shop-talk
[Top] [All Lists]

RE: Infrared heaters question

To: shop-talk@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: Infrared heaters question
From: Randall Young <ryoung@navcomtech.com>
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 16:53:53 -0800
> Ok, so the consensus seems to be that it doesn't put out much
> heat. I kinda'
> figured that because of it's 10000 BTU rating but the Salamander type
> doesn't look to be in the budget currently. I guess my question should be,
> which would work better? One of these or a small electric space
> heater ? Or
> maybe a kerosene heater?

Mike, as mentioned infrared heaters present lots of problems, mostly with
controlling the surface temperature.  That little 12000 btu heater would
certainly warm small sections enough to paint (like maybe a 2 or 3 ft
circle), but do you really want to paint your car in polka dots ?  And the
center will be a lot hotter than the edges, which isn't going to work well
either.  Plus you'll want to heat the paint gun as well ...

Trying to heat the air in that tent with a space heater is going to take a
huge amount of heat, because it will be lost through the tarp quickly.  My
guess is something on the order of 100,000 btu/hr.  Doesn't really matter
what the fuel source is, but electricity is probably out of the question as
that's around 30kW.  For kerosene, it pretty much has to be a forced draft
heater, I've never seen a wick-type heater that puts out more than about 35
kbtu.

One cheap (but dangerous) source of that kind of heat is a "smudge pot" like
they used to use to warm orange groves.  If you put heating oil in it, and
leave the lid off the top, it won't 'smudge' but will generate huge amounts
of heat.  Add a fan to stir the air around, and some way to keep the flames
(yes, it's a very open flame heater <g>) away from the canvas, and a big
fire extinguisher in case it gets out of hand ...

Or you could build the waste oil heater that was mentioned here a few days
ago.  It looks like it would run fine on heating oil or diesel (if you don't
have enough waste oil available).

Randall

///  unsubscribe/change address requests to majordomo@autox.team.net  or try
///  http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo
///  Archives at http://www.team.net/archive/shop-talk


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>