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BRS-3000T stove Spotlite Review
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Home › Forums › Campfire › Editor’s Roundtable › BRS-3000T stove Spotlite Review
- This topic has 182 replies, 55 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 11 months ago by Hikin’ Jim.
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Feb 18, 2015 at 8:28 pm #1325908
Companion forum thread to:
Feb 19, 2015 at 3:42 am #2175639any hints for search terms on ebay? I'm really struggling to find it…
Feb 19, 2015 at 5:02 am #2175641A search for "brs stove" will turn it up, along with some of their other products.
I like the 9800W gasoline stove myself. What could possibly go wrong?
Feb 19, 2015 at 7:02 am #2175660Check Gear Deals
Feb 19, 2015 at 7:05 am #2175662This stove just arrived to my place last week. I'll be taking it out this weekend for some field use. I've tried a bunch of these little canister stoves (not nearly as many as Roger or Hikin' Jim!) and almost all have an annoyance that finds me passing them on to friends or selling them.
The one I keep coming back to is the 116T. That's been my standard and I love the wide burner and pot supports. I wanted to like the 300T, but found the burner too focused and the stove stood just as high as the 116T.
One of the things I really like about the 3000 is it's shorter. This increases stability with my tall skinny pot and lets me have a slightly shorter (and lighter) windscreen. Pot supports are great. Nice long valve handle. This really does seem like an ideal little sit-on-top.
We're certainly in the realm of diminishing returns on the weight of these things. Still, it's hard to believe it's HALF the weight of the 116T – which is HALF the weight of the Snowpeak. Crazy how small and light these have become!!
Thanks for the review, Roger!
Feb 19, 2015 at 7:10 am #2175664Roger, so you are saying the BRS-3000T stove is good and seems safe? Or at least the one you received?
I only ask because in this thread, there is a link to where some of BRS's stoves were banned in the EU due to product safety issues and you say "I would be extremely cautious about buying any BRS stove."
Feb 19, 2015 at 9:32 am #2175713Hi All-
I've had one of these stoves for a couple of months now, have done some testing, and have made a few mods.
Observations:
1) It has a broad range of flame control from low simmer to fireball, all with a nice blue-colored flame.
2) Due to size and shape of the burner and flame, at high heat the flame hits the bottom of pots and "quenches" as Roger said. When the flame hits the bottom of the pot, it spreads to a pretty big diameter, such that I will not use it with a Jetboil Sol Ti pot because the flame engulfs the heat-exchanger fins at medium heat and above.
3) The burner assembly was glued onto the valve assembly on my stove with something like loctite. You have to break the bond in order to access the jet for service.
4) I'm happy enough with the stove, especially after the mods below, to plan to use this as my primary winter snow melting stove with a 1L Olicamp Heat Exchanger pot. The stove + pot weighs only 8.5 oz (the same as a Jetboil Sol Ti stove+burner). (Before anyone points out the problems with a sit-on-top canister stove in the cold, rest assured that I've used this setup successfully down to -10F with proper techniques — I no longer carry an inverted canister stove for snow melting.) [Caution: "proper techniques" here is critical — don't attempt to use this type of stove in such cold weather otherwise.]
5) The stove is so light that instead of carrying a jet cleaning wire and spare O-rings, I ordered a second one just to keep in my pack as a spare for "mission-critical" use (e.g. Winter snow melting use with no other canister stoves in the group).
6) At "medium" heat, stove efficiency with the 1L HE pot is equivalent to the best stove I had previously tested (Jetboil Sol Ti) within the margin of error of my testing .
Modifications:
1) I ground down the pot supports slightly to reduce their diameter so that they would fit cleanly inside the heat exchanger fins on a 1L Olicamp pot. This does make the stove even less stable than stock, but I don't plan to use it on large-diameter pots anyway.
2) I installed a tiny wad of cotton as a filter inside the jet, as the stove came without any kind of filter. (This increased my piece of mind against clogging for winter/snowmelting use.)
3) I removed the pin holding the valve in place and replaced it with a short length of stainless steel wire that allows me to inspect and service the valve and internal O-ring if needed.
4) I broke loose the glue bond between the burner and valve assemblies to allow access to the jet for maintenance.
Cheers,
Mike
Feb 19, 2015 at 10:40 am #2175741On Ebay it's over $20, $14.90 here:
Feb 19, 2015 at 11:56 am #2175770Thank you Roger for the interesting writeup. Hard to believe how light and cheap these stoves are getting. Knowing what you know about the BRS-3000T quality, including the threads, the pin, the loctite, the CO, etc. – do you see any reason to use this over the FMS-300T Hornet you've recommended? I know this is BPL, but are all the compromises worth it for just a 21g (.74 oz) weight savings? Would you use it over your 300T?
