camp shower

Submitted: Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 20:53

ThreadID: 70564 Views:8646 Replies:3 FollowUps:3

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Vehicle Shower

Water is the single most precious commodity you need to carry for your trip. Although heavy, we need to carry it for drinking, cooking and washing.

terryc

Hi All,
I need some info on making a camp shower via my car heater, can anyone help me, or put me onto the specs.
Cheers,
Terry C.

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Reply By: Member - Roachie (SA) - Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 21:06

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 21:06

There are a couple of options:

1. Buy a complete kit from someone like Twine, Glind or Helton

2. Make or buy a heat exchanger and a separate electric pump and plumb it up to your heater hoses.

I bought a heat exchanger from Helton. I liked this option because they are the only heat exchanger manufacturers that give you the option of where you want the input and output for both the radiator coolant and the clean shower water. In my case, I wanted all 4 ports in the same end so that I could mount it against a panel in the engine bay. The other 2 brands I mentioned have the coolant going in one end/out the other and the clean water doing the same thing.

In case you're not sure what a heat exchanger is..... It is a cylindrical container with a tightly wound coil (or 2) of copper pipe inside it. The canister is filled with hot coolant circulating via the heater coil of the vehicle. The copper pipe coiled up inside the container, carries the fresh water which, as it passes through the coils, is heated-up by the hot coolant.

check out Helton showers

Roachie

AnswerID: 373993

Follow Up By: Member - Johny boy (NSW) - Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 21:36

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 21:36

hi all ,
As above and there is a guy on ebay that sells a kit ,he makes his own heat exchange with a 5 yr warranty I think ,also he throws in hoses and one of those yellow $30 12 volt pumps I suppose you could do that your self also ,hes in QLD and is called Australian Direct PH 1800 207 067 or 0488 427 919 his name is Klaeton ,I only just saw it yesterday ,I hope this helps ?

Cheers.

FollowupID: 641194

Reply By: rags - Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 22:38

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 22:38

Terry
I have made a no of shower units for friends and myself for various 4wds always custom fitted for the different cars.Being a plumber by trade i used these skills to make the units.The basic concept was to get a short length [usually around 300mm but length varied to suit the car fittment] of 100mm copper tube into this was inserted a copper coil 10mm[3/8]dia approx 3m long,which was formed around a 50mm dia tube.The coil was strengthened with supports made out of 1/2 tube flattened which are silver soldered to the coil and 100mm tube wall.The 3/8 tube ends are extended out to edge of 100mmpipe usually with 1/2 tube. Copper end caps are soldered onto the 100mm tube and the coil is soldered where they pass through these caps.5/8 tube stubs are cut and soldered into the 100mm tube which are used to connect the heater hoses onto [3/8coil used to circulate the showerwater].The hose connection points are always located to suit the 4wd being fitted to.Suitable brackets are made to fit the exchanger to the car ,wiring for pumps,hose outlet points ,always fit the exchanger with isolating valves on the coolant side.
Each unit that is made continues to get better in the design and execution ,the last model on a 3LT GU was particully neat fitted up behind the bullbar with fittings in the bar for water inlet and outlet and a thread to screw the shower pole head onto and accessible power[pump] switch.
The problem with these units are the cost as originally they where being made out of scrap leftover copper but as the copper price increase it became harder to get the copper scrap for $0.As the demand increase to make these and to buy materials,but to make them without labour ,the cost of the materials is approx $100 per unit,but you need to buy 6m lengths of materials,so you get a few out of the lengths.
Hope this assists you
Russell

AnswerID: 374005

Reply By: GerryP - Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 22:45

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 22:45

Hi Terry C,
You can make your own if you can source the materials and can handle an oxy set...
The reason I used two parallel coils is (1) smaller tube bends much tighter without kinking (2) minimise friction loss & (3) maximise tube surface area for maximum heat transfer.

Coolant circulates through the body and shower water goes through the tube.

Bit rough around the edges, but works an absolute treat!

Cheers
Gerry

AnswerID: 374006

Follow Up By: rags - Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 23:06

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 at 23:06

Gerry
I like the look of your's,very similar in concept to what i desribed above but pictures do the explaining so much better,i wasn't going to the shed to take photos tonight.
Have you thought about running the coil in such a way that the outer coiler would feed back through the inner coil before leaving the exchanger rather than as in the photo it is a twin coil.My reasoning is that through experimenting i found that the longer the length of coil the longer the water is imersed so therefore the hotter it gets.I have used the twin coil concept but have always feed the outer coil back through the inner coil before the water exits thre exchanger.I have found that diesel 4wds need the longer coils as they typically don't run as hot as a petrol 4wd so need the extra length
Russell

FollowupID: 641208

Follow Up By: GerryP - Saturday, Jul 11, 2009 at 21:11

Saturday, Jul 11, 2009 at 21:11

Hi Russell,
I agree with your comments regarding connecting the two coils in series, however, with 3/8 tubing the resistance is fairly high due to the higher velocity of the water using only a single path, which in turn creates a problem for the pump I use. By connecting in parallel it halves the velocity which in turn reduces friction loss to 1/4 (pressure loss is a squared function of velocity) and increases the time that the water takes to pass through the tube. If using a good high pressure or positive displacement pump, then in series is not a problem, however, I just use a 12 volt bilge pump and find I need to keep losses to a minimum in order to get a reasonable output.

I must say though, that heat transfer using the parallel configuration is still very effective. My rig is a diesel and the shower water heats up very well. In fact, I have had to put a bypass inside the shower tent to regulate the flow to the heat exchanger as with the Landcruiser, there is no heater valve to regulate the water flow - it's flat out all the time.

Thanks for the feedback...
Cheers
Gerry

FollowupID: 641333