Primus Express Spider, Review

The Primus Express Spider has been available for some time now and while I’d read the reviews I’d never actually tried one. I was offered one for review by Millets so I was looking forward to seeing how it performed.

The Express Spider has a few features that set it apart from basic canister mounted stoves, the 1st and most obvious is that the burner isn’t directly attached to the gas canister but is instead connected via a flexible fuel line, the 2nd useful feature is the pre-heat facility which helps maintain performance or in some cases allows the stove to actually work in temperatures below freezing when a canister mounted stove could fail completely.

I guess most people considering the Express Spider do so for its cold weather ability but it has something to offer even if you only use it in mild conditions. As it’s a remote canister stove it sits much lower than a canister mounted stove which not only improves stability but also makes it easier to use in a small porch such as those in some solo tents simply as the burner being lower is further from the flysheet. The pre-heat feature while it’s designed mainly for colder weather is also beneficial when it comes to using the last few grams in the canister.

I’ve found in the past with canister mounted stoves that when you get down to the last 10g or so of gas the reduction in pressure in the canister means that there’s insufficient fuel flow to keep the stove burning, it’s not unusual to remove a seemingly empty canister yet when you shake it you can hear that there’s still fuel remaining. What the pre heat function does is allow you to invert the canister, the fuel then flows along the fuel line as a liquid until it reaches the pre-heat tube where it vaporises (becomes gas again) and can burn as normal.



When it comes to low temperatures what can happen is that as the canister itself cools the pressure in the canister drops to the extent that there’s insufficient fuel being delivered to the burner head, this results at best in a slower boil time but the side effect of that is that the longer it takes the colder the canister becomes and thus the pressure continues to drop, eventually the stove will stop even though there’s plenty of fuel remaining. In this situation you can simply invert the canister as you would if it was almost empty, the fuel is delivered as liquid until it reaches the pre-heat tube where again it vaporises and is once again burned as gas. Without a pre-heat tube inverting the canister simply results in liquid gas arriving at the burner head and the result is that the stove flares up which definitely isn’t something you want happening when you’re trying to cook in the porch of a small solo tent.



The Primus Express Spider comes supplied with a small stuff sack that from the outside looks like mesh but on the inside it’s actually plain fabric, I’m not sure why its mesh on the outside but plain fabric on the inside means that the stove is easy to remove and pack as it doesn’t get caught up in the mesh.




The stove itself is really well made and is devoid of any unnecessary features, someone said that a product had reached the peak of development not when there was nothing left to add but when there was nothing left to remove, if that’s the case the Express Spider must be almost as close to the peak of development as it’s possible to get, minimalist but with no useful feature missing.




The legs all fold together for packing but when unfolded each have a stop position to ensure that they’re as stable as possible, being a tripod design means that it’s stable even on a rough surface. The burner head is quite small, smaller than I’d probably prefer as this is a stove I’d use with a wide shallow pot rather than a tall narrow one, 2 reasons for that, 1. A wide shallow pot is more stable and 2. A wide shallow pot is better if you want to melt snow (this is a stove aimed at use in lower temperatures after all) That said in use it seems to work just fine although I’d be inclined to run it at less than full power. One final design feature that I like is that both burner and the fuel valve/regulator can rotate on the fuel line with the result that once set up there’s nothing trying to tip the stove over. Perhaps the only thing I’d like to see changes is the position of the fuel valve, rather than a vertical valve I’d prefer a horizontal valve as it’s easier to operate with the canister inverted, that said it’s not a deal breaker by any means.



With all the potential advantages why wouldn’t anyone want to use a remote canister stove? Well it comes down to bulk/weight over a canister mounted stove. On the issue of bulk the Express Spider fold up so well that it’s hardly an issue, in fact I have a canister mounted stove that while being smaller is more difficult to store due to the larger diameter burner head. If bulk/packed size isn’t an issue them what about the weight? As far as I’m aware the lightest canister mounted stove at present weighs about 48g, most however will come in at between 60-100g, the Express Spider weighs in at 191g with the stuff sack adding another 10g if you choose to use it. If not the lightest it’s certainly one of the lightest.

I’ve tested the Express Spider in what I would consider a real world situation and in breezy condition with an almost full 100g canister with the valve about 2/3rds open it boiled 500ml of water (13.5°c) in 3mins 44secs, obviously that isn’t super quick but by running it with the valve less than fully open it achieved the boil on 8g of fuel and that’s pretty impressive. Of course I nay have achieved a faster boil with the valve fully opened but I’d prefer fuel efficiency for the sake of waiting an extra 30 seconds.

