12v cabin heater/defroster?
 

Has anyone found a 12V cabin heater/defroster that will provide heat and help with defrost while waiting for the engine to come to temp?

I have a Nissan Altima Hybrid, and can't drive in EV mode until the engine temp hits 161F. Meanwhile, my windshield is fogging up and my passengers are whining.

All the reviews for these things are very negative. Is there a "better" one than most? The creme de la crap, perhaps?

Thanks,
Eph

Maybe try out a 110V heater instead? I mentioned this a while back in my winter preparation thread. They even have wireless outlet controllers you can buy to turn it on from inside your house.

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tyle-5772.html

Yeah, that's an option. Wifey already has issues with my block heater cord attached to my car. Not sure having another cord going into my cabin will pass the "Wife Approval Test". Plus, I'd also like a portable solution for when the car's been sitting in the parking lot at work or at a store/gym.

Eph

When I lived in Fairbanks, AK we used a 1500 watt AC interior heater to "kinda" keep the interior warmer. Usually that meant the interior was 30 degrees warner than the ambient temperature. At -50 F the interior was a comfortable -20F.

IMHO a DC heater would consume vast amounts of power.

Yes, it would take a ton of power to run it off the car power. Watts = Volts x Amps. So 1500 watts / 12 volts = 125 amps. More than many alternators put out. And a 1500 watt heater still takes awhile to warm up the car. Your coolant warms up faster.

Katz makes a 300 watt 12v electric heater that has to be hard wired to the battery but it's a special order from the auto part store and they couldn't give me a price, my thought on the higher electrical load is that it will make the engine work harder so it warms up faster, so if the whole point is heat right now then why not go electric? it takes my car 4-5 miles to get warm enough to put out heat.
with a 15 amp outlet you have 1800 watts of power avalible to you, a small electric 1000 watt space heater in your car and a 500 watt block heater running off the same 12 gauge cord should be ok if nothing else is plugged in.

You could get an inline coolant heater. It's popular for TDIs. You get instant heat. For best FE results I would also use a classic block heater.

I have a block heater. But, when it is 10F out, it only gets my engine to about 80F. Still takes 4-5mins to get to 161F, where I can get into EV mode and turn on the heater. Of course, once I'm in EV mode, the engine begins to cool again. When it drops below 161F, my ICE turns on... Vicious cycle.

Harbor freight makes ones that plug into your power point. Maybe if that quality isn't what you are looking for you might be able to find a high quality one that's similar.

A friend of mine a few years ago found an electric heater out of a school bus fit perfect in his fj40 landcruiser.

I think you'll find that the only really workable solution is to swap out the passengers :-) Face it, it's cold. It's going to take a certain amount of energy & power (rate at which energy is delivered) to warm things up to what your passengers seem to consider acceptable. That's not likely to be available from your car's cigaratte lighter receptacle, which is probably fused at around 20 amps.

You might look at a radiator block to help the engine get up to operating temp faster, if you haven't already. Even then, if you go into EV mode, the engine is going to cool down pretty quickly. I find that with the Insight, it's just better to dress warmly...

Yup - Full radiator block (during winter), engine block heater, the works...

I'm thinking about getting a small heater anyhow just so they THINK it's getting warmer! ;-)

try and engine heater

Ummm.... Ok.:)

I don't think you'll find a "good" solution that does not involve plugging in. Except perhaps Gerbing jackets for your passengers. :p

As for an interior heater, does your car have a fold down rear seat for putting long crap in the trunk? Fold that down and have a small box fan/heater sitting in the trunk, and run the wire up to tie in with your block heater. One plug, no problem. Just get a heater with a thermostat so it stops when the car is a comfortable 80F... :D

All the ones I've worked with used 18ga wiring and were fused for 10A. I wouldn't even want to draw that much from it, really.

OK, I was just going from memory. Bottom line, though, is that you're probably not going to get much more heat from it than you would from the cigarette lighter.

Quite aside from that, a lot of this discussion puzzles me. This board is supposed to be about using less energy, no? So how much excess electricity would go into running an electric cabin heater? Or even a block heater, if it's left on for long periods?

An electric heater and block heater are far superior to idling your vehicle for it to warm up. Obviously if you can handle the cold that is the best way to go, but in some cases this isn't possible. For instance, my wife transports plants for her job. So, some days the car needs to warm up before she puts them in the car.

I have a 12 volt heater I use in my TDI. I don't turn on the heat in my car until the water temp is at least 100 F and I use the 12v heater in the meantime. I also shut down the heat when idling.

It's useless to heat the cabin. It could keep your bare hands warm provided you keep them within a couple inches from the heater, but that's it. I got it velcroed right next to the windshield to keep a tiny spot from freezing over, so I can still see something until I get warm air from the heat exchanger.

It also have the advantage of putting an additional load on the engine, though not much, which helps it warm up faster.

One wouldn't want to leave a block heater on for long periods anyway. Or a cabin heater, for that matter. Fire hazard and all. We're talking about the kind of setup where it's either on a timer, or plugged in by hand in the morning.

As for energy, I've heard of block heaters as heavy duty as 1,000w, which would naturally use 1kwh for each hour of operation. If I could start my Burgman at full operating temperature each and every trip, my fuel consumption would be much closer to 65mpg. Right now it's hovering around 53-54. The fuel saved there would more than make up for 1kwh of electricity.

I had a 15 amp 12v cigarette lighter heater. Was worthless for warming the car, makes you think it is though. The bearing in the fan has already kicked the bucket after 1-1/2seasons use too.

An electric heater heats up faster then the gas engine can heat the coolant allowing you to drive within seconds of starting the car (I often coast down the driveway and pop my clutch) instead of wasting gas to let it warm up in that warm up time I could get to work, if I could see but even after scraping the windshild from the inside it still frosts over within 8 blocks.
I also want to find out what works well so once I get my electric vehicles working well enough to use them in the winter I can use this knollage to keep them warm and use them instead of gas, for that I was thinking of installing a small 3 gallon under sink hot water heater that plugs in with the charger and a timer the use a heater core that is designed for kit cars.

The factory block heater on my ford diesel is 750watts. However, I did find an inline water heater in the lower radiator hose on an eagle talon I had last year. It had been in alaska before i got it. Don't know the watts on that but that might be an option instead of a block heater (same effect basically).

as for the small cig plug in heaters. I now recall I bought one from harbor freight about 10 years ago. Took it back cause it didn't do much and made lots of noise. The new ones look different, maybe they are better and you could put one at each duct below the windshield or plumb them into your duct work somehow.

I drive within one or two seconds of starting the car without block heaters or anything of the sort. The best way to warm the engine is under load, not idling.

Hi guys, thank you very much for all your suggestions.

As a driver of one of the draftiest vehicles on the planet I suggest a fleece blanket & to stop talking. Also, I don't know if RainX antifog works when real cold or not. You may want to try that.