New Stove Gear: Fire Maple 117t and XK6 “HE” Pot

Neat! Do you have any pics to show off?

Here's a look at the Fire Maple set:
The 117t stove and XK6 pot

The pot and lid weigh out at 216 grams

The stove head weighs in at 98 grams.

Some fitment issues, mentioned above:

The HK6 pot will hold a 220gram fuel canister, but if that goes in the pot first, the stove cannot fit below the lid.

If one places the 117t in first, to take advantage of the concave underside of the fuel canister, the canister will stand just barely proud of the pot's edge.

The lid of the HK6 pot has a raised section, apparently designed to snap onto the top of a fuel canister. This doesn't fit with the plastic cap in the fuel canister.

Once the fuel canister is matched up to the receptacle in the lid, it all closes up like this.

It's great to see some photos of this set up. I think Lawson backed off on stocking this when it was pointed out that you could NOT flip the canister for a liquid feed. But the remote stove is great for kids, esp if you plan on also using it with large pots.

WRT the lid, can you not pick it up by pinching the central knob, and using it as a handle?

What was the approx cost?

It looks like a great compact set up, but it would have to be pretty efficient to justify the 215g pot weight.

Lifting the lid…
Have you tried holding the pot by the handles with one hand whilst pulling on that protruding tab with the other ?
Franco

Re: the stove supports and burner width, it's wide and nice. Too wide, in fact, for a Fosters can.

This one's balance carefully.

This is a comparison to the pot supports on an Optimus Crux

Franco, you've described how I removed the pot lid the first time. As I realized the lid was super-hot, I pitched it quickly. I still managed to squish and malform the tab, which now looks like this:

Doug, the PM system hates me here — I get the email but there's no way to respond other than here in the forum. Yes, that set you found on Amazon is identical other than trim color and the logo.

Pot – why carry an additional 100g of pot to get an increase in efficiency of say 20%? That 100g is more than the dead weight of a small canister and any overall weight savings will only come on trips of a very specific length – one where the increase in efficiency removes the need for an additional canister.

Stove – Fire Maple make an invertable stove of the same design (148g) as the 117T – the 118. This can be refitted with the Ti parts of the 117T to produce an inverting canister stove weighing 119g. There was a thread on this a few months ago. As the parts are interchangeable and standard I am sure Lawson could have had a 118T built for a wholesale order direct from Fire Maple.

I doubt very much that Fire Maple would be interested in having a production run of less than 1000 but I could be wrong.
Franco

Give me some examples of other 1 liter pots that are much lighter. Note that a stove this size isn't really set up for solo-hiking and the smaller pots one might use for that… in fact, my purpose with this rig is to proto out a Patrol Kit for 2-6 Scouts to use.

To date, I've been using old percolator coffee pots, with the guts removed, because they're wide and deep enough to hold a large fuel canister, a stove such as a Crux or Crux Lite and some "fire". Side-by-side with my 0.9 liter Optimus Weekender HE, the aluminum coffee pots take longer to boil, especially once I put the little "chicken pot pie windscreen" on the stove with the HE pot. So, whether I stick with the coffee pots or the snazzy new HE pot, the low, wide, easily windscreened 117t seems to be the ticket, so far.

Here, the FM pot, stove, mini bic, windscreen and bag, all of which still fit in most pockets that will hold an old Nalgene.

I realized someone asked, "how much?" Answer: $59.80 for the set, shipped. I bought it using Alibaba and it arrived in about a week.

There are some issues to deal with before it goes to "Scout Trials": the pot lid needs a snippet of string through the tab, so that one can remove the lid with a spoon handle or stick; the inner ring of the HE fin shield has a burr on it that