Having tried it with an almost full canister I wanted to see how it performed on an almost empty canister with the canister inverted. The result really impressed me, starting with a canister that had 24g of gas remaining the Express Spider managed a boil in 3mins 47secs and used 9g of gas.

All things considered the Express Spider is definitely a stove I’d have no hesitation in using or recommending, I haven’t read negative reports on any of the blogs I follow and having tried it myself I can see why.

The video below shows the stove in operation with the canister inverted and about 20g of gas remaining. I forgot to weight the canister until I'd switched the camera off but for what it's worth it weighed 104g.

MSR Reactor in Use

As you'll know if you read the wildcamp report I managed to take the Reactor into the hills for a test. Much of what I've already mentioned re the MSR Reactor is repeated here for clarity together with some additional information so bear with me.

I decided to take a part used 100g cartridge, the one I’d been using to test both the Reactor and the Fly (ti) at home. Unfortunately as it was all a bit rushed I forgot to take my video camera, forgot to take my thermometer and also forgot to weigh the gas cartridge before I left. As I know the cartridge weight after the last recorded test at home I’ll have to assume that it was the still the same when I packed it for the wild camp (I’m pretty sure I didn’t use it after the last recorded test) For what it’s worth it weighed 158g after the final Fly (ti) test.



My usual meths burner set-up weighs 178g and with 100ml of fuel the total weight would be 278g, the MSR Reactor weighs 486g as weighed by myself, added to this was a plastic mug, large plastic spoon and pouch cozy at an additional 113g. I also took a Primus’Footrest‘ to improve stability as I was using the 100g cartridge, this added a further 24g and finally the gas cartridge at 158g brought the total weight up to 781g, almost 3 times the weight of my normal set-up. It has to be remembered that I would expect to boil in excess of 4l of water with the 58g of gas remaining while the 100ml of meths would most likely only boil 2l. Unfortunately that’s a fact of life if you choose gas, you can’t simply take the fuel you require and even if you could choose from a selection of part used canisters you still have around 90g simply due to the weight of the cartridge itself. Although the MSR is large enough to carry a 220g cartridge it isn’t significantly larger than my meths set-up due to the way I carry my beer can pot in a closed cell foam cozy so it easily fitted into my pack (ULA Conduit) horizontally still leaving space at either side and in front.

As it turned out I wasn’t the only one to forget something, Marcus who was accompanying me realised he’d forgotten to bring fuel for his meths stove when we were on route to our proposed camp. While I knew there was enough gas for 2 Marcus has intended to cook sausages and this threw up another issue, you can’t use a regular pot/pan with the Reactor in an emergency in the same way you could with the Primus Eta Express or buy an additional pot support like you can for the Jetboil PCS.

When we finally reached our camp site it was about 7.00pm, and while the conditions were perfect for a wild camp, unfortunately they were also perfect for mountain midges, the Northern Irish variety being no less voracious than their infamous Scottish cousins. What should have been a leisurely evening meal turned into something of a trial by midge and the speed and ease of set-up of the Reactor was very welcome indeed.



I didn’t attempt to record the time taken to boil water as I wear an analogue watch ( I realised afterwards that I could have used my mobile phone!!) but we initially boiled about 1.0l followed by an additional 300ml or so, I can’t say exactly how much but I used all the water in my flexible bottle/bladder plus the contents of my Aquagear filter bottle, total about 1.8l although I did use some to cool my coffee.

Having been used to setting up my meths stove before preparing my meals it felt strange to have everything set-up prior to lighting the stove. The stove boils water so rapidly that you simply don’t have time to mess around, at one point I was taking some photos while the stove was in operation and almost forgot to check on it. It would be easy to waste gas if you aren’t careful as the stove will burn happily until the cartridge is empty. That isn't really a criticism and wouldn't be an issue for those used to gas stoves but when you’re used to metering out exact quantities of meths it’s easy to forget.



The stove was used again in the morning, fortunately there was enough breeze to keep the midges grounded, again 1.0l was boiled which provided us both with hot drinks and in my case Muesli.

We had intended to stop a few times on the 2nd part of the route but the constant attention from midges while on the hill kept us moving. We did however manage a lunch stop on the final summit of the day where again approx 1.0l was boiled, sufficient for 2 cups of soup and 1 coffee.

As I mentioned at the start I can only provide an estimate of water boiled/fuel used, the cartridge was weighed once we got back and was 125g. I’ll estimate that we boiled between 3.0l and 3.5l and used 33g of gas which works out at approximately 9-11g of gas used per 1.0l of water boiled which is fairly consistent with the results I had on the recorded tests at home, slightly better in fact although I suspect that it’s more efficient to boil 1.0l once rather than 500ml twice.

