmark]

Worked with a few heaters but not the Webasco. For the water heating type main use is in narrow boats, they heat up their domestic hot water and work the central heating. The Eberspacher is more popular and it was the Eberspacher I worked with in the main but also used the Hunter the other common use is mobile cranes where it is near impossible to get engine cooling water to heat the crane cab. You may find some one who works with cranes or narrow boats can help.

The units would not be permitted in standard domestic as they are so inefficient. What I found was the big problem was the use of a fuel pump which also metered out the fuel used, so slight wear in the pump caused the units to fail, that's with Eberspacher, with the Hunter they actually still used a carburettor to mix fuel and air.

At the best of times it seemed like a continuous fight to keep the units running, including nearly setting alight the next door boat where carbon built up and was then released with a shower of sparks.

English cars did have colour codes. Brown = Live all the time non fused, Purple live all the time fused, White live ignition on non fused, Green live ignition on fused. Tracers would give more info seem to remember white left and red right so green/white left hand indicators etc. May have got that bit wrong way around it was a long time ago.

German cars however used numbers, 30 ignition live, 15 non ignition live, 31 earth etc.

As to connection to ECU in the main heaters are used when the engine is not running. Seems a little strange to be connected to ECU. However the power used with boats at least is quite high. Many hire boats at start of season have problems in the batteries will not last the night out leaving a very cold boat in the morning in spite of the boat having 3 x 180 Ah batteries. Likely they simply were never charged before start of season, but it states in some manuals they should not be used for longer than the engine is run for as other wise the batteries will not be fully recharged.

One amp does not seem much but all night long it adds up to 18 Ah plus lights often batteries simply can't recover during the day without special stage chargers. You don't really say what you are going to do with the unit, but my son moved to a wood burning stove as they were so problematic.

 

[AquaHydroChem]

Definitely the wrong section. Will get you moved

I don't think so!
This is more for electricians then motor mechanics
Most mechanics I know have never even heard of the thing

It may be coincidence (and I know nothing about modern VW wire colours), but an orange/violet (purple?) and orange/brown pair are often used in can-bus wiring. If so then you are going to have to bypass the can controller in the heater before you can get it to fire. Don't take my word for it though, as I said I don't know anything specifically about this and it may be coincidence.

can-bus wiring? what is a can controller?

Brown for ground and red/yellow for +12V (when ignition on) is (or was) common in car wiring.

And there was me thinking house hold brown is live but I know vauxhall use brown as earth.
If this port/ terminal is a straight live and earth job then it has to either power the water pump or the burner
But I'm not quite so sure if an ignition spark in a burner needs a return/ earth (why this should be in electrical section not the auto)

 

[ericmark]

Where the German wiring code is used, black is live with a number on it to say what it is for, brown is chassis, seem to remember working on DAF trucks that white was speakers, and the was one odd red wire but can't remember what it was for. It would seem the Japs used a completely different colour code, can't remember what the Yanks used.

It seems they use some odd words. Calorifier = heat exchanger for example. A car type heater is called a "Ducted Matrix" as to colours the Eberspacher seems to swap colours at will. From thermostat the ge (yellow) wire is connected to rt (red) to the Matrix fan. Also the br (brown) is connected to sw (black) it seems there is no real colour code. The only convention that seems to be followed is relay 30 live in and 87a live out no energised and 87 live out energised and 85 neg to coil and 86 pos to coil.

You will likely find any diagram uses German short hand for colours so rt = red, ge = yellow, br = brown, gn = green, ws = white, sw = black, vi = violet, or = orange, rs = pink, gr = grey and bl = blue.

Age matters Vauxhall did use Lucas colours, Opel used German numbers, as to Chevs too long ago can't remember. It really is down to which model you are looking at with General Motors stuff there is no one size fits all. Seem to remember white is neutral and black is live in USA so again depends on which market items are aimed for which colours are used. The USA do not seem to subscribe it ISO.

 

[Belle427]

Im guessing its an auxiliary heater as fitted to diesel engined vw's etc to give some cabin heat once the car is first started from cold.
The smaller cables will more than likely be the comms from the main climate/heating system and the larger the power supply for the burner/pump.
Ive absolutely no idea how you would get this to work without the comms sorry, maybe the manufacturer were spot on with their help?

 

[AquaHydroChem]

I have uploaded this manual of the heater
I am unable to open and read it properly myself
Page 5 is a wiring diagram but I can't read the lettering on it

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It all seems perfectly legible - what problems are you having with it?

 

[AquaHydroChem]

I can now see part of the diagram from the link you provided
But I fail to see where the brn red/yel are on the diagram or the pur/ora, pur/yel, or the ora/brn

 

[bernardgreen]

So all I really need to do as far as getting this device working is to switch the water pump on and ignite the burner, basically bypassing everything ells.

If you include the safety devices in "basically bypassing everything ells." then you could be putting yourself and others in the van at risk

From the Webasco Technical Document

Improper installation or repair of Webasto heating and cooling systems can cause fire or the leakage of deadly carbon monoxide leading to serious injury or death.

To install and repair Webasto heating and cooling systems you need to have completed a Webasto training course and have the appropriate technical documentation, special tools and special equipment.

Only genuine Webasto parts may be used. See also Webasto air and water heaters accessories catalogue.

NEVER try to install or repair Webasto heating or cooling systems if you have not completed a Webasto training course, you do not have the necessary technical skills and you do not have the technical documentation, tools and equipment available to ensure that you can complete the installation and repair work properly.

ALWAYS carefully follow Webasto installation and repair instructions and heed all WARNINGS.

Webasto rejects any liability for problems and damage caused by the system being installed by untrained personnel.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I can now see part of the diagram from the link you provided

All I did was to open it with the PDF viewer of my choice, zoom in until it was large enough. What have you been doing?

But I fail to see where the brn red/yel are on the diagram or the pur/ora, pur/yel, or the ora/brn

I can see plenty of brown, but the only two-colour wire on the bit I snapshot is red/white. There are almost certainly other colours shown in other parts of the diagram.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

can-bus wiring? what is a can controller?

CAN-BUS.