Types of Auto Heaters

Auto heaters include air heaters, engine heaters and diesel heaters.

Air hater:

1. Diesel air heater. By burning diesel, passing the heats to heater, and then by the fan heat the cold air in the car through the heater, the warm air blows into the car and achieve the effect of heating the car inside. It is the most popular auto heater currently.

         Advantage: It uses diesel, which is very safe and economical.

2. Gas parking heater. Its operational principle is similar to the diesel air heater. The only difference is that gas is the fuel.

          Disadvantage: the insecurity of gas.

3. Liquid car heater. Its operational principle is also similar to the diesel air heater. The only difference is that its heating medium is the antifreeze.

          Advantage:  it can both heat the car inside and the engine.

          Disadvantage: high price.

4. Car fan heater. When the engine is working, the temperature is very high, so the coolant must be used to cool down the engine. And the car fan heater can just use the heat generated by the engine to let hot antifreeze from the engine flow into the warm-air fan. By sending the cold air in the car to the warm-fan heater for heating, the car inside becomes warm.

         Advantage: It is fuel-economical

         Disadvantage: The engine heater must work for a while, when the temperature of coolant reaches over 50℃, there will be warm air.

5. 12V/24V air heater. Its heating material is PTC.

         Advantage: High heating efficiency. Once switching on the heater, the warm air flows.

         Disadvantage: Low rated power. It’s not suitable for heating the big space, so it cannot preheat.

6. 230V/110V air heater.

         Advantage: It can preheat the car cabin without using storage battery.

         Disadvantage: It’s troublesome to connect to the power.

Engine heater

Engine heater has two specifications: one is connecting to the coolant hose with built-in pump or not; the other is the plug-in engine heater.

1. There are three types of engine heaters which are connected to coolant hoe.

         a. Integrated engine heater. It is composed of heating element, water pump, thermostat and some connecting wires. When the heating element works, the water pump delivers the heated antifreeze into the engine to achieve the effect of heating. This kind of heater was first successfully researched and launched into the market in 1998 by Victor Industries Ltd.

         b. No built-in pump engine heater. It is consisted of only one heating element, thermostat and connecting wires. It relies on the thermal cycle to transport the hot water into the engine. Compared to the engine heater with built-in pump, it needs a longer time to heat.

         c. The third one of the engine heater is to add a heating element into a metal cylinder which has the same size of the antifreeze hose. With simple structure and no thermostat, it has high security risks. Therefore, it has already been out of the market.

2. Plug-in engine heater is popular in the North America. It is not easy to install and it also has no thermostat. So it has high security risks, and it is replaced by the integrated engine heater.

         Common engine heater heats with electric heating tube. Its disadvantage is that the electric tube is easy to be damaged and leads to leakage phenomenon. What’s more, the electric tube will have power declined after 6-month use. In 2106, Victor Industries Ltd have developed an engine heater---Titan- B1, by using PTC as the heating material. It is very safe, and have a long service life. Titan-B series will replace the current electric tube engine heater.

Diesel Heater

There are three types of Diesel heaters:

• Diesel filter heater. The diesel filter is used to block the impurity in diesel with filter paper. Absorbed by the paper, the moisture from diesel starts to freeze when the temperature reaches below 0℃，making diesel filter unable to work. And the heater is designed to solve this problem. It can melt the ice by heating the case of diesel filter, thus let the filter function again.

• Diesel Heater. The fuel consumption and exhaust will increase under low temperature as the diesel in air cylinder of compression-ignition engine cannot be fully atomized or burnt. And with diesel heater, the fuel can be heated to 20-30 ℃ while entering into the nozzle, and then it can be fully atomized. The heater can help save the energy and reduce the emission.

• Diesel Tank Heater. Under low temperature, there will be paraffin deposition, which makes it difficult for suction pipe to aspire the fuel. With a tank heater installed on the top of the suction pipe, it will heat the diesel nearby and then makes it easier for diesel to enter into oil delivery pipe.