In conclusion I have to say that I was very impressed with the stove, on performance/efficiency alone it outperforms any gas stove I’ve ever tried including the Jetboil PCS which is a similar type of stove. I also feel it surpasses the Jetboil in that for no increase in weight it has a greater capacity as the pot easily holds 1.5l and still has about 15mm to spare while the Jetboil can only manage around 500ml if you fill to the recommended level and has a maximum capacity of 1.0l filled right to the top if I remember correctly. This combined with the ability to carry a 220g cartridge makes the MSR more suitable for duo use. The downside with the MSR is that it can’t really be used with standard pot while the Jetboil can, not being able to clip burner and pot together also means it’s easier to use the Jetboil as a hanging stove. In the end though for anyone considering buying a ‘System’ stove I’d fully recommend the MSR Reactor, it does exactly what MSR claim which in my experience is pretty rare.

When compared to a top mounted burner/standard pot and windshield set-up the Reactor seems heavy however as it uses less gas you could probably manage on a 100g cartridge while the basic stove would require a 220g cartridge, depending on the duration of the trip. In so doing the weight difference is reduced as is fuel cost and you still have the ease of use and fast set-up of the Reactor.

Although it isn’t really my type of stove and is heavier than I’d ideally like to carry I would be very tempted and indeed may well purchase one at a later date for winter use. Unfortunately it has to go back to Hendrik but I’d like to thank him once again for the opportunity to test the Reactor and hope that the results and views are useful to someone.

MSR Reactor, Gear Test

Some of you may have seen the MSR Reactor tested over at Hendrik Morkel’s blog, Hiking in Finland and it’s thanks to Hendrik that I’ve had the opportunity to try the MSR Reactor myself as he made it available to other bloggers on the basis that they had it for 2 weeks before sending it on to someone else.

I hadn’t previously tried this stove system although I did own a Jetboil PCS which I eventually sold and while I haven’t tried the Primus Eta Express I have tried the 1.0l Eta Power pot. Neither the Jetboil nor the Eta Power pot impressed me, both failed to achieve anything like the advertised performance. The Reactor interested me though as the burner head is quite a unique design as it matches the diameter of the pot almost exactly, MSR also claim that the valve/regulator is designed so that the performance stays pretty much the same regardless of the amount of fuel remaining in the cartridge. I’ve previously found that the performance of gas stoves drops off significantly once the cartridge is less than ½ full even on the Jetboil.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the idea of using a heat exchanger was introduced by Jetboil or Primus but you’d be wrong, MSR were in fact working with heat exchangers as long ago as the late 1980’s with what was then known as the XPD Heat Exchanger.



A Scan of a Flyer I Recieved 1989-90

The heat exchanger was basically an adjustable corrugated sleeve that fitted around the outside of one of their standard pots in an attempt to reduce heat loss, an improvement in efficiency of up to 25% was claimed. I never actually used one but they were still listed on the MSR website last year and are still available from some retailers.


Unlike Jetboil and Primus MSR only have one stove using the heat exchanger although for 2010 they have released an additional 2.5l pot which is designed to be used with the Reactor, unfortunately they haven’t as yet released a sub 1.0l pot for solo use. The Reactor is quite heavy compared to a basic top mounted cartridge stove and basic pot combination, the listed weight is minimum 515g although I weighed the one I’m testing and it comes in at 486g including cleaning cloth which makes it a few grams lighter than the Jetboil I had. Like the Primus Eta Express it can hold a 220g gas cartridge, the Jetboil can only hold a 100g cartridge and with a cartridge and the burner stored in the Reactor’s 1.5l pot there’s still room for a few extra items. I found that I could store a 100g cartridge in a Tibetan titanium 550ml pot place it in the Reactor and still manage to fit the burner in.


Information Regarding Suggested Performance

My 1st impression on receiving the Reactor was positive as the information on the packaging is quite clear about the conditions that MSR test the stove in, they also give an indication of the performance you can expect in a variety of real world conditions. This is something I haven’t seen before; most manufacturers simply give the time taken to boil a given amount of water, usually 1.0l but with no mention of the test conditions.


Unique Burner Design and Easy to Use Valve

The burner is a pretty unique design and is reasonably quiet in operation, the flame is quite soft but after about 20 seconds the entire burner mesh glows red and the sound of the stove changes slightly. There isn’t a Piezo igniter which some will take issue with but to be honest I‘ve removed igniters in the past to save weight. The valve has a short distance of travel, about 1 and ¾ turns and has a good sized plastic grip which fold flat for storage.


Heat Exchanger, The Welds are Extremely Uniform and the Build Quality Excellent.


