Hi everyone, very happy to have found both the Afterburner and this forum to discuss it. I'm in the US and frequently camp at elevations 3000m+, so this controller should be a real game changer for me in terms of tuning to perfection while up that high. And yet still have proper functionality at the beach too. 

So right now I've read most of what I can find on the ins and outs of chinese diesel heaters and the afterburner controller. Including the pdf here showing how to assess compatibility or likely compatibility with various heater candidates. So I searched US amazon and ebay for a suitable candidate. Long story short, I could not find ANY that had the round threaded connector shown. They all seem to have a squarish multiprong plug connector. Some had LCD displays that were on the likely approved list, but the vast majority fell into the possibly dubious or no-go category. And of course they never show what the ECU motherboard looks like in the product pictures.

It appears the Chinese have made fairly recent refinements in their electronic control systems in the last 2-3 years (perhaps beyond when the afterburner was first developed). Or maybe Australia/UK has access to slightly different models then here in the states? I checked UK and AUS ebay and the product lineup appeared the same.

Anyway, I did find the controller shown in the ebay link below very commonly available on the units I see for sale. 

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/35cAAOSwr...-l960.webp  

This controller is described in the pdf as "should be treated with caution." So maybe these will work and maybe not. But the ECU motherboard you can get with this controller does appear to be on the list.

12V 24V 2KW-8KW Diesel Heater LCD Monitor Control Board Motherboard Advanced @ | eBay 


And this listing claims this remote/display/ECU has "advanced functions." And it describes entering a password to access the special functions. But doesn't tell you what the password is (in the description anyway). I assume all this means the motherboard from this vendor is in all likelihood compatible with the Afterburner? And it may also mean that many of the diesel heaters that presently have this style controller could or should have the same ECU shown here?

Sorry for the length of this message, just wanted to be thorough. Thanks in advance for any of your thoughts.

We've been running Afterburner on a Chinese diesel heater on our boat for 5 years. Since it has been working fine, we have not worried about upgrading the software. When it started up, it flashed v3.5.2. The fan bearings on the heater started making noise, so we ordered a Lavaner Pro 5KW in November, since it was listed as compatible with Afterburner, which is key for us to operate remotely. 

The Lavaner Pro bench tested fine. We installed it and it runs fine on the boat. However, the triangular connector will not fully engage with the Afterburner. It seems just slightly smaller in some dimension.  Putting pressure on it and wiggling, we were able to connect briefly and transfer settings, but it will not stay connected without manual intervention.

Has anyone else complained about variance in the size of those triangular connectors or might this be a new problem? The male and female connectors of the Lavaner do fit each other snuggly, but they will not fully connect to our 5-year-old Afterburner or our old controller.

We are going to swap the triangular connector that came with the Lavaner with the original connector from our old diesel heater and see if we can proceed.

Update: Swapping the connectors enabled us to connect the Afterburner, but the battery symbol in the upper right corner is flashing 0.0V, error E07, and "Comms Fault" are on the bottom. The Lavaner controller shows no errors with either of the connectors, so I believe we have the wires attached correctly. 

Does anyone know if we need to upgrade the Afterburner to a later firmware version to run the Lavaner Pro?

Hi, I am Olli,
I worked in mobile communications across Europe for years.
I did this all the time with a caravan, as it was easier to look for hotels or holiday flats.
Since 2018 I am now permanently in Germany, staying with my camper on a campground.
Meanwhile, I have an afterburner to my "CDH" with what I am absolutely happy :-)

I am here to find solutions in case of problems ...

If questions: ask:

Hi Ray, and everyone else. 

We've got a couple of Afterburner units, and generic Chinese heaters. We're using them for keeping our polytunnels full of plants frost free. After a long summer sleep, they've been revived as it's getting cold in the UK now. I updated the firmware on one unit and have had some issues since. (Of course because everything was off for quite a while, it may not have been the update.)

Afterburner: V3.5.2
Date: 2 Jul 2024
MQTT Webburner: 3.5.1.18
Date: 07 Jul 2024

I've twice had e-07 showing up, which as I understand it suggests a fault on the blue wire. I'll check in a bit more depth when I can see it and maybe give the connectors a little clean. I could potentially swap the units over too if that is worth a try. 

At the same time as this E-07 was showing, the web UI was behaving a bit weirdly, the web page loaded, but was not connecting to the websocket. On both occasions I resorted to removing the power and afterwards it was back to working fine again. During this, the Virtual Console (nice feature BTW) was still responsive, but I don't believe that the MQTT broker got any messages at all, the last thing showing in HomeAssistant was E-00 OK.

It ran for a couple of days between E-07 / unresponsive web front end.

As an aside, the logging feature seems like it could be useful, but is there any way the logs could be sent to a syslog server? I believe the protocol is really simple so it might be a handy to monitor how it's all going.

Thanks,
Ed.

Hi all,

I am Jan originally from Germany but living in Ireland for over 20 years. I am using the Afterburner for a number of years now and I am super happy with it. I am on my 3rd heater now but only one of them has a fully compatible ECU. I am only using one heater at the time, I will rebuild the others to have spares. I have recently added the AB to Home Assistant with the easy to use YAML example provided on the Facebook page. I have added an automation to use and external temp. sensor for the AB.

Have a great day !!
Jan

After Ray was so kind to help me with the MQTT topic to use to update the temperature from an external sensor I use this automation with HA to update every 20sec from an external sensor I have already in HA.

Hello, 
Please excuse my ignorance in the matter; not knowing much about the Afterburner, I am asking these questions to the Administrator or experienced users, because I strive to live in an EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) free Environment. I intend to install the Diesel heater with the Afterburner controller in an AVION aluminum Trailer. Because of its metallic type construction of the trailer, any EMFs produced inside the trailer, would bounce around like crazy being reflected by the walls.
Here we go:
1. What is the WiFi used for by the Afterburner?
2. What is the BT used for by the Afterburner?
3. What is the 433MHz transmitter used for by the Afterburner?
4. Is there a way to use the Afterburner, without WiFi, BT, 433MHz, with a wired remote, maybe?
5. Is there a way in the menus, to shut off individually, or all at once, the WiFi, BT 433 MHz radio transmitters in the Afterburner, once the settings have been adjusted to the desired effect?
6. If not, are there plans to make this possible in future versions of the firmware? You would be opening up the use of the Afterburner to a whole new category of users, who suffer from EMF Sensitivity, which in Europe is officially recognized as a Disability.

Thank you for any and all constructive responses!

Val, the VolvoFan

Hello all,
Getting into mobile lifestyle, intend to travel using my 1965 Avion beauty and wanted the best for my heating needs.
Looking forward to getting good ideas and contributing as I am purchasing my first Diesel heater today.

Val, the VolvoFan

I already posted this on Facebook, then discovered the new forum, wich I personally prefer!
So I repost here:

This morning, the third time, I had the "blinking" display. After work, the same again...
Unplugging and replugging resolves the problem (temporary?)
Is there any known bug?
...it is since the sw update...

...I made a short video of the Display, but cannot post it here unfortunately...

Hi all,

I was looking to extend the wiring on my temperature sensor as I would like to measure temperature away from the heat source, after reading the manual, I can add additional sensors to the controller. 

After a quick search of DS18B20, I have found them available at suppliers over here in the UK. The manual states to connect in parallel so I assume they are addressed uniquely? Is it as straightforward as it sounds?

I must admit when I was initially trying to connect my AB to the internet I thought it was complicated, nope it was me overcomplicating it  

Thanks