75ZT Community

Having recently fitted my FBH (Fuel burning heater.), I decided to fit a wireless remote and a timer. Only trouble was, I had to remember to set the timer (and turn it off when it wasn't needed!).

The remote is fine IF you can see the car but anything much than 20-30 meters and its not going to work.

I park over half a mile from my office, so I wanted to use a mobile phone but all the kit I had looked at was expensive and you needed a degree in electronics to set them up and work them (plus you needed to be fluent in Chinglish, as the instructions were poorly translated).

Trawling Ebay I found this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181242428026?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649



The guy has a website here: http://www.lewisrendal.co.uk/

I won my auction for £30, so to say I was chuffed would be an understatement!

Its arrived today and I decided to have a go at testing and fitting it.

Here is a short video of it setup turning a bulb on and off via a phone call (it doesn't answer, so no costs and the guy throws in a free sim card!).

Click the picture below to play it



The connections are simple.

Positive & Negative to power the unit up.

Wire to pin 3 on the large plug on my FBH goes to "C" on relay.

Negative connection to "NO" on same relay.

The unit has 2 relays and relay 1 operates on a phone call and relay 2 operates on text messages.

The unit's setup instructions are on http://www.lewisrendal.co.uk/

The clever bit is that you tell the unit up to 5 phone numbers that it can accept instructions from. This means that the pesky PPI and Ambulance chasing calls will not turn on your FBH.

I have mounted the unit in my armrest. This is so I can get to to the sim card if needed and its dry and clean and the temperature is reasonably stable.



I will fabricate a false bottom for this, so its covered and secured.

Dave :D:D

Very good Dave, cant wait to see your fabricated false bottom and dont park in a poor signal area !

You can check the signal by texting the unit. It sends you a text with the signal strength.

Will have a look at fabricating the bottom of the cubby very soon. Mrs is off out with her sister in a bit, so may pop out with scissors and cardboard "a la Blue Peter" lol.

Dave

You can get plastic boxes to house circuit boards, Paul may be able to tell you where you can get one the right size

This type of thing maybe

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-ABS (Antilock Braking System)-Pla ... 2a308b4861

You could get around the nuisance/PPI calls by using a PAYASYOUGO sim. However I just got an Orange one and within days I received a call from someone trying to sell me a mobile contract.

Cheers

Mike

Its one from a company called people's mobile. Its on PAYG and having setup the unit correctly, it only accept calls and texts from my mobile, so happy days.

Trebor wrote:This type of thing maybe

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-ABS-Pla ... 2a308b4861

Cheers for the pointer but how i intend mounting it, I wont need a project case for it. I've started the template for the false bottom and my Mrs is getting me some aluminium plate from her work. I'll then cover it in black trim cloth (like you get on parcel shelves). Its going to take a bit with work and the nights drawing in but I'll post the results up here for everyone.

Dave

Great work,

Wish I could get something sorted for my works van

that's a nice GSM controller board for this FBH modification. How many minutes do you let the FBH run from the GSM board?
I tried manually to earth pin3 on mine FBH and indeed the FBH start up. The burner itself makes quite some noise that you otherwise don't notice because of the engine noise. Only when you stop the engine you still can hear the FBH running for some minutes but, that is only the fan of it. First I thought this noise was the whole unit at work, but now I know better.
Did you already started the engine while the FBH was still running from the GSM board signal? Maybe this can conflict in the circuits somehow?
Now the next step is to also start the interior fan to heat up the cabin... I already saw some instructions about that in a PDF in some other posting concerning the Webasto.

You just send a text to the unit to say how many minutes to run for. It will even text back confirmations. When used on the timed switch facility the reply text comes back at the point it turns off. Pretty good really.

And what is your experience with the quantity of minutes? How long do you let it run? 15min or so?
Let's say you send a tekst for 15min and after 10min you have to leave urgently, can you start the car directly or do you have to wait for 5min more?
I'm concerned that when starting directly, the 2 circuits (car & timer) may conflict somehow and maybe damage something.
I noticed the seller of the timer has a waterproof housing now too, so it can be mounted under the hood.

Never had an issue with this. Ran it for 30 mins the other day and the timer ran out just as I arrived at work. Unit swithced off with the car. Or you can text it to turn it off. Can't see how this issue would be any different to using the telestart unit or a timer? Been using it for a while and nothing has gone pop yet.....

Dave

There is no problem with conflict of the systems, I've used it like that from when I fitted it.

One word of caution, though. If it's very cold and you don't let it run long enough you may have trouble starting. I did once. It seems the water was warm enough to fool the glowplugs into not running, but the metal of the engine itself was still too cold and wouldn't fire. Gave it a couple more minutes and it went. It was -12 that morning though!

Thanks for all the replies.
I can work from here then, still like to have a look at hte option to turn on the interior fan (atc) to warm the cabin also.