Measure Marks, Maximum Recommended Quantity 1.0l

The Reactor comes with a 1.5l pot which incorporates a heat exchanger and windshield, the maximum fill level is marked at 1.0l but it should be possible to use the 1.5l capacity as there is about 15mm to spare. The pot comes with a clear plastic lid which is said to be Heat-Resistant although I wouldn’t want to get it too close to the burner. There’s a flexible rubber knob on the lid which prevents you getting burned when lifting it off. The handle and means of keeping the lid firmly fixed to the pot for storage is quite clever, there’s a small length of stainless braided wire with a ball end which locks into a slot on the foldable handle. The handle itself locks in the open position and stays cool even at full boil. I’m not sure if a stuff sack is supplied, I didn’t receive one and there’s no mention of it on the packaging, it did however come with a small cleaning/drying cloth. The standard of finish was very good with extremely neat welds where the heat exchanger is welded to the pot.


Clear Plastic Lid and Rubber Knob, The Lid also Has a Single Vent


Clever Method of Securing the Lid


Handle Locked in Position

The 1st test was conducted in my garage using a new 100g cartridge simply to provide a comparison with previous stove tests. I weighed the cartridge before starting, used 500ml of water at 17°c and timed how long it took to bring the water to 99°c, I need to point out that the water was 10°c colder in some of the previous tests. The cartridge was then weighed to establish how much gas had been used. The stove was used at maximum output and the result was certainly impressive, it took 1min 55secs to reach 99°c and used 7g of gas.



Of course the real test is in real world conditions, the MSR doesn’t have a separate windshield although to be honest it doesn’t look like it needs one as the flame can’t be seen once the pot is placed on the burner. The only place wind could enter is via the small air holes around the burner head or via the exhaust vents around the base of the pot just above the heat exchanger but I was pretty confidant that the performance wouldn't be affected too much. The only area that I felt heat could be lost was the pot itself.

I tested the Reactor again, this time outdoors just prior to testing the GoSystem Fly (ti). Once again the results were very good indeed with 500ml of water (16°c) brought to a boil in 1 min 42secs using 7g of gas. The result was surprisingly better than the indoors test.



I’ve found that most basic stoves aren’t fuel efficient at maximum output as it depends on the pot used whether the heat produced by the stove is being absorbed by the pot or whether it’s being wasted either due to the flame pattern being wider than the pot or the pot simply being unable to absorb the heat at the same rate as the stove produces it. To gauge the efficiency of the Reactor at full power I tested it again with the valve open 1 full turn rather than the maximum 1 ¾ turns. As it turned out the stove used exactly the same amount of gas although the boil time was as expected, slower. This suggests that the pot matches the burner almost perfectly which is a very good result indeed. An additional test was with an almost empty 100g cartridge. With only 10g of gas remaining I repeated the previous test but once again the Reactor performed very well indeed, using 6g of gas with a slightly increased boil time, clearly MSR have somehow managed to regulate the pressure so that there’s minimal difference whether the cartridge is full or almost empty. With a 100g cartridge I would expect to be able to boil about 8.0L of water, easily enough for one week’s solo use with no appreciable drop in performance as the gas is used.

As far as performance is concerned the MSR Reactor performed really well but usability can only really be assessed while actually out on the hill so a wild camp is on the agenda.

So far the performance of the MSR Reactor has been excellent, as has been the efficiency and based on my experience I’d certainly recommend it over the Jetboil and Eta Power pots to anyone who needs a fuel efficient fast boiling stove. It’s heavy but if you consider that a 100g cartridge could easily last for 1 weeks solo use the weight becomes more bearable. The efficiency is good enough to make it useable for 2 people and it compares favourably weight wise with both the Eta Express and the Jetboil PCS.

The question is would I actually buy one? to be honest I’m not sure. The combined weight of a cooking system based around the Reactor including a mug, spoon, cozy, lighter and 100g gas cartridge would be around 750g. The 100g cartridge would allow me to boil about 8.0l of water. My current meths set-up, See Here including windshield spoon, mug, lighter and cozies etc weighs 172g and to boil 8.0l of water I’d need to carry 400ml of meths which would weigh around 400g bottled for a total weight of 572g. As my trips are usually only 1 nighters I only carry 100ml of fuel so the weight of my current set-up including fuel is only 272g. If I was making regular week long trips the ease of use and fast boil times might just make the 200g and the £125 asking price worthwhile. In truth I can’t afford to spend £125 on the Reactor although I feel it's worth it and undoubtedly I’d like one if only because I admire what I see as a genuinely good product that fully lives up to the manufacturers claims. If MSR were to release a Reactor downsized to suit a 100g cartridge rather than a 220g cartridge with a subsequent reduction in weight but while still maintaining the performance/efficiency then I’d buy it and sell off all my other gas stoves and quite possibly my multi fuel ones as well.