Feb 19, 2015 at 2:11 pm #2175794> so you are saying the BRS-3000T stove is good and seems safe?
> some of BRS's stoves were banned in the EU due to product safety issuesThat's the fun part of buying from China. When they do it right, things are good. When someone in China who does not know what he is doing … not so good. In this case I think the BRS-3000T stove is newer than the the banned ones and they have maybe learnt their lesson.
It also sometimes happens that the WESTERN customer demands a cheaper product, so the Chinese make it cheaper. You can guess what happens there.
So I decided to test one of these BRS-3000T stoves. Apart from the aluminium thread issue it is well made and works fine. But they are not the only brand to use anodised aluminium threads. You will have to watch what you do to the thread, but at the price of the stove …
Cheers
Feb 19, 2015 at 2:16 pm #2175796> On Ebay it's over $20, $14.90 here:
> http://www.gearbest.com/camping/pp_116350.htmlIt's Chinese New Year right now, and GearBest are all on holiday. But when they return (next week) I believe they may be going to offer a discount coupon for BPL readers.
Yeah – compared to what the Western companies were charging for stoves a few years ago … roll on China! Just watch out for the quality. Ahem – BPL will try to help here.
Cheers
Feb 19, 2015 at 2:19 pm #2175797Hi EJ
FMS-116T vs FMS-300T vs BRS-3000T …
Any of them. Yes, they are all in my to-go pot.
Just remember the BRS-3000T has an aluminium thread and treat it gently.Cheers
PS: the Snow Peak GST-100 and the Vargo variant are still in that pot as well.Feb 19, 2015 at 2:24 pm #2175803Roger, do the FMS stoves use a brass insert to screw onto the canister, or are they aluminum as well? (The valve bodies appear to be Al…)
Thanks,
-Mike
Feb 19, 2015 at 6:05 pm #2175880FMS-116T and FMS-300T both have BRASS threads.
Cheers
Feb 20, 2015 at 12:19 pm #2176098"It's Chinese New Year right now, and GearBest are all on holiday. But when they return (next week) I believe they may be going to offer a discount coupon for BPL readers."
Rats…I already ordered one… ;-(
Feb 23, 2015 at 3:47 pm #2177142Any word on the coupon? :)
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:27 am #2177308> Any word on the coupon? :)
The 'word' should appear here.
I guess they are still snowed after the Chinese New Year celebrations. Big event.Cheers
Feb 24, 2015 at 7:39 am #2177356The stove is only $14.90 at GearBest right now (with free shipping). How much cheaper could a stove get? I went ahead and ordered one
Feb 24, 2015 at 11:05 am #2177446They advertised them in Gear Deals for $11.50 about a month ago, so about $3.00 less. Either price is a terrific deal and will make great gifts for friends. Think I paid $20 a few months ago.
Ryan
Feb 24, 2015 at 11:40 am #2177460I just used the coupon code "BRS3000TCM" an hour ago from an earlier thread and it still works. Knocks it down to 11 bucks with free shipping at GearBest.
Excited to give it a whirl.
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:29 pm #2177492Hi Bryan
> just used the coupon code "BRS3000TCM" an hour ago from an earlier thread and it still works.
Oh well, then we have a functioning coupon code.The price (for a fully functional stove) seems a far cry from what some Western companies were charging a few years ago. Must have been some good profit margins there.
Cheers
Feb 25, 2015 at 9:38 pm #2177999I was ready to purchase a FMS-300T, but after reading Rogers review, I decided to buy two of the BRS-3000T stoves.
With the coupon, two stoves for $23.00 shipped is hard to pass up.
Mrs. "You have enough stoves" will not be impressed though….re: valve pin
I have a Fire Maple FMS-105 remote canister stove which seems to have a slightly longer valve pin.
I always get a spray of fuel over my finger tips when I use that with an MSR canister.
I haven't tried that stove with a North 49 (World Famous Canada brand) canister I have to see if it also happens with that one.
It's not an issue with either my Snow Peak GS-100 or Optimus Vega stoves.Feb 26, 2015 at 1:07 am #2178014> Fire Maple FMS-105 remote canister stove which seems to have a slightly longer valve pin.
You could try taking off 0.5 mm a time with a file or a Dremel. Just go very slow – you can shorten a pin but you cannot lengthen it.Cheers
Feb 26, 2015 at 5:03 am #2178030Can't seem to find it on gearbest.com anymore, does someone have a link?
Feb 26, 2015 at 5:33 am #2178036 -
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