Infrared floor heating

[Tiborx8]

Hi,

I found a 12v infrared heating film distributor in Europe offering the film at a very good price. I bought few meters of 30cm film, 12v, 220w/sqm. 220w/sqm is normally used for floor heating or ceiling heating.

I rolled up the floor carpet in front of the drivers` seat - there is a soft felt material under the carpet, covering partially the floor - the rest is without insulation. As I was heating the car before I rolled up the carpet, the felt and the floor was damp from condensation!

I insulated the floor using 2mm insulation with aluminium heat reflector, than a 1cm eva board, than 5mm insulating foam with heat reflectors on both sides. This gave the 1.7 cm insulation. I added the heating film on top of it, than rolled back the carpet. Although I had to cut off part of the heal-rest (made of foam) in order to fit the 30*50 cm heating mat, there is nothing visible on the carpet that there is a heating film under it.

On the passenger side, there is some fom insulation several centimeter thick - but it is glued to the carpet. I separated it from the carpet using Xylene - than added 2mm of insulation with heat reflector and placed the heating film on top of it. After that I rolled back the carpet. It was the harder way of installation to the passenger side as I could have placed the heating film directly under the removable top carpet - that way the top right corner of the heating film would be visible, but I could just take a dark felt material to cover that corner.

As only a 30*50 cm pieces of heating film fits to the front legrooms, it takes very little energy as it produces only about 40 watts per side. I tested a few times so far and what it does is it heats up the floor to 40-45 degrees - hence the floor is not a cold spot anymore, hence my heating sense is better. we drove the car in just sub zero temperature for 45-60 rides ad our feet were not cold, even when my wife was wearing ballerina-type of shoes and a skirt. The vent was on min. setting, directed to the windshield and we used only seat heating.

I plan to install film to other parts of the car, as well. However, after talking to the distributor and a few people in the Hungarian i-miev/ion/c-zero fb group (I am Hungarian), the distributor agreed to provide the material for our need at wholesale prices and I took the voluntary task to build a plug&play floor heating solutions to the front legrooms.

The plug&play solution is now ready, as of today, the first orders already arrived. To keep the cost down, and as there are other diy-ers among us, there are different packages:

I/a.) infrared heating film without insulation but with already connected, cut-to-measure cables, connected with automotive-grade connectors and a thermostat, using fuse-divider with fuses and a rocker switch which matches the stile of the factory switches.
Price: 40 Eur plus shipment

I/b.) The same as I/a, but also includes 1.7 cm insulation as described above.
Price: 70 Eur plus shipment

II. passenger legroom: heating film with 2mm insulation plus automotive-grade connectors to the driver`s floor heating. It is only available together with the driver-side floor heating kit.
Price: 25 Eur plus shipment

if anybody has further questions, would like to build their own or get the plug&play kit with tutorial you can contact me.

 

[Don]

An aftermarket heating system for any of my iMiEV's would only have one requirement - It needs to keep the windows clear and defogged. For everything else, I can just wear a coat. My trips aren't long enough for personal comfort to be much of an issue, but I do need to be able to see where I'm going :shock:

With 4 people in the car on a winters day, we all need to stop breathing! :lol:

Don

 

[Tiborx8]

Yes, with four people it can be a challenge - but if your trips are short, you can use the factory heat/aircon to keep your window clean...I personally use shaving foam polished on the windscreen and front side windows.

For longer trips - where the factory heating causes range problem - it is a completely different story. In such case infrared heating is one easy and clean way to temperate the passengers without significant range decrease.
anyway, the concept is nothing new - take a look at here - https://insideevs.com/news/455454/new-heating-concept-save-six-percent-range/

in the I-miev, 1.3 sqm heating panels can be placed altogether -to the front and rear legrooms, the back side of the front seat, the front doors. The ceiling is still a question.
Besides reducing the cold spots in the cabin (with similar effect when in a cold day you are in winter coat but without gloves vs. you also take even a thin pair of glove), it heats up the surface over 90 degrees fahrenheit - and that,combined with radiant heating does make a difference in heat comfort. And all this takes only 300 watts of energy...
cheers

 

[JoeS]

TiborX8, thank you for posting this implementation which will hopefully make life a little more comfortable for those living in parts of the world with serious winter conditions.

um, "only" 300W at 12v means a current draw of 25A. What is the consensus of what is the 'best' place to tap into a fused circuit that gets activated when the car goes into READY?

 

[Tiborx8]

Hi,

we found that for the full kit the only solution is a separate cable from the 12v battery positive terminal, than to use a relay from the cigarette lighter circuit - this way the heating is only on when the ignition is on.

Many people opted for the front legroom insulation and heating only - and that is the only one I installed so far to my car to test the concept. As the front two legrooms heating films draw only 8 amps altogether, we just divide the cigarette lighter 15amps fuse into 10 amps for the floor heating and 5 for the cigarette lighter. The cigarette lighter wiring is too thin for 15 amps, anyway.

 

[Don]

The cigarette lighter wiring is too thin for 15 amps, anyway.

Agreed - The wiring for the cigarette lighter plug looks like it was intended to just charge your cel phone! :roll:

Don