Compared to a Basic Stove Set-Up

GoSystem Fly (ti) Take 2

I looked briefly at the GoSystem Fly a while back but hadn't really tested it as I couldn't get 100g gas cartridges locally which meant a 90 mile round trip to Belfast and Cotswolds. Not wanting or needing to have them meant postponing the test but I recently had the opportunity to test another stove so bit the bullet and got the cartridges.

Initially I hadn't been too impressed with the Fly as although is about 30g lighter than my current cannister top stove it isn't as compact and also as the burner head is wider it doesn't really suit my pots of choice, the 750ml Alpkit MityMug or 550ml Tibetan titanium pot/mug. To try to match the flame to the Mitymug I had to turn the stove right down which resulted in a pretty slow boil time. I do however have the Snow Peak compact cookset and the smaller of the 2 pots pretty much matches the flame spread of the Fly so I gave it a try.

I ran the firt test indoors using a similar procedure to my previous tests, of the C-3 Mini Stove and Jetboil PCSC-3. The water temperature on the C-3 Mini Stove was only 7.2°c however rather than 16.5°c so the Flyhad almost a 10°c advantage to start with.

The performance was pretty good and even allowing for the difference in water and ambient temperature was almost 2 mins faster than the C-3 Mini Stove/Mitymug and with an even better performance over using it with the Mitymug. Interestingly both stoves used almost the same amount of gas at 8-9g. I think illustrates the importance of matching the burner and pot. It also illustrates that the Fly has a bigger Jet as it can deliver the same amount of gas in a much shorter time. Video of indoor test below.



Having tested it indoors I decided to try it outdoors following the same procedure but using a windshield as I would in real world conditions. It wasn't windy but there was a bit of a breeze. Unsurprisingly there was a fair increase in boil time at 4.09 mins but somewhat surprisingly the gas usage didn't increase accordingly as it only use 11g. Video of outdoors test below.



The Fly (ti) suits the Snow Peak pot well and there's plenty of room for a 100g cannister and the stove with space left for additional items. The combined set is pretty compact as although it's wider than the Mitymug set-up it's shorter.

To be honest I hadn't initially been impressed with the Fly but with the Snow Peak pot it's very good indeed and at a combined weight of 220g for stove, pot and basic windshield isn't an awful lot for a gas set-up although I'd still prefer to use meths if at all possible.

GoSystem Fly ti, Worlds Lightest Gas Stove?

I almost always use a meths stove now, in fact I've only used gas once in almost a year but I was drawn to a stove I saw late last year on the Fire Maple website. The Fire Maple FMS 116T looked like a very nice design, almost identical to the Optimus cartridge mounted stoves but made from titanium and weighing only 48g. I didn't think I'd have a chance to get one but as it happens GoSystem are now selling what appears to be the same stove under the name Fly Ti, they also have a folding head version, the Scion which looks identical to the FMS 109 (again similar to the Optimus folding stove) but unlike the FMS 116T it isn't made using titanium and weighs 90g (It appears that some Fire Maple stoves are also available branded as Vango, see here)



I ordered the Fly ti from AOS Banbury and it arrived today, cost including postage was £30.18. It came nicely packed in a stiff card box but doesn't come with a carrying pouch/case, that doesn't bother me anyway. The stove weighs 47g on my digital scales and is very well finished.



The burner head is quite large and with the pot supports folded out should provide a stable platform for larger diameter pots than my usual Mity mug size pots. The head diameter means that it isn't quite as compact as my C-3 Mini stove but theres plenty of room for both stove and a 100 size gas cartridge in a Mity mug with enough room for a few extra items.







Of course the important thing is performance but I need to point out that I didn't have a new 100 cartridge to test the stove. The best cartridge I had weighed 139g which means there was only 39g gas left, in other words it's only about 1/3rd full and in my experience performance drops off rapidly once the cartridge is less than half full. With that in mind I set the stove up outside and gave it a try, the figures are as follows,



Ambient Temp - 15°C light breeze
Water Temp - 16.2 Deg°C
Cartridge Weight Start - 139g
Boil Time 99 °c - 4.18 mins
Cartridge Weight End - 128g

I was using a basic foil windshield so in short it used 11g of gas and took 4 mins 18 secs to bring 500ml to 99°c which isn't exactly a stellar performance. Obviously I'll need to try it again with a new cartridge to be able to compare it directly with my C-3 Mini stove but I suspect that it may perform better with a wider pot.

