That's a bit of a coincidence as when I called Propex a week or so ago about getting some bits, the mentioned they had a used outer casing that I could have for £30. So I snatched that up as it had all the bits I need and with a bit of fettling, I can change the outlets to face straight out and connect with my existing (and unused) cabin vents. Result Here are their photos and it just arrived...as usual Propex are really great to work with.
thats pretty much like the one i flogged to mr ninja! thats going to make life a little easier. wouldn't bother with the cut an flip. just fix inlet and outlet to end and make up the covering bit. connecter will need some thought but could be used as a floating connecter within the box (or another small waterproof box) rather than fixed to the outside!
Test fitted the box today, the exhaust and air are slightly lower than I hoped but it will work. I intend to route the hot air into the camper via the walkthrough vent and the recirculation from the under bench vent using the original vents in both cases. As posted elsewhere the thermostatennow occupies the old ashtray by the wardrobe.
Quick question regarding electrical interference for those who understand these things. Would it matter if I route my 240v mains cable to the Propex along the same route as the thermostat cables? Ta
Not unless the 240 volts is horrendously noisy from other sources... The controller PCB just connects two 1kw heater elements.. two in series, one single or both in parallel with two relays. To give 500W, 1KW or 2KW ..its not generating a lot of noise from fast switching, just clunking the relays from time to time same as the gas running full on or off to maintain an average temperature.. the relays are on my HS2000 controller it seems to have the £141 fully populated PCB.. There could maybe be a derating of the cable if you run several thinner cored mains wires close together in a bundle as they warm each other up.
Oh yes another reason for needing an isolator switch on a Propex is if you have a solar panel setup and a mains battery charger running- If the sun suddenly pokes out from behind a cloud, the battery voltage can spike up to over 15 volts for a fraction of a second and the Propex will go into 4 flash over/under voltage mode..I probably should set my system up so the status signal from the mains charger disconnects the solar panels with a relay.. Disconnecting the Propex most of the time stops this little issue.
Mines been connected all the time with solar and spend loads of time on the mains charger at home and camping for over 10years and never had a problem like that.
Combination of a Nordelettronica 12 amp maintainer/charger and an ePever with 200W of panels arranged in series feeding 165AH of batteries. Different setup, different behaviour- the maintainer tends to higher voltages to keep the battery charged even if you are drawing current from it. Pure chargers tend to stop charging if you load them too much..
Bench testing my Propex and I've come across a problem. The electrical heater won't heat! I'm in contact with Propex who are being very helpful, but I thought I'd ask here as well. At their suggestion, have removed the inspection cover and both sets of element cables read around 53 ohms as they advised they should. One set of wires tested are marked in attached photo. The heater still refuses to give out any heat. My process is connect the box to mains. Switch on the 12v. I then switch the controller to the lowest electrical heat setting and the heater fan starts but no heat. Once or twice I've had a red flashing light on the controller come on, but if I rapidly move the controller switch from fan to off and back again, this goes away. Not sure if relevant. I have connected my 12v red wire and the earth white wire via my leisure fuse box and switch. This enables me to isolate the Propex once the cooled down process has completed and stops the slow drain on my battery. This should not effect what is going on. The heater is in the black box in the attached photo ready to be mounted under the van or taken apart depending on fix. Hopefully Propex or somebody here can help...
Count the flashes and look them up.. its probably four flashes moaning that the combustion air path is blocked/ wonky , refusing to spin the fan in heater mode because it may be prepared to have to use gas if it doesnt see 240v on the mains . It needs about 1m inlet and exhaust hoses connected to make it happy. Reset blinkenlights .. turn to cold fan mode then back to off within 2.5 seconds then back to run.. Yes.. your controller PCB looks exactly the same as mine in an HS2000..
Cheers Mike. The Propex has only flashed on on two occasions and I did clear it as mentioned. It usually doesn't flash. I've checked everything I can think off including the battery voltage, but that fine as well. The fan works and push lots of air but not heat. I'm hoping their engineer can help otherwise it's a long drive down.
It should come on if you select one of the mains heat settings and set the thermostat high enough. If it doesnt , then maybe its not getting mains power to the heater input . Look for all kind of silly things - check continuity from the live and neutral mains input to the relevant connector on the controller board. The controller can detect the mains presence although it doesnt need mains for the logic to function, as its all run off 12 volts with relays for mains switching, and an opto isolator to detect mains incoming. E.g. I had a recent silly where a mains plug on a 4 watt table light was as flaky as anything , turned out the spring on one end of the fuse holder was loose, so it wouldnt work in some mains sockets, but would work in others where the live pin was twisted slightly pushing the fuse into contact at the other end. I kept blaming cheap extension leads..
Propex inplace and working on mains leccy. Gas still to do. Air pipes insulated and a deflector sheet fitted infront of exhaust and air pipes to .....well, deflect!
Good move, after my trip to Stafford, it looked like something had hit my rather fragile second hand intake hose and it was coming unwound. Or maybe it was just disintegrating in the airflow under the bus.. so I bought some new hose from Propex. Interesting .. I didnt see any gap over the chassis rails so my hoses go the risky route right across under the bus..
Although I'm happy with the solution of my propex under the camper, it has ended up lower than I thought. What with the outer case being a tad deeper than I would have liked and the blue pipe 90⁰ bend larger than expected, it now sits only 21cm above the ground. Surprisingly, this is about the clearance height that a new LPG tank would have and that looked a bit too low and close to the geound. Hopefully it will be OK, but I'm going to keep an eye (and an ear) out for anything hitting the deflector plate and hope for the best
My bus is lowered , the lowest part is an air scoop, but its my local aircooled " specialists" who knacker the scoop by not noticing its there and crushing it on the vehicle lift.. fortunately its thin stainless sheet and easy to bend back into shape and weld up splits.
