Engine preheater on ebay??

There's a portable engine preheater on ebay motors for $129. It looks
like an ok unit but I'm asking for any of the collective wisdom on pros
or cons of a unit like this. There's also one on Sportys for $399.
Any opinions on either or a comparison?

skym wrote:
There's a portable engine preheater on ebay motors for $129. It looks
like an ok unit but I'm asking for any of the collective wisdom on pros
or cons of a unit like this. There's also one on Sportys for $399.
Any opinions on either or a comparison?

Post links to these, please?

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

On ebay, it can be found as follows:

www.motors.ebay.com

then click on "Aviation" under Parts and Accessories on the left side.
It is the second item on the page. (The URL is REALLY long.)


In addition to the Sportys catalogue (of which I receive two a month)
it is online at:

http://www.sportys.com/acb/showdetl....oduct_ID=10044

"skym" wrote in message
ups.com...
(The URL is REALLY long.)
Then just make it smaller! http://tinyurl.com/dpcwr


Vaughn



In addition to the Sportys catalogue (of which I receive two a month)
it is online at:

http://www.sportys.com/acb/showdetl....oduct_ID=10044

Cool! Didn't know there was such a thing.

skym wrote:
On ebay, .....

Ok. I have a portable propane model, so I don't have direct experience with
either of these. Both appear to be adaptations of the sort of "ceramic" electric
heater that sells for around $30 at Home Depot. The Sporty's unit looks like it
would do a much better job, since it pulls it's intake air from the cowl. If I
were using it, I would stick the discharge in the gap at the bottom of the cowl,
though.

I have two of these units for helping heat poorly heated rooms in my home. They
do that job very well. I even got decent results using one to heat up an
unheated garage -- it kept things from freezing, at least. Based on that, I
believe Sporty's claims about the efficiency of their unit. Dunno if it's worth
that kind of money, however.

The main disadvantage I see is that these units require electricity. They're
also not going to be weatherproof. That means the portability is of limited use.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

I bought a $40 1.5 kW ceramic heater at Ace Hardware, a length of 4"
metalized dryer duct, and a 4" to 6" duct adapter. A bit of metal bashing
turned the 6" end of the duct adapter into a square, flanged surface that
could be sheet-metal screwed to the outlet of the heater. Two feet of duct
goes on the 4" end with a hose clamp. We stick the end of the duct up into
the cowl on top of the nose gear scissors (Archer). Half an hour of
preheating with this raises the temperature exiting the front of the cowl to
well above freezing (circa 40 degrees F) when the air temp is -10 degrees F.
We experimented with leaving the cowl plugs in or not, and it seems to heat
the engine faster with the heat rising through the cylinder fins and out the
cowl inlets. If there is any significant breeze (which might reverse the
air flow) we put the cowl plugs in and give it 45 minutes. More gentle
heating than the $25 preheat service (big propane heater stuffed into only
one front cowl inlet), and the whole rig cost around $50. Of course we
scored the only tiedown next to a hangar, with outside outlets within five
feet of the wingtip, but others run long cords over the ramp temporarily for
tools, etc.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:Y06nf.14684$OK6.11811@trnddc03...
skym wrote:
On ebay, .....

Ok. I have a portable propane model, so I don't have direct experience
with either of these. Both appear to be adaptations of the sort of
"ceramic" electric heater that sells for around $30 at Home Depot. The
Sporty's unit looks like it would do a much better job, since it pulls
it's intake air from the cowl. If I were using it, I would stick the
discharge in the gap at the bottom of the cowl, though.

I have two of these units for helping heat poorly heated rooms in my home.
They do that job very well. I even got decent results using one to heat up
an unheated garage -- it kept things from freezing, at least. Based on
that, I believe Sporty's claims about the efficiency of their unit. Dunno
if it's worth that kind of money, however.

The main disadvantage I see is that these units require electricity.
They're also not going to be weatherproof. That means the portability is
of limited use.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, Bob Chilcoat wrote:

We experimented with leaving the cowl plugs in or not, and it seems to
heat the engine faster with the heat rising through the cylinder fins
and out the cowl inlets.

Have you experimented with blowing the heat in the cowl inlets and letting
the coldest air inside the cowl come out the bottom? Seems like it would
heat much faster that way since you'd be exhausting the coldest air
instead of the warmest air.

-Dan

"skym" wrote in message
oups.com...
There's a portable engine preheater on ebay motors for $129. It looks
like an ok unit but I'm asking for any of the collective wisdom on pros
or cons of a unit like this. There's also one on Sportys for $399.
Any opinions on either or a comparison?

What kind of pre-heater are you looking for? Something you can use to heat
the engine relatively quickly, or something you can leave on for several
hours before flight to warm the engine? What is your climate (e.g. how cold
does it get where you live)? Do you need a heater for one plane or to share
between multiple planes?

Personally, I have one of the Reiff hot strip systems which is a sump
heater. I get 100f oil temperatures on start-up after a 4 hour heat cycle.
I have the thing attached to a timer so I just set the timer to come on 4 or
5 hours before the *next* time I expect to fly.

KB

I remember reading an old article about preheater somewhere. A person who
wrote that article complained about the price of preheaters. So, he made one
for himself for just 40 bucks. I can't remember how he did it, but I think
he used blow dryer's components. I think the article came from Sport
Aviation. I thought I should mention this.

Toks Desalu

"skym" wrote in message
oups.com...
There's a portable engine preheater on ebay motors for $129. It looks
like an ok unit but I'm asking for any of the collective wisdom on pros
or cons of a unit like this. There's also one on Sportys for $399.
Any opinions on either or a comparison?