In the end my C-3 stove cost around £12, weighs 89g with the pot supports cut down and the piezo igniter removed, is slightly more compact and the performance is about the same as most other cartridge mounted stoves. It really comes down to how important the 40g weight saving is and of course how it performs on a full cartridge although I suspect it won't perform any better than the C-3 anyway.

Home Built Stoves from Japan

I've just had a comment from a Stove builder in Japan and I've been looking at his Youtube page. There's lots of interesting stuff including home made gas stoves. Well worth a look.

Video Clips

http://www.youtube.com/user/dutro76#play/uploads

Homepage

homepage1.nifty.com

More on Windshields

I've spent most of this week working on windshields after my experiments with 2 x layer foil. I've decided that the cone type suits me best and thats what I'd been working on. Ideally the vents would go all the way around the cone but while that may provide the best performance when indoors the vents reduce the cones effectiveness as a windshield when outdoors. I usually try to bias the vents to one side/half of a windshield but even doing so the performance of the stove is badly affected by stiff breezes.



Cone with Vents biased towards the front



Rear of Cone

As I use a 550ml pot rather than the stainless steel pot I used in the previous tests I wanted to optimise performance with my actual cooking set-up.

In addition to the 550ml pot I carry a 375ml mug so I started testing using 350ml water/15ml meths. Using the cone on it's own indoors I managed a boil in 5.54 mins. In an attempt to come up with a repeatable method of simulating a breeze I used a 3 speed pedestal fan set up 1.5 metres from the stove. I checked the windspeed using a cheap anemometer held about 6 inches from the fan, speed 2 on the fan came up at about 5mph, speed 3 at about 8. I'm not sure how this relates to windspeed outdoors but at least it's repeatable.

Trying the cone set-up with the fan set at speed three the fuel ran out prior to reaching a boil, the maximum temperature was about 92 deg. I noticed that even with the vents towards the front of the cone the flame was being blown around too much. I tried the same set up again but with a 2x layer foil windshield around the cone. With the fan set to speed 2 (5mph approx) it actually boiled slightly quicker at 5.49 mins than the cone on it's own in still conditions (fan off) and at speed 3 (8 mph approx) was less than 1 minute slower at 6.38 mins.

I think that makes a secondary windshield worth carrying. The results are laid out below together with a video clip.

I've also included a pic of my cooking set-up. The main pot is a Tibetan titanium 550ml pot which comes with a lid and a Tibetan titanium 375ml mug. The Cone is made to suit my EK meths burner and 550ml pot, the wire mesh potstand allows me to use the smaller mug with the cone. The Plastic container holds a long spoon, teaspoon, cone, foil secondary shield, lighter and home made permanent match together with a measuring cup and the burner.



Cooking Gear unpacked/packed



Time/Temperature Table



Graph Illustrating the Above

Cyclone S-11 Remote Stove Modified

I started to make a few modification to the Cyclone to make it fit my pot better with a 100g Cartridge. It just about held the Coleman 100g cartridge but I normally use the slightly taller Primus 100g cartridges.

I wanted to trim the pot supports back a bit so that the stove sat a bit lower when stored in the pot and to make the burner head smaller in diameter. Ideally the diameter of the stove when folded would be the same diameter as a 225g gas cartridge so that it would fit pots sized to fit the bigger cartridges e.g 1.0L Eta Express Pot. Unfortunately the legs would need sorted as folded they're still too wide.

I cut the supports off in line with the leg pivot point and filed them down which was easy enough but still didn't allow me to get the Primus 100g cart in. What I then did was cut the pot supports away on the inside so the the cartridge would sit right down on the burner shroud. I can now get the stove with the cartridge nested on the burner into the Snow Peak pot.





I tried to file the legs down a bit adjacent to the pivot screw(there's a wee hump that sits out past the pot support when the legs are folded) but it wasn't enough to make a difference so I'll have to make 3 new legs if I want to further reduce the diameter.

I decided to remove the Piezo igniter as I always have a lighter and carry a Steel as back-up, I also removed the rubber foot pads and in a final desperate attempt to get the weight down I cut the regulator knob down to half the original length and countersunk drilled the end. Sad ;-)



Size wise the stove is fine but I'd still like to get it to fit an Eta Express sized pot and see if I can reduce the weight a bit more. I think if I had 3 Alpkit type Titanium V pegs I could sort something out but it would add to the cost significantly for very little actual benefit. I have a few spare Alloy V's though and they might fit the bill.

As it stands the stove is compact enough for the pot I had intended using and the weight is now down to 216g



Edit I had to try the alloy V pegs to see it I could make a set of legs, managed ok and it now fits the EtaExpress 1.0l pot but only just. The weight is now 198g without the Piezo Igniter.

