Bobil Smart Controller & Diesel Heater Compatibility

Excitingly, we have just launched our new controller for the Bobil hot water system! This controller replaces the existing dual controller, but also offers many other functions, including controlling your Diesel Heater.

The Smart Controllers are directly compatible with the Autoterm heaters, they are connected directly to the slave board. If you have an Eberspacher heater, it should have a 'Remote Start' function which will activate the heater when water heating is needed. Note that the only heaters that we guarantee will work with the Smart Controller are the Autoterm and Eberspacher units, as everything else works on radio signals and there is no guarantee the controller that comes with a heater from Ebay uses the same protocol as any other! Having said that, we have had lots of success with Chinese heater controllers.

Whilst Chinese heaters do 'work', the thermostatic control of them is terrible. They run on full power until the van is at temperature, then turn down to low. However this means every ten minutes you are treated to a 'roar' from the heater as it spools up to full, and even if low power is still too high for your van the heater will continue to run until something melts. The new Bobil Smart Controller brings some intelligence to the Chinese heater, controlling the heater power via radio commands and maintaining a comfortable temperature inside the vehicle.

However, there are many manufacturers of 'Chinese diesel heater' out there, each with their own approach to quality control. Some are ok, some not so good. This makes designing a product to interface with these heaters somewhat difficult!

We have designed our product to work with the black controller, which is what ships with 80%+ of diesel heaters. If you see this image on the screen when you're purchasing your heater, you'll probably be fine.

If you have the blue controller, this is not compatible with the Bobil system. However there is good news; if you purchase the black screen above (available on Ebay/Amazon) then you can simply replace the blue controller for the black one and you have a compatible system.

If you have the rotary controller, then as per the blue controller you can buy the black one and swap it straight over.

There is a controller that looks a bit like the black controller, but the screen looks different and the power is represented by 'H1-H6' rather than the normal time as displayed by the other controller. If you have this type of heater, you may need to change the motherboard inside the heater; they are available from ebay with the black controller. However it is worth trying to pair it with the Bobil Smart Controller before changing anything, as you may find it works. Either way- please let us know!

We also try and support Lavaner Pro/Max heaters, as well as Hcalory heaters, however we make no guarantee that the heater is compatible. The Maxspeedingrods 5kw unit with bluetooth is a heater which we don't support due to the radio commands on Maxspeedingrods heaters constantly changing. Note that Maxspeedingrods also supply a heater with the standard black display, so if you have this controller then it will probably work.

If your heater isn't compatible with the Bobil Smart Controller, then you can run the water heater in 'uncontrolled' mode. You turn the heater on and off using its own controller, and the water heater will detect the heater has turned on and start the water heating routine automatically.

If you have any questions then please get in touch at info@bobilvans.co.uk!