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Factory Equipped and Aftermarket Fuel-Fired Heaters Comparison
There are two ways to equip a vehicle of additional fuel-fired heater: to order a heater as option
for brand new car or to install aftermarket heater from Webasto or Eberspächer dealer.
When you install aftermarket heater,
you can choose remote control from variety of original control devices, such as Telestart or EasyStart (depends on heater brand), mini-timer,
GSM-control or simple direct start button.
The factory equipped heater has specific control via CAN-bus and it may not be
able to connection the remote control. The only way to start and stop of such a heater is using of Driver Information System
(DIS, CIP, iDrive) in the instrument cluster. |
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Remote Control Implementation
The simplest method to connect remote control to the heater is to change a control unit of fuel
fired heater to control unit from Eberspächer or Webasto. But the heater becomes "aftermarket" in fact because it loses connection
with vehicle's CAN-bus. The functions of integrated timers and automatic boost heat mode will be disabled. Also it needs to change
a configuration of vehicle in order to have a correct representation of fuel consumption in the DIS.
We developed a module called RCP (Remote Control Plug-in) to add ability of remote control to the fuel-fired heater of your
vehicle by one side, and preserve resources of original control by other side. |
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RCP Operating Principles
Module connects to CAN-bus and translates signals from remotes to the heater via CAN-bus in digital format. |
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Problems of Original Control and Their Solutions by RCP
| Remote Start and Stop |
| All RCP modules have embedded function of the heater start
and stop by the vehicle's original remote key. Also you can choose a version of RCP with specialized remote
control to get a maximum usability of your fuel-fired heater. |
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Of course, the most significant disadvantage of the factory equipped FFH on some models is the
lack of possibilities for remote starting and stopping. |
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| LCD Lag on Cold (Negative Temperatures) |
| All RCP modules let immediately start of the heater by remote or
quick start button. No need to start the heater with DIS. |
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The LCD of Driver Information System becomes disabled on negative
temperatures. It is very discomfortable to make a choice in menu blindly, by memory. |
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| Battery Discharging |
| RCP has 3 stages of battery discharging protection. It checks battery
voltage before the heater start, while the heater operation and also check the time of autonomous
work of the heater. All protection mechanisms are adjustable to give more efficiency. |
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Often the original control of battery discharging is not enough.
The heater and especially the climate control consume quite much battery power. It can result in situation,
when battery energy is not enough to engine start after the heater cycle has been completed. |
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