New Stove, Cyclone S-11 Remote Cartridge.

I was looking for a stove for winter use and wanted to get a remote cartridge type so that I could use a wrap around windshield, possibly even a cone type, I also wanted a stove that had a pre-heat tube. The pot I intend to use it with is the larger of the 2 pots that make up the Snow Peak Compact Cookset. I had a look at what was available and looked at the Gelert Inferno, the MSR Windpro and the Optimus Stella. The Gelert has a pre-heater but is heavy at around 340g but reasonably priced at £20 (Winwood Outdoor), the Optimus is light at 250g and compact due to the folding burner head but doesn't have a pre-heater and is pretty expensive at £65 (Webtogs) and the MSR weighs 193g which is very light, has a pre-heater and costs £54 from Outdoorkit co uk.

I initially considered the Optimus but ruled it out when I saw the MSR but then I found the 'Cyclone' on ebay. With a claimed weight of 242g, a pre-heater and Piezo igniter and costing £12.95 including shipping I had to try it. It's an unusual burner design, I haven't seen anything like it on any other stove but it meant that it wasn't very compact. With a diameter of 125mm folded (due to the fixed pot supports) it was going to be a tight fit in the Snow Peak pot and wasn't going to leave room for even a 100g cartridge but I figured I could trim the supports back a bit.



The stove arrived today, shipping from Hong Kong took 10 days from purchase. The Stove comes with a heavy cordura type zipped case which weighs 38g, the stove itself I'm pleased to say was 239g just under the advertised weight. The burner is brass, the body a casting of some type and the legs probably stainless steel with push in rubber foot pads. There's a piezo igniter which works fine. The finish is fine with just a little flashing on the the body where the legs attach.

The downsides so far are that it isn't very compact due to the shape of the burner. It won't fit a Primus EtaExpress pot as the diameter is too great, it will fit the pot that I intended to use it with but there isn't room for the gas cartridge.



I can trim back the pot supports though and that should allow me to at least get a Coleman 100g cart into the pot together with the stove (Coleman 100g cartridges are flatter than Primus 100g cartridges) and maybe even a Primus 100g cart. Trimming back the pot support still won't allow it to fit the Primus EtaExpress 1.0L pot due to the shape of the legs when folded.







It's very stable when set up and capable of taking any pot likely to be placed on it, I had 33kg of training weights on it and it didn't budge!!

The proof of the pudding's in the eating so I gave it a quick test in the garage using the Snow Peak pot but with no windshield.

500ml tap water @ 16.6 deg c to 99.0 deg C = 2.39 mins x 10g gas.

I gave it a 2nd run turned right down, same pot etc = 99.0 deg C = 4.27 mins x 7g gas.

So seems like a good enough stove for the money (£12.95 inc shipping), ripe for modification too, the legs and fixing screws weigh 39g and could probably be replaced with something lighter, the pot supports can easily be trimmed back to make it more compact and the Piezo which weighs 12g can be removed. I have an idea for lighter legs/pot supports that would allow me to remove the integral pot supports completely which would reduce the weight and make the stove more compact.

Woodstove in Action.

I thought I'd post this to illustrate how little fuel is required to bring 500ml of water to a rolling boil. The stove is the Einzel Kocher EK-750 UL and came about thanks to a request from a guy in Sweden for a lighter potstand than the standard wire mesh type. I've made a lighter grate for this one as it's the one I use myself, trail weight including potstand and foil ash tray is 79g. The windshield is made from a double layer of kitchen foil and weighs 16g.

It took 18 mins from setting up to reach a rolling boil so the video is in 2 parts.

Part 1



Part 2

Esbit?

I was ordering some stuff from Germany a while back and had added a 20 pack of 14g Esbit solid fuel tablets to try. I carried some on my April Cairngorms trip as a back up but I only used them once simply to make a cuppa and they seemed to work fine although I didn't investigate any further. I'd seen the Tibetan Titanium branded Esbit burners online and recently added one to an order I'd placed with Ultralight Outdoor Gear, they cost £6.98 and shipping is free.

Mine weighs about 11g which is pretty light as it incorporates a pot stand and the Esbit tablets weigh 14g each packed which makes for a very light set-up. The question was how well they would perform and how many would I need to use to heat 500ml of water.

I've started using a Cone style windshield/pot stand but decided to try a basic foil windshield as the burner itself supports a mug/pot. The windshield was pretty short to be honest as I was using a 750ml Mitymug and the results weren't all that spectacular. The 14g tablet burned for around 18 mins but I couldn't get the temperature above 96 deg C. Obviously that's close enough to boiling for most purposes but I wanted to try again with the Cone style windshield. This was much better, it took around 11 mins to reach 99 deg C but more importantly there was still about 1/4 of the Esbit tablet left.

