Detailed Control Menu - NiklasVoigt/Afterburner GitHub Wiki

Detailed Control Screen

The detailed control menu allows the operation of the heater to be monitored in close detail.
Here the actual pump speed, fan RPM, heat exchanger temperature and glow plug activity can be observed.

The heater can be turned on or off by holding the Centre keypad button.
The desired temperature, or fixed heat demand can be altered by pressing the Up / Down keys.

If in thermostat mode, the desired value is placed as a small triangle to the left of the measured "temperature bulb" on the left hand side of the screen.
The actual temperature is shown below the bulb.

Once started, the desired setting is reported beneath the "target" icon, as degC or Hz, depending upon thermostat or fixed demand modes.

With the heater idle, the menu will look something like below:
ScreenDetailed

Starting the heater

Hold the Centre key for a second or so, the heater should then start and this is reflected in the status message:
ScreenDetailedStarting

Shortly thereafter, the fan will begin spinning, and the glow plug will be gently raised in temperature as can be observed by the steady rise in power applied to it.
Note that the fan icon rotates to indicate the fan is running, along with the measured RPM!:
ScreenDetailedGlowOn

It takes about a minute for the glow plug to receive full power, at which point the pump then starts.
The Pump being active is indicated by an animated fuel droplet, along with the actual pump rate:
ScreenDetailedPumpOn

The pump starts at a slow speed and steadily rises, along with fan speed to get the heater ignited.
Ignition tends to be sensed once the body temperature of the heat exchanger has risen by about 5-10 degC.
The heat exchanger temperature being reported in the right hand side "thermometer bulb", and the actual value below:
ScreenDetailedIgnited

Once the body temperature rises over about 65 degrees or so, the glow plug is shut down, all the while the fuel pump and fan speeds are progressively increased until at full speed.
The heater runs in this state for quite a few minutes getting the internals nice and hot.
ScreenDetailedIgnitedGlowOff

After running at full speed for a while, the heater transitions to the running state, and now obeys the desired setting being either a thermostat setting, or a fixed heat demand.
This happens about 5 minutes after the initial start was demanded:
ScreenDetailedRunning

To toggle from Thermostat or Fixed demand modes, hold the down key.
The changed operating mode is reflected in the units reported below the target icon.
DegC for thermostat, Hz for fixed demand.
The set temperature indicator also disappears from the left hand side thermometer when in fixed demand mode:
ScreenDetailedFixedHz

Stopping the heater

Heater shutdown is initiated by holding the Centre key for a second or so.
The status will then change to Shutting down...:
ScreenDetailedShutdown

The pump speed is quickly lowered and eventually shut off, the glow plug is gently re-powered to assist in drying the heat exchanger of unburnt fuel:
ScreenDetailedShutdownLowPump ScreenDetailedShutdownPumpOff

About a minute later the glow plug is un-powered and the heater then transitions to cooldown mode.
Only the fan is now running:
ScreenDetailedCooling

It stays in cooldown mode until the heat exchanger is observed to have dropped below 55 degC, at which point it then returns to the initial idle state.

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