Oil Warmer Question

F

Flying Doc

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Jun 5, 2020
Messages
162
Display Name
Display name:
FlyingDoc
First time owner here. Nesting as I am a week from bringing the baby home.
Oil Warmer: In my current club hangar we have a small insulated fridge looking box that someone built and it has a bulb keeping the quarts of standby oil warm. Looks like a small old fridge. Its great that the oils is allways warm..esp in winter. Does anyone have any idea or suggestions about getting or building something like this? Helps in northern subzero climates. I am thinking to buy a small fridge with a bulb, and rig it to just keep bulb on with door closed, decommission the cooling component? Any suggestions?
 
The bulb in a fridge doesn't produce much heat, and modern ones are probably LEDs. A better solution might be a small incandescent trouble light in a cheap cooler.

Me, I don't fly when it's cold enough to affect oil pouring.
 
Flying Doc said:
First time owner here. Nesting as I am a week from bringing the baby home.
Oil Warmer: In my current club hangar we have a small insulated fridge looking box that someone built and it has a bulb keeping the quarts of standby oil warm. Looks like a small old fridge. Its great that the oils is allways warm..esp in winter. Does anyone have any idea or suggestions about getting or building something like this? Helps in northern subzero climates. I am thinking to buy a small fridge with a bulb, and rig it to just keep bulb on with door closed, decommission the cooling component? Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Not a bad idea, though it would probably be easier and more efficient to just take a quart home in your flight bag.

I don't keep my makeup oil warm, and don't have an issue even well below freezing. Sure, it takes longer for it to run through the funnel, but we're talking 2 minutes vs one. Multi-viscosity oils flow pretty well, even in the cold, which is the entire point of them.

To answer your question, if I was going to build such a box, I'd probably use an old cooler. A broken mini fridge would work, but the smaller your space, the less heat you need, and it's not like you need to keep an entire case warm. An incandescent light bulb (if you can still find one) puts out a surprising amount of heat. A safer and possibly easier to find alternative heat source would be a "goldenrod" heater. They're used in gunsafes to reduce the relative humidity by heating the air. I think they put out about as much heat as a 40 watt incandescent, but over a larger surface area, making them safe even up against carpet.
 
Jim K said:
Not a bad idea, though it would probably be easier and more efficient to just take a quart home in your flight bag.

I don't keep my makeup oil warm, and don't have an issue even well below freezing. Sure, it takes longer for it to run through the funnel, but we're talking 2 minutes vs one. Multi-viscosity oils flow pretty well, even in the cold, which is the entire point of them.

To answer your question, if I was going to build such a box, I'd probably use an old cooler. A broken mini fridge would work, but the smaller your space, the less heat you need, and it's not like you need to keep an entire case warm. An incandescent light bulb (if you can still find one) puts out a surprising amount of heat. A safer and possibly easier to find alternative heat source would be a "goldenrod" heater. They're used in gunsafes to reduce the relative humidity by heating the air. I think they put out about as much heat as a 40 watt incandescent, but over a larger surface area, making them safe even up against carpet.
Click to expand...
Good thought about the goldenrod. I bought one to keep pannel dry. Have not used it yet. They do seen to get hot however...burned my finger grabbing it. I think I need a shorter goldenrod (thats what she said :) ) for the plane. Seems like a fire hazard hot.
 
In Michigan winters, I use an old cooler for the cleaning supplies for the plane and a quart of oil. I wired the cooler with an incandescent night light (5w - I think). It’s old school, but it keeps the stuff from freezing without hauling it back and forth from the hangar.

Jim
 
I have never thought about keeping my oil warm. I do have a heating pad on the oil sump that I plug in for a hour or 2 before flying on really cold days well below 30°F.
Now I do have plenty of chemicals and paint that I don't want to freeze. So I unplug/covert one of my mini fridges to a hot box during the winter to keep cans from freezing. No room for oil.
I use a thermostat and heating element for reptiles sold in pet stores.
IMG_9547.JPG

Must use a thermostat.
IMG_9548.JPG

50 watts would be plenty, don't need 100 watts even in my chest freezer.
IMG_9536.JPG

But I needed more room so now I use my 5 cubic ft chest freezer with the same emitter and thermostat.
Only pic that I could find of it. I keep it at 50°F.
IMG_3263.JPG

I keep my oil on my power cart. It holds a power strip, GPU, battery chargers(12-24 volt), rags and my oil always out by the front of the plane close to the un-insulated hangar door. I don't have to walk to the back of my t to get oil and have never had a problem pouring 15-50w oil in the winter.
See that yellow 1980s hair dryer on the second shelf? I plug it into the cart power strip and run it inside my cowl for a while while the oil heating pad is warming up. I learned the hair dryer trick/use from the flight school. Right or wrong? it hasn't hurt anything so far. And the hair dryer came from my Dad who used it to warm up distributors in the morning on work trucks back before diesels to get them started. I never leave it run for long or while I am not there. All power gets shutoff when I leave.
049_4.jpg
 
Last edited:
Dana said:
The bulb in a fridge doesn't produce much heat, and modern ones are probably LEDs. A better solution might be a small incandescent trouble light in a cheap cooler.

Me, I don't fly when it's cold enough to affect oil pouring.
Click to expand...

Have you ever touched a 40W or higher light bulb when it is on???????
 
Is this really necessary? I use multi-viscosity, and even during the coldest winter months, it doesn't flow that bad...
 
Put it on the floorboard of your car near the heat vent.ought to warm up nicely on anything more than a 10 minute drive to the airport.
 
When I was building the Velocity, epoxy has to be kept warm. I bought a cheap cabinet from Home Depot, lined it with foil backed insulation and put a 100w light bulb in with a thermostat. Kept it set at 78F. Even in Chicago winters, the light came on for about 10 minutes per hour.

I got no idea why you would go to that trouble to keep quarts of oil warm.
 
I don't add oil between changes (from another thread) but if I did I'd just pour it in and let the engine warm it up. If it's too cold for my Rotella 15W40 oil (experimental engine) to pour then I'm not flying anyway ... :no:
 
Bush pilots in Alaska in the old days would drain the oil from the engine right after landing, then heat the oil on a stove the next morning to pour it into the engine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top