Stove choices

Thanks Rod, I was confusing the Simmerlite with the Whisperlite (maybe because that's what Brad was comparing???).

>Now we start to come into decisions based on efficiency, cost, and convenience. (And safety, if we want to go there).

And soot! Not to mention that with the Simmerlite there are no "not quite empty" canisters to dispose of. I also imagine the weight advantage of the fuel bottle increases with larger volumes, i.e. I'm guessing that a larger white gas bottle will weigh less than two empty canisters?

Alison. I changed my priming fuel from 1g to 2g on weighing it again. (Twice as much!!)

I happen to like Roger's "just top up the bottle option", and also thought about the environmental issues, but the WG has to come in a container too.

I thought the same way as you about using a larger bottle to save weight, but really there's not much in it. Less than 30g, I'm pretty sure, and using two small bottles makes for easier pumping, makes it less likely to lose all your fuel if you spring a leak, and share the weight.

Using a larger BP cylinder on the other hand, seems to save more weight, as a proportion of fuel to container.

Alison,

Have you ever seen one of these? Or know of the company.

http://www.dwights.co.nz/cooking_lighting.htm

I can't seem to find this anywhere else. It looks like an interesting alternative to the Bruton, using the lighter, cheaper canisters.

Kovea also appear to make an adaptor and a stove that use these.

Hi Rod

There's a joke here, unknown to most. Quite apart from the excellent and fairly cheap Kovea canisters, it is Kovea who makes many of the 'brand' name stoves – like MSR, some Snow Peak, and many others.

Some of the Kovea stoves have been reviewed in the CO series of articles. They are not UL, but are reliable and good performers.

Cheers

Hey gang-

For the record, I'm not a close-minded white-gas-only nut! Just trying to crunch numbers as objectively as possible.

I did start out comparing with the WhisperLite, because that's what the OP already owns. Rod suggested the SimmerLite later because of the lighter weight–and then intrigued me with the 2g prime!

For weight savings with larger fuel bottles, it depends on how much fuel you need to bring…
11oz bottle: ~90g
22oz bottle: ~135g
33oz bottle: ~195g
8oz isopro can: ~140g

If you needed 8 to 16oz of can. fuel, you'd have ~280g in empty can weight. Using a 22oz liquid fuel bottle for equivalent fuel would weigh 135g–105g lighter just in container weight.

Of course, the rules all change when you have a custom stove! I dunno. The remote canister I'm working on I think will come in around 5 ounces versus 8.5 ounces for a stock SimmerLite… With the calc in the above paragraph, that 105g (3.7oz) in container would bring weights about even. Which brings us back to fuel efficiency. And I've got nothin' on that! With all the experience and data Roger and everyone else has on this site, it sounds like remote canisters will still end up the most fuel efficient and lightest. Interesting intellectual exercise, though. I'm enough of a geek that I think I'll buy both a SimmerLite and Windpro, sacrifice my back and run them side-by-side through some trips this winter. Why not!?

Cheers-

>Have you ever seen one of these? Or know of the company.

http://www.dwights.co.nz/cooking_lighting.htm

Yup. They are everywhere, and usually the cheapest butane stoves available. Good quality too. As Roger points out, Kovea make a lot of the 'branded' stoves on the market, and I don't understand why they don't market them more widely. Their canisters are also the cheapest around. I don't have the numbers available just now, but there is often a difference in the weight of empty canisters between brands.

Had a major "whoa!" moment a month or two ago. Was looking at the Snowpeak Delta pod as an interesting stove (I have a major stove fascination), retails $80. Found same stove, some other Kovea brand, $25-30, online.

Sorry Alison,

That was very non specific of me. What I MEANT to point to was the COBRA stove adaptor. This is a similar concept to the Brunton, but allows you to use the longer, lighter, cheaper aerosol type cylinders.

It appears to be moot however, since I received a reply from Dwights saying that they sold the last one on the weekend, and that the manufacturer is no longer making them.

Kovea also mention on their website that they have an adaptor for these cylinders available(I think at the bottom of the Moonwalker page), but I can't find it listed. A jigger like this would appear to save weight, and money, since I can buy these cylinders for about a third the price of the standard ones.

Hi Rod

> COBRA stove adaptor.
Most of the fly-spray canisters only hold butane, NOT the much better butane/propane mix. Some of them have internal feed pipes like on the Powermax canisters, which makes life interesting. However, they would be strictly for warm weather only. Originally they were made for the little table-top flat stoves.

Me, I am a bit nervous about these cans. They stick out to the side very close to the burner head when used with the adapter, and I worry about how hot they will get from the flames and radiation.

OK, one minute I am saying they will only work in warm weather and the next minute I am saying the cans may get too hot … But getting one of these started in the snow might be very hard.

Cheers

Roger,

Where's your sense of adventure. 1,000,000,000 SE Asians can't be wrong.

In fact the Kovea website shows a canister like this that definitely says Propane as part of the label in shot. I've never seen one in the flesh though.

As a summer stove, you could use the adaptor to hook up to say a Windpro, or this little prototype SUL/Snowpeak Frankenstein I saw somewhere on the 'net.

Rod

> Where's your sense of adventure.
Blew up when I read about some of the explosions which have happened with these cans.

> Kovea website shows a canister like this that definitely says Propane as part of the label
Different fitting yet again…
I would be very interested to hear whether anyone in Australia or USA has actually found any of these for sale?

Cheers