BRS-3000T stove Spotlite Review

[James Marco]

Bob is correct. It looks like you are wasting a lot of heat. Turn it down.
Typically 5g is pretty good for most stoves. Only a few can hit 4gm. The Caffin stove got about 4.5gm for ten runs. The SVEA got about 4.8gm for 20 runs. The typical "topper stoves" got 5.2gm for 5 runs (Coleman,Pocket Rocket.) Jetboil got about 4.2gm for 5 runs.

Yup, keep the flame about a half inch from the edge of the pot.

[DGoggins]

Ok, so what mug has a wide pot base but is still in the 550-600mL range?

Ideally it would nest a 100g gas canister and still be able to fit a folded up brs-3000t and lighter in it.

I have a 1.3L evernew short/wide pot….I had a .9L….maybe I should have kept it, but I do see evernew makes a .6L pot (Model ECA251).

I have 2 brs-3000t in the mail right now (couldn't pass them up at the price of $11 each), and I could try the brs-3000t with my 1.3L evernew that I use in a caldera cone setup, but I'm worried that using it with the canister stove would create a burn pattern on the pot since its such a localized heat source?

[James Marco]

Anything around 5-6" is good. I think the 1.3L is around 5.5". Larger and it it can dissipate heat almost as much as it absorbs heat.

Heat absorption/dissipation both happen except when all elements are the same temp. Obviously you are heating water, so dissipation of the heat need to be balanced with absorption. Something we have not much explored here at BPL. But, heating with a cozy and lid is much easier than heating without.

Dissipation is also related to surface area. It is easy to think that a small soda can has less surface area than a large two liter pot. So, for smaller pots, it becomes less important. But, heat slips by and is wasted. A Wide Pot base means that you will also collect heat better from the flame. But, too wide will simply dissipate as much as you gain. Soo, optimal size depends on ambient temp, surface area, what heat you use, how the bottom is shaped, and the conductance of the metal. For example: Ti does not let heat escape easily, but, it also does not absorb it easily.

Generally, a pot can be insulated (like a JeatBoil) up to about a half to three quarters of an inch (about 1-2cm) above the bottom. JetBoils do not produce a LOT of heat, around 5000BTU or so, so they do not melt the foam. For comparison, my SVEA produces about 4500BTU, a typical topper will produce about 8000-11000BTU. An alky stove will produce around 2500BTU. Esbit produces about 1800BTU.

Generally, with those stoves that can be adjusted, a simmer of about 1/3 or so is about best for fuel consumtion. There are exceptions. For example: JetBoil likes at least 3/4 heat so turning it down saves very little.

[Bob Moulder]

Ok, so what mug has a wide pot base but is still in the 550-600mL range?

The Evernew .6L is about 5.25" wide, but I don't know if this is the widest. Pretty good though.

edit: TD specs — "Dimensions: 12.4cm x 5.2cm (4.88 x 2.05 inches)"

[Tim Zen]

Shipped 06 April 2015.
Arrived 14 May 2015.

Stove number 2:
Shipped 20 April — Arrived 15 May. Go figure.

It is everything everyone says.
Or as someone on a quasi-famous podcast says "No part of a lie".

[Stephen Parks]

Surely this isn't novel, but I was going to make a small wrench to be able to remove the jet in the field for cleaning, and I thought I could make one of the pot supports into a wrench so it could never get lost.

I stored a couple of pieces of brass wire inside the cavity of the jet. I also found that I could remove the wire valve handle and use that to press out the safety pin on the valve.

[todd]

Cool Stephen!

Well if that's not novel then I don't know what is!!!

I'd love a how-to on this and cleaning/repair if you or others could share your expertise.

How did you cut away the ti for the "wrench"?

[Ryan Smith]

That's really cool, Stephen.

Ryan

[Ken Thompson]

That's really cool, Stephen.

