Heating
With a Sensa heater controller fitted, your Autoterm heater gets a card at the top of the Climate tab on the Habitation dashboard. The same card serves the Air 2D, Air 4D and Air 9D diesel air heaters, the Flow 5D water heater and the Baltica heating system, showing only the controls each one has.
The Home screens can carry a smaller version too. See Choosing what appears on Home for how to choose.
To hold the whole van at one temperature with your heaters and air conditioner together, see SensaClimate.
The heater card
- At the top: the heater's picture and name, and a round power button.
- In the middle: a dial. The large number is what you have asked for; Now beneath it is the current temperature. Drag round the ring to change it, or tap − and + for one step at a time.
- The padlock beside the power button freezes the card, so a finger scrolling past cannot turn the dial by accident. See Locking a card.
While a heater is starting up the card reads Starting, and the step it is on (glow plug warming up, ignition and so on) is in the Diagnostics popup.
Autoterm Air 2D, 4D and 9D
The Air has the same modes as its Autoterm panel, one button each under the dial.
| Mode | What the dial sets |
|---|---|
| Power | How hard the heater runs, from 1 to 10, whatever the temperature |
| Temperature | The temperature you want. The heater turns itself up and down to hold it |
| Heat + Ventilation | The temperature you want. Once it is reached, the heater stops burning and the fan keeps blowing |
| Thermostat | The temperature you want. The heater switches off once the van is 3 °C warmer than that, and on again once it is 7 °C cooler |
| Ventilation | How hard the fan blows, from 1 to 10. The fan moves air round the van without burning fuel |
Ventilation is greyed out while the heater is burning. Turn it off, wait for it to finish cooling down, and Ventilation becomes available.
If your card shows only Power, Temperature and Ventilation, your controller has not had the update that adds Heat + Ventilation and Thermostat yet. They appear on their own once it has.
Which thermometer it goes by
In Temperature, Heat + Ventilation and Thermostat the heater needs a temperature to aim for. Choose which one on the heater's row in Settings: open the Devices tab, tap the cog at the end of the heater's row and pick Temperature Sensor Source.
- Autoterm Controller, the sensor in the heater's own wall panel. This is how the heater works without Sensa.
- Autoterm Heater, the sensor at the heater's air intake.
- Any temperature sensor in your van, for example one in the bedroom, so the heater keeps the part of the van you are actually in warm. A temperature probe wired to one of your heaters is offered too, once it is reporting.
The Now reading on the card follows your choice. If a van sensor you picked stops reporting, the heater falls back to its wall panel until the sensor comes back.
Autoterm Flow 5D
The Flow heats the van's water or engine coolant rather than the air, so it has no modes. The dial sets the coolant temperature you want, from 60 to 80 °C, and Now is the coolant temperature.
Your Sensa controller acts as the thermostat. It stops the heater when the coolant reaches your target and starts it again when it has cooled 10 °C below. That gap is fixed.
Autoterm Baltica
The Baltica heats your hot water and, when you want it, the van through its radiators. Two buttons under the dial choose what it does:
- Hot water: hot water only.
- Water+Heat: hot water and heating.
You can change between them at any time, even while the Baltica is running.
The Baltica keeps its own water between 70 and 88 °C, as Autoterm set it, and you cannot change that. The card shows the Coolant temperature all the time, not only in Nerd Mode.
On Water+Heat the dial sets the room temperature you want, and Now is the reading at the Baltica's panel: your Sensa controller acts as the room thermostat, running the heating only while the room needs it. On Hot water there is nothing for the dial to set, so the card shows what the Baltica is doing (Heating, Shutting down or Off) in its place.
A pump icon at the top of the card lights while the Baltica's circulation pump is running, so you can see the radiators being fed.
The Baltica looks after the room itself, so it is not one of the heaters you can pick in SensaClimate.
If your Baltica card has no dial on Water+Heat, your controller has not had the update that makes it the room thermostat yet. It appears on its own once it has.
Run for
Run for sets how long a heater may keep going once you switch it on: Unlimited, or 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 18 or 24 hours. The time counts from when you switch it on, through every stop and start in between, and then the heater switches off. The padlock freezes Run for too.
If your card has no Run for, your controller has not had the update that adds it yet. It appears on its own once it has.
