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Lakewood 515 Mid-Size Heater Product 4762548 Key FeaturesType Mid-SizePower Source ElectricFeatures Thermostat,...

Little Heater Packs a Wallop - Lakewood 792/JR Utility Heater I bought the Lakewood 792/JR heater for use at my computer desk. It's a well designed, quiet, ruggedly constructe...

I bought this little brat with the full intention of using for a parts heater for some others not running.

When I got it home I made a big mistake…I plugged it in!

That was it for me, it ran so well…wasn’t a heat producing

monster but for 13 bucks, remember I bought it for parts.

Well, just for grins I decided to run some tests on it to see just how it performed, that is when I began to see some potential.

Before I run tests I take it apart to be sure all wiring and such are up to snuff, no fun zapping yourself in the process.

When I opened it up I was first impressed by the overall fit and finish which was very good for any product.

The finish is an armor cote two tone gray and all internal components and power cord (three prong grounded) were of excellent quality, heck, even the nichrome heating element springs were first rate…this made no sense…this is a thirteen dollar heater?

So, I get down to running some numbers:

Low power used 677 watts and produced 141 degrees while High power used 1256 watts and produced 196 degrees with heat cast at about 2 feet…not too bad really.

Heating a room 12 X 12 on low heat will have it running all the time, just no a lot of punch to the heat and the high heat mode did well enough that it could cycle (reach the thermostatic setting and turn off).

Temperature control is by a very conventional dial thermostat which turns off and on when heat drops three degrees.

Safety features include overload protection and built in roll bars to prevent smothering should it get knocked over plus the fact that it is quite stable.

The only gripe I could muster is how loud the fan was, but if given the choice of freezing and listening to your teeth chatter and hearing the warm whoosh of this little gem…I think you know the answer to that one!

All of the 792 series share the same internal guts, only difference is the case size and style.

All right, I didn’t have the heart to gut junior for parts in the end, in fact what I did was what I do best, see how much more I can squeeze out of it.

Seeing the the heating coils were up to the job, I figured the fan was pulling too much air over the elements and they were having a hard time keeping up so I disconnected the fan and to see how much heat the elements could generate without fan assist and the result was LOADS, so the problem was confirmed to be to big of fan running at to high of speed.

Changing the motor was out so the next best thing was to carefuly trim down the fan to slow air movement down.

The end result was to trim the fan by over half which reduced air flow, allowed the elements to produce more heat and a side benefit of making it run quieter!

While energy use stayed the same the heat production took a jump with Low heat going from 141 degrees to 180 and High heat from 196 to 280…and the case still stays just warm to the touch!

All in all, a very good investment in time and money…so much for a parts heater!

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