Fire Maple FMS-118

[Gregory Stein]

1) Overview:

It's a lightest remote canister stove with wide burner head and preheating tube. It weights only 146 gram, has wide stance of legs which make this stove very stable.

2) Performance
I've tested boiling times/fuel consumption. All tests were performed with wide (16 cm in diameter) 1.3L pot covered with lid made of aluminium foil. I have also used the included windscreen (62 gram = 2.2 oz) to reflect the produced heat. I suppose with system like Caldera Cone or FlatCatGear BobCat you will gain similar results. All in all I did 8 tests with low and medium flame (I thought max. output is not that practic since it will waste your fuel considerably). Boiled amount of water is two cups (473 ml). The tests were performed in warm weather (28 degree C = 82 F), low humidity, 450 m (1476.4 feet) above sea level. So here are the results:

Output	TTB*	FC**
Low	12 min	9 gram
Medium	2:45	10 gram

*)TTB= Time To Boil
**)FC= Fuel Consumption

3) Weight considerations
Fire Maple produces another stove FMS-117T which looks very similar to FMS-118. FMS-117t is made of titanium and lacks preheating tube. It weights 98 gram.

The parts of both stoves are absolutely identical except the material. Therefore, it is possible to exchange parts and build a titanium version, aka FMS-118"T". I have contacted Fire Mapple representative in order to get weight of all parts for both stoves. Here is a table based on the info provided by Fire Maple:

Stove	Legs	Burner	Bottom Hose Connector (+preheating tube* + hose)	Gas tube	Control valve	Preheating tube
FMS-117T	29.4 gram	15.2 gram	27.2 gram	5.7 gram	19.3 gram	N/A
FMS-118	47.4 gram	21.6 gram	49.5 gram	10.1 gram	19.3 gram	35.1 gram (incl. in "Bottom Hose Connector…"

Photo took from: http://tracksterman.tumblr.com/post/21901254930/fms118-dis

From this data we can conclude, that FMS-118T will weigh about 146 – 18 – 6.4 – 4.4 = 117.2 gram. This makes it ultralight remote canister stove with preheating tube! If you already have Caldera Cone or FlatCatGear Bobcat or similar system, you can remove legs, since there is a pot support in the windscreen. Hence, the weight is trimmed down to 87.8 gram. If you remove legs from original FMS-118, you hit 100 gram. However there is a little yet solvable issue with legs attachments. There are no screws: the legs are attached with rivets

So probably it would be difficult to disassemble the stove.

4) Inverted canister mode.
When I inverted the canister, output became considerably higher. Here are two photos, on first the output is low/medium and the canister is in regular mode, on next photo the canister is inverted (the control valve remained in same position):

5) Conclusion
Two drawbacks I found so far:
— on the same picture above you will notice a small pin. This is actually pin that locks legs in opened position, so that legs will not expand further. I think this is not that reliable. After heavy use the rivots may loosen and legs may slip on those pins without being locked. But this is only my impression.
— Flares. After I adjust the stove to desired output it sometimes increases the output causing small flares. I've noticed that after minute or so after ignition.

Despite those drawbacks, the stove is great and obviously is winner (or one of them) in value/price ratio.
– very light (146 gram),
– wide burner (even heat distribution),
– preheating tube (inverted canister),
– effectively collapses (packable),
– sturdy (seems high quality stove),
– cheap (I've ordered mine at Aliexpress for $50 incl. shipping to Israel),
– stable (wide stance of legs),
– included items: stove, wind screen and mesh small bag for stove so it wouldn't scratch your pot.

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