Frost Protection
Your heater can start itself when it gets cold, even while your Sensa unit is off or restarting. Tap the snowflake beside the power button on the heater's card, or set Frost Protection on the heater's row in Settings (open the Devices tab and tap the cog at the end of the row). Choose Off or the temperature that starts the heater. The snowflake is crossed through while it is Off.
- Air: below your temperature, the heater starts in Temperature mode and heats to its Frost Heat To temperature (5 to 20 °C, 10 °C to start with), set on the same row in Settings. It runs for its Run for time, then switches off.
- Baltica: below your temperature, the room heating starts, and it stops again once the room is 3 °C warmer.
- Flow 5D: Frost Protection goes by the coolant, from −15 to 10 °C. Below it the Flow starts as usual and runs for its Run for time.
- Your own settings are back as you left them for the next time you use the heater.
- A heater you switch on yourself is yours: Frost Protection never switches it off. If you switch it off while it is still that cold, it starts again a few minutes later, so set Frost Protection to Off to keep a heater off.
- An Air and a Baltica go by the same thermometer as the heater, chosen under Which thermometer it goes by.
- While SensaClimate is on, it looks after the van and Frost Protection waits. A Baltica's Frost Protection never waits, because SensaClimate does not run a Baltica.
If the heater's row has no Frost Protection, your controller has not had the update that adds it yet. It appears on its own once it has.
How much diesel it is using
Every Autoterm heater card shows its diesel, Nerd Mode or not:
- Diesel use: how many litres an hour it is burning right now.
- Diesel per day: what it has burned per day on average over the last week.
Sensa works the litres out from the heater's fuel pump, so the figures appear once the heater has reported its pump. Until then the card reads No diesel figures yet.
Diesel left, how many days the diesel in your tank lasts at the average of all your heaters together, is on the SensaClimate tab, because it covers every heater rather than one. It uses the diesel tank you picked for each heater there, or every diesel tank when you have not picked one. The countdown covers your heaters only: if the engine runs off the same tank, its diesel is not in the average. Diesel left stays hidden until your heaters have run enough to give a figure of a year or less.
If your tank has a Mopeka sensor, tell Sensa how many litres it holds: open the Devices tab in Settings, tap the cog on the Mopeka's row and set Tank Capacity. See Mopeka tank sensors.
An Air 2D and an Air 4D pump different amounts of diesel per stroke, so an Air shows no diesel figures until you set Heater Model on its row in Settings, on the Devices tab. An Air 9D has its own controller, which already knows its model, so it has nothing to set.
With Nerd Mode on
Turn on Nerd Mode and the card adds a few readings beneath the controls:
- Air: Heat exchanger and Fan speed, measured, where your heater reports them.
- Baltica: Pump speed, where your heater reports it.
- Flow and Baltica: their Coolant temperature shows all the time, Nerd Mode or not.
Two rows are added under the diesel figures on every heater:
- Diesel cost: what its diesel costs a day, at the price of the nearest fuel station that lists diesel.
- Total runtime: how many hours the heater has run in its life, as it last reported after a run.
The diesel rows are always the last on the card. The fuel pump, glow plug current, supply voltage and the Flow and Baltica panel temperature are in the Diagnostics popup.
A Diagnostics button opens a fuller read from the heater, almost the whole screen, in tabs. A tab your heater has nothing for is left out.
- Readings: its firmware, its current state, the full set of readings, its diesel figures and any fault it is reporting, with a sentence on what that fault means. Read now asks the heater for a fresh read. Live refreshes the readings every couple of seconds, with a green Live marker beside the time. It stops when you close the popup, or after ten minutes. You only get Live on newer controller firmware.
- Engineer: test runs of the water pump, fan or fuel pump, Stop to end one, and Unlock for a heater that has locked itself out after a fault. It is for heater engineers, so it asks for the Engineer PIN first. The heater refuses a test while it is on.
- Report: Read report reads the record the heater keeps of its own running hours. The heater only answers when it is off, so the button is greyed while it is switched on. If the hours do not fit the Air you set as Heater Model, the report says to check it instead of showing figures that would be wrong.
- Fault history: the faults Sensa has logged for the heater.
Service report opens a dated report of all of this, ready to print or save as a PDF for a heater engineer or a warranty claim.
The Air 2D and Air 4D report their readings differently, so the popup shows no readings until you set Heater Model on the heater's row in Settings, on the Devices tab. The popup reminds you if it is not set. An Air 9D needs nothing set.