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My JetBoil hack


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  • #1286101
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    Enthused by some of the recent JetBoil Zip Hacks I thought I would put together some ideas that have been thinking about for a while.

    The idea behind this stove system is one that works in colder conditions than the normal PCS/Zip stove and is better in wind.

    Cut down JetBoil PCS pot

    The pot is a PCS, which I have removed the mounting base and cut down to a volume of 550 mls, I have used a Ti pot lid from my BPL 550 Ti pot.

    PCS Trangia stove system

    The stove is a Kovea Supalite, modified to be a remote canister stove, the valve on the canister is from a cheap Chinese stove.

    Burner and bottom of pot

    The stove support and windshield are two cut down ally pots (billies) and is basically a copy of a Trangia windshield, I have used the PCS base to support the cut down PCS pot.

    All packed away

    The complete system including canister support weighs 351.3 grams, not the lightest but the system is still in the development stage.

    in bag

    Tony

    #1843863
    Colin Krusor
    BPL Member

    @ckrusor

    Locale: Northwest US

    Tony, this setup is very clean-looking and I bet you can achieve excellent efficiency (grams fuel per boil) with it. What led you to this design instead of something more like a caldera cone that employs a wraparound piece of foil?

    #1843871
    Rob E
    Spectator

    @eatsleepfish

    Locale: Canada

    Hi Tony,

    I can't tell from the photos, did you roll the edges of the jet boil aluminum pot once you cut it shorter? I've been thinking about doing the same thing to my jetboil PCS.

    #1843894
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >Tony, this setup is very clean-looking and I bet you can achieve excellent efficiency (grams fuel per boil) with it. What led you to this design instead of something more like a caldera cone that employs a wraparound piece of foil?

    Hi Colin,

    Thanks for your comment, I am trying to design a stove that is easy to use and works well in cold windy conditions. I am not sure of the efficiency of this system as I have not yet done the planned wind tests on it,

    I have spent a lot of time looking at ways to use canister stoves with the Caldera cone and JB pot, my cut down JetBoil 550 pot fits nicely into my BPL Ti 550 pot Caldera Cone but I was not that happy with the setup, I have considered using a cone as the top windshield. This project may help me solve some of the problems that I have with the CC set up.

    Tony

    #1843896
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >I can't tell from the photos, did you roll the edges of the jet boil aluminum pot once you cut it shorter? I've been thinking about doing the same thing to my jetboil PCS.

    Hi Rob,

    I rolled the top edge using a lathe, I made a shaft with some roller bearings on the end and spun the lathe very slowly, the JetBoil pot side walls are very thick compared to some other pots that I have done this with and it did not roll as easily as I had hoped.

    Tony

    #1843940
    wander lust
    Spectator

    @sol

    wouldnt a bigger pot make more sense in cold weather.

    just thinking of snow melting.

    #1843971
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >wouldnt a bigger pot make more sense in cold weather.

    just thinking of snow melting.

    Hi WL,

    Yes you are right, I actually have no plans to use this setup, it is just some of my stove hacking.

    Below are some photos of the system with a 1 liter non flux ring pot, I am also making a larger system using a 1.5 liter pot.

    1 liter pot

    inside windshield

    side view

    #1843997
    Stuart R
    BPL Member

    @scunnered

    Locale: Scotland

    Hi Tony
    I really like your cut down PCS pot. I wish I could do that but I don't have a lathe and I can't think of any other way of rolling the cut edge.

    #1844048
    Curt Peterson
    BPL Member

    @curtpeterson

    Locale: Pacific Northwest

    Nice! Love that these pots are getting looked at creatively lately. A couple questions:

    1. How did you pull the HX "frame" of the bottom? Looks like it's spot welded in 4 places on the Zip pot. What's the best way to pop that off without ruining the pot?

    2. How fragile do the fins seem without the "frame" to protect them? By touch they feel pretty secure – do you think they're pretty solid without that extra protection?

    #1844171
    Colin Krusor
    BPL Member

    @ckrusor

    Locale: Northwest US

    Tony, do you know if something like the jetboil heat exchanger could be silver-soldered/brazed to a lighter pot? It seems to me that it should be possible to braze or solder a wavy ribbon of aluminum to the bottom of just about any pot, but I haven't seen it done.

    #1844182
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >I really like your cut down PCS pot. I wish I could do that but I don't have a lathe and I can't think of any other way of rolling the cut edge.

    Hi Stuart,

    I have been thinking about the same problem, the larger pots that I want to cut down are too large for my lathe, I am thinking about filing a piece of wood to the shape of how I want the rim and use a piece of metal or hard wood bar to beat the rim into shape, with some practice you should be able to do a very neat job, but while I feel this will work well for the cheap ally pots that I have been playing with, the PCS pot is made from extra thick material and would be harder to shape in this way.

    Tony

    #1844188
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >1. How did you pull the HX "frame" of the bottom? Looks like it's spot welded in 4 places on the Zip pot. What's the best way to pop that off without ruining the pot?

    Hi Curt,

    This was not easy, I have access to lathes and mills, as you can see the bottom bracket is spot welded on, to remove the bottom bracket from my PCS pot I made some jigs so I could hold the pot in an indexing head on a milling machine, I then used a small flat bottom end mill cutter and with much care cut the spot welds out, the bracket come off fairly easily once I did this.

    >2. How fragile do the fins seem without the "frame" to protect them? By touch they feel pretty secure – do you think they're pretty solid without that extra protection?

    On the PCS pot the fins are quite robust, I took the bracket off my pot a few years ago and the pot has been thrown around in boxes and bags a fair bit since then with no damage to the fins, I am not sure about the Sol fins as I have not seen a Sol stove or pot yet as they have not been released in Australia yet.

    Tony

    #1844194
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >Tony, do you know if something like the jetboil heat exchanger could be silver-soldered/brazed to a lighter pot? It seems to me that it should be possible to braze or solder a wavy ribbon of aluminum to the bottom of just about any pot, but I haven't seen it done.

    Hi Colin,

    While I am no welding expert, I do have some experience with with welding and I think silver-soldered/brazed heat exchanger fins to a lighter pot would be very difficult especially very thin aluminium and as I understand, you cannot silver-solder/braze Ti.

    Tony

    #1845932
    Hikin’ Jim
    BPL Member

    @hikin_jim

    Locale: Orange County, CA, USA

    Now, now, Tony,

    One shouldn't call such nice work a "hack." A hack is what I do with my hacksaw. What you've done looks marvelously professional. Nicely done.

    And it looks really practical too. I think the Trangia like qualities of the set up will serve you well in strong winds. I look forward to reading the results of your wind tests when you get a chance to do them.

    HJ
    Adventures In Stoving

    #1845968
    Tony Beasley
    BPL Member

    @tbeasley

    Locale: Pigeon House Mt from the Castle

    >One shouldn't call such nice work a "hack." A hack is what I do with my hacksaw. What you've done looks marvelously professional. Nicely done.

    And it looks really practical too. I think the Trangia like qualities of the set up will serve you well in strong winds. I look forward to reading the results of your wind tests when you get a chance to do them.

    Hi HJ,

    Thanks for the comments.

    This morning I finished the 1.5 liter version of my Trangia/Kovea stove system, I will be taking this setup in the field on my next bushwalk at the weekend, I made the pot stand and windshield by cutting the pots off with a bandsaw and then using a hand file to finish, I call this hacking, the smaller 1 liter version was done with on a lathe and is neater.

    I am planning to do a winter traverse of our local alps this year and I am hoping to have this setup sorted by winter, I will do some wind tests on it soon and I will post the results.

    Tony

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