AC Power For Pre-Heater

[JJ Campbell]

To quote Game of Thrones "Winter's coming."

My 912ULS has an electric engine pre-heater installed. Unfortunately, my tie-down does not have access to AC Power. However, I can drive my car to the plane. So, I was wondering if anyone had recommendations for a reasonably priced AC generator that I could power from my idling automobile? Or would that take too long? When I was in flight school, we left the planes plugged into the AC whenever they were in the hanger during the Winter. This worked great. Which was readily apparent when the student before you forgot to hook up the heater.

Also, I've noticed a few planes with small solar panels on the ground next to their planes. But I'm assuming they are charging stuff that draws far less power then an electric heater.

[Dave C]

Do you know how many watts your engine preheater uses? If you know that you could determine if a car powered inverter would be sufficient to run it. If you don't know how many watts you heater needs you could measure its resistance with a multimeter and calculate it.

The other key questions are how long would it take to heat up your engine and is that an acceptable amount of time for you to wait. Maybe someone here has experience with a similar heater and can share that.

I have a small solar panel that I keep next to my plane but it isn't for providing heat. It powers a trickle charger that keeps the battery charged up and ready to go. This requires very very little power.

[JJ Campbell]

Do you know how many watts your engine preheater uses? If you know that you could determine if a car powered inverter would be sufficient to run it. If you don't know how many watts you heater needs you could measure its resistance with a multimeter and calculate it.

I have no idea. It is one of the things I hope to discover with my question. I'm hoping that this 912ULS heater is a pretty standard thing. It was on the plane when I purchased it used in March.

[Dave C]

I did some looking around at available systems and they were in the 150-350 watt range which is very doable with an inverter. The problem from the estimates I saw is that you are looking at over 3 hours to warm it up. Of course this depends on how cold it is and how warm you want it to be.

I guess some heat would be better than nothing...

[3Dreaming]

There are at least 3 different brands of pre heaters I've seen installed on Rotax engines. Take a picture and someone might be able to tell you which you have. IMO, Tanis is the best. It will significantly warm the engine in 1 hour, especially if you have a blanket and the cowling holes plugged up. I would think a little portable generator like a small Honda unit would work well. You can drop it off and then go do other stuff while it warms up.