+1

[Stephen Parks]

Thanks, guys. I first laid out a hex shape with tape on the support (using the jet as a guide), removed most of the material using a Dremel with a carbide burr, and then cleaned up the corners with a square needle file. The Ti actually cut quite easily, and I cut out more material than I wanted to and got one of the angles off by many degrees, but it works fine.

I think the only thing lacking for a field service kit is a spare o-ring, which may have to be stored separately.

[Frank T]

And now the stove weighs that much less.

[Roger Caffin]

OK, I'll pay that one as REALLY ingenious! Congratulations.

Cheers

[d k]

"I'd love a how-to on this and cleaning/repair"

+1

[Stephen Parks]

"I'd love a how-to on this and cleaning/repair"

I could do that. I have another one on order, and if it ever arrives…

[Roger Caffin]

> "I'd love a how-to on this and cleaning/repair"
Read our existing article on stove maintenance – it's all there already.

Cheers

[Travis W]

"I'd love a how-to on this and cleaning/repair"

+2

I'll keep an eye out for your tutorial specific to this stove.

[Tom D.]

Just a heads up, I ordered one today from Gearbest and the code for the $10.99 price with free shipping still works.

[Stephen Parks]

I was in agreement with Roger that you should just refer to stove maintenance article that he mentions a few posts up since the source is much more authoritative than myself, but then I received and opened up my second BRS-3000T. While my first one was acceptably well made, the second one was what you might think of as stereotypical "low cost country" junk. I'm posting this as a reference in case you receive a bad one as well. I wouldn't take one of these out into the field without fully disassembling it first to determine its quality.

First, mount the stove in a vise as shown (or hold it with vise-grips) and unscrew the burner section by inserting a close-fitting rod (screwdriver, nail, etc.) through the air intake holes. A 5/32" or 4mm drill bit is a good fit.

So that it will be easy to unscrew this joint later, remove all (or most) of the thread locking compound left in both parts of the threaded connection that you just unscrewed.

Now unscrew the jet using a 6mm wrench or socket (1/4" might work as well, but it felt a little loose and I would be worried about rounding off the hex, as this jet was very tight).

The first bad sign – a big metal chip inside the jet.

Now drive out the safety pin holding the valve needle from the top side as shown using a punch or small nail.

Unscrew the needle all of the way out of the valve body. Here's where it gets really nasty. I could tell by the feel of it that something was wrong.

I can't know if some of that debris was in the sealing section before I removed the needle or if I just collected it on the way out, but some of this was almost certainly on its way to causing a valve failure in the future.

Note that the black curls in the picture above are part of the o-rings that were sheared off.

Typical "never replace tooling unless it breaks off" machining quality. The threads are terrible. The really big problem is that the tap was driven in so far that it gouged the lead-in to the seal bore, pretty much guaranteeing seal damage, even with all the debris cleaned out.

I've attempted to smooth out the entry to the seal bore using an abrasive rubber deburr tip. This would typically go into a Dremel but I wanted to go slow so I chucked it into a drill. I was lucky to have one of these that was the perfect size (just smaller than the diameter of the threads, but large enough that it wouldn't go into the seal bore), but they are easily dressed to size with a stone if the size isn't right. The silvery ring on the tip shows where it is making contact with the seal bore entry. I couldn't get a usable picture of the seal bore.

The bore itself isn't the smoothest either, but I think it will be good enough to seal properly if I can get o-rings to go in without cutting. Next step is to order replacement o-rings and see if the deburring was effective. (Install new o-rings on needle, screw into body, remove, inspect, repeat until satisfied.)

Here's a parting photo of the stove fully broken down. I don't think there is any need for you to remove the canister seal o-ring.

-Stephen

[Tim Zen]

Stephen — Wow what a procedure! Thank you. I figured these things are disposable at the price, so I bought two.

[Roger Caffin]

> While my first one was acceptably well made, the second one was what you might think
> of as stereotypical "low cost country" junk. I'm posting this as a reference in case
> you receive a bad one as well. I wouldn't take one of these out into the field
> without fully disassembling it first to determine its quality.
Sheesh!
That's BAD!

