Afterburner, heater controller.
return to heaters

The afterburner is an after market controller for the Chinese diesel parking heater, it has huge advantages over the original controller
The original controller runs the heater flat out or tick over
The Afterburner can be accessed by any device with a web browser locally or anywhere with an internet connection using the MQTT system
Also can be started / stopped by txt (diy interface from our alarm system)
The system gives much better control and reporting than the OEM controller, some great info in the  user manual
 Circuit diagram
My fuel settings - Pump 1.2 min 5 max / fan 1450 min 4300 max
This controller is available to buy from the designer Ray Jones as a complete project - Afterburner home
I understand there are some supply delays at this time - check with Ray for current status

Ray also has open sourced the project, this means that the circuit diagrams and firmware can be downloaded and you are free to build your own.
I went the DIY route (obviously) I would only recommend this route if you have a solid background in electronics and compiling/loading SW into micro controllers.
The SW element is not straight forward, you will need to download software editors and compilers etc

Some pictures of my DIY effort, the project was put together over a few weeks with most components sourced from Ebay & RS components.

Start of the project - the ESP32 controller and the real time clock (RTC) and screen I wanted to get the controller basically running on breadboard
before building a more permanent solution

First component test - ESP32 and RTC


Got the screen, RTC and temperature probe working, the original RTC was DOA which made for some head scratching
Original display later replaced for a larger version



Mounted the screen and control buttons


Screen mounted in control panel,  ESP32, RTC mounted on main PCB
I wanted the new panel to fit where the original fits in the van so made the same size, I had some aluminum sheet
so decided to use this for the front panel.

Main control PCB shows ESP32, RTC and driver chips (later upgraded)

Updated the driver chips as not 100% happy with the mounting of the original chips

controlling the heater from a phone - using MQTT and a web interface


The dash board for the controller - front page


Very handy to have an oscilloscope for trouble shooting ! 
This was a life saver with an issue I had on the data line.



Mounted in the Van - the monitoring and afterburner front