Quote:
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Originally Posted by Bbasso
Silly me... what's the benefit of the D5 over the D4?
Hot water heater?
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Yep I think it can be used for heating water and/or the cab. IIRC you have to purchase accessories. I have a separate D-4 Airtronic and standalone Hydronic. One of the techs also said he thinks running the D-2 on high is better than running the D-4 on low. At least in my case after running fuel additive I've yet to have an issue with carbon build up and glow plug issues which running the units at a higher mode is supposed to curtail. I run the heater at a medium setting at night and usually crank it down to low while I sleep just to knock off the colds edge. Obviously it depends on the outside temps and I've been comfortable sleeping
up top with a zero* bag down to 8* outside temps. As you'd expect during that kind of cold the unit runs at a higher setting pulling more amps and producing more noise, neither of which bother me. Most of the temps I encounter range from the mid teens to about 50* when I need to run it. Sure is nice to be in light clothing inside kicking back. In the morning I run it on high for the 15 minute timeout during shutdown. Seems to work for me and although slightly noisy while on high I'd rather deal with the noise than carbon. I just open the doors and let it scream until it shuts down. The one thing I think I would look into is what does a D-5 pull in amperage during its run time on high and low. My Hydronic is tied to my coolant system and I find it takes a while before it slows down and that depends on the outside temp. The colder it is the more it cycles and if you think about it, water running through the engine cools quickly so it naturally cycles more. Probably worth noting (and I'm
not speaking of the D-5) is the Hydronic pulls several more amps on high than the Airtronic. The good part of having separate units in my case is that the Hydronic works great as an engine coolant heater and if I don't need to heat the engine I don't need to worry about power draw. It also doesn't take an hour to get hot water to the tap, rather only a few minutes so in other words it's basically hot water on demand. The engine usually takes about an hour to warm where it helps with cold weather starting. I usually set mine to automatically start up around 4-5AM and run for 2 hours during colder weather when I worry about the heat exchanger freezing up. By the time I get up the engine cranks over easy. Some people have moved their heat exchanger and lines inside but SMB claims they can't do that according to the RIVA rules. Another issue with the Hydronic compared to the Airtronic at least in my case is the noise. My Hydronic sounds like a jet engine. This video of the D-5 sounds like my Hydronic:
Also the Hydronic does ramp down and is much quieter when it does but between the two both on high the Hydronic is twice as loud and I have the muffler on both. Don't know if there is a way to make them more quiet.
The Airtronic is much quieter but you still hear that tapping noise of the fuel pump which drives some people nuts.
I would do some research about the D-5 system. Perhaps it doesn't pull the amperage my Hydronic does. And maybe it can be set so it doesn't have to warm the engine. I don't know anything about the D-5 so maybe Ron or other D-5 owners can chime in here.
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