For the record, the first one I examined was made reasonably well.
I bought 4 more and stripped them down yesterday, and they were not 'bad' either, but not as good as the first one. Points I noticed yesterday:

The burner is thread-locked onto the body. This is pretty silly, but it does come off as Stephen showed. Yes, clean out the remains of the thread-lock from both parts and it is good to go.

The valve locking pin came out quite easily with a 1.5 mm punch in a drill press.

The valves came out easily in 3 cases out of 4. The 4th need a bit of jiggling to overcome a burr at the edge of the locking pin hole. No damage was seen to any of the O-rings in my stoves.

I do not know what the O-ring material is. Ideally it should be Viton, which is good to about 200 C, but it might be only Nitrile (NBR). Nitrile is fine to 120 C, which is hot but conceivably a stove could get that hot. The canister might be a bit too hot at that stage of course.

The needle valve threads were fine on all of my stoves. The mess seen in Stephen's stove is appalling. I would be enquiring about a free replacement myself.

The jet on the first stove came out smoothly with a 6 mm spanner. The jets on the 4 subsequent stoves were a slightly different story. All were under-size 9to a 6 mm spanner) and difficult to extract. Rounding of the corners was a serious risk. Three of the 4 did come out when I used a tool-makers clamp as a spanner with really high compression (to avoid any slip). The 4th jet would not come out until I machined (lathe) some of the surrounds away, in order to get a better grip on the jet.

The problem with the later jets seems to be that the threading has been done very roughly on the jet: it is incomplete. Possibly they changed the die they were using for one with a different entry shape. The threading on the stove body was fine. The mfr seems to have compensated for jet thread problem by using a bit of force when driving the jet into the jet socket – and I use the word 'driving' deliberately. The end result is that the jet seals to the body, but it can be very hard to extract.

The funny thing is that the burner head and the needle valve on my units, and I suspect also on Stephen's units, were still of reasonably good quality. Are different parts made in different factories?

I cannot argue with Stephen's assessment that the quality has deteriorated. Very sad. The stove remains a very neat and effective little upright unit as delivered (and very cheap), but you might have to treat later models as throw-away items. That works, but I don't like the idea.

Cheers

[Nick Gatel]

I'm not surprised. It's a $15 stove from China. We don't really know who makes them, right? Sounds like people might be risking their lives to save a few bucks.

I think I posted a similar response a while back about a El Cheapo no-name brand.

[Tom D.]

I ordered 2 of these. One from Ebay 2 weeks ago for roughly $15.00 shipped, the other from Gearbest for $10.99 shipped. I'll strip both down when I get them, thanks for the write up.

Those that have multiple stoves, especially from different vendors, did they all come in the same type packaging?

[Gary Dunckel]

Now you've got me a bit scared. One of the first two that I bought seemed to work just fine, after burning through two 4-ounce canisters. So I bought more as the prices kept dropping, to pass on to friends at my cost. And just before Stephen's excellent post, I bought 4 more to satisfy the local demand. Now I guess I'll have to be prepared to do some refunds if these later batches are crappy.

If anyone has some other negative experiences with these stoves, please post about it here. I'm feeling bad for Josh Leavitt now, as he must have invested heavily in this stove. Time will tell whether we were smart, or if we were suckers.

[Adam Kilpatrick]

Hmmm. This is all enough to make me want to forget about using my two. I went to try one the other night but couldn't find anything to light it handy at home (I know, right?). Now I'm thinking I'll just trash them and get something heavier instead. Its not worth an ounce to me.

[Stephen Parks]

The unique thing about this stove is that the fundamental design is solid and it isn't just a cheap copy of a brand name stove. There isn't a more expensive option available that is as light and compact.

I should have replacement o-rings tomorrow, so I will probably have the stove back together and tested this weekend.

[Author]

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