I would rarely need to boil 500ml at a time, in fact my new pot only holds 500ml so it it looks like a viable alternative to meths. There are pro's and con's though, some that I've though of are listed below but there are sure to be things I've overlooked.


Meths

Pro's, Reasonably Clean, Easy To Meter, Reasonably Efficient, Stove is Light, Little or no smell, I can use mine in the porch with doors closed.

Con's, Fuel needs a suitable container

Esbit

Pros, Lighter than my Meths Set-up, Easy to store/carry, May not need a burner as you could prop the mug on some stones and use a flat stone as a base for the tablet.

Con's, Acrid Smell, I wouldn't want to use it in the porch, Leaves Residue on the pot.


I'd be tempted to use it in preference to Meths but for me it's important to be able to use my stove under cover if the weather is bad. I could carry a few Esbit tablets as back-up or looking at it another way I could consider the esbit set-up as the main stove and carry the meths burner and a small amount of fuel in case I needed to cook under cover.

Weight Esbit Set-Up

Burner - 11g
Fuel - 140g (10 x 14g tablets sufficient to boil approx 5.0L water)
Tibetan ti 550ml Pot - 88g
Cone - 27g

Total - 266g

Weight Meths Set-Up

Burner (inc Measure) - 23g
Fuel (inc Bottle)- 224g (sufficient to boil approx 5.0L water)
Tibetan ti 550ml Pot - 88g
Cone - 27g

Total - 362g

For comparison my gas set up weighs,

C-3 Mini Stove (same as Markill Peak Ignition/Gelert Blaze) - 89g
Fuel - 100 Cartridge - 194g (sufficient to boil approx 5.0L water)
Tibetan ti 550ml Pot - 88g
Windshield - 40g

Total - 401g

I haven't looked at my gas set-up recently but I must admit that when I totaled the weights it surprised me how close the gas set-up is, a lighter windshield or stove would make the difference negligible.





There's been a real upsurge in interest regarding solid fuel, Esbit in particular this week, in fact 3 other people have posted on the subject. In the interests of spreading the information I'm adding links to the other posts.

Darren at 'Whitespider1066'

Baz at 'Baz's Backpacking Blog'

Phil at 'Phil Turner'

Tent Pegs & Minimalist Cooksets

Left to right,Pencil (not a tent peg) Vango Y Peg, Camcleat Y Peg, Vargo Nail, Phoenix Phreeranger Alloy Channel (Bulldog Brand IIRC) Terra Nova Laser ti Wire Skewer.



I got my Vargo Nails and ZeRo+ guyline today from team io, top service, they only got the order yesterday as I ordered it really late on Monday night. I bought 4 which together with 4 Camcleat pegs and the standard Laser ti wires should hopefully cover most bases. The ZeRo+ guyline is strange stuff, it's almost wiry, if you coil it it stays coiled. At 1.5mm it's even thinner than the Laser guys but it also comes in 1mm!! must look like thread. The nails look really tough but I've so far resisted the temptation to hammer them into a piece of wood. I'll have to wait until I finish my shift before trying the Laser with the new/extra guys. I also need to make a groundsheet protector from a thick poly bag just to finalise the shape and in case the Coated Ripstop I ordered from Point North doesn't arrive on time.

ZeRo+ Dyneema, 1.5mm 195kg b/load

On a slightly different note, I was messing around again with meths burners and I might just have a really light set-up that should work for me. I reckon I can easily get away with about 300ml of water for a main meal which at present is basically a Bacheleors 'Cup Pasta' with some Mrs Matheson's Sausage added (No dehydrator yet) I have a Tibetan ti 450 mug and a poly mug with the handle cut off which fits into the ti mug or onto the base of my Aquagear bottle. My burner is simply the Tealight style burner and 4 section welded ire pot stand that comes with the EK Kombi. It together with a 0.1mm foil windshield fit into a small plastic food container which in turn fits the 450 mug. The whole set weighs 60g, less if I made a mini stuff sack for the burner set rather than the plastic container and takes up virtually no space. I've already tried using it in the Laser porch but with the Mitymug and it worked fine. It's pretty stable and if need be I can put a tent peg through the eyelet in the burner base plate. The burner has a magnet on the base so it doesn't get tipped easily and as i demonstrated in the EK Kombi vid isn't prone to spillage even when lifted and tilted from side to side. Depending on the ambient temp and how well sheltered it is 20ml of meths will heat 500ml until it's too warm to drink even if it isn't strictly speaking a rolling boil. A few more trials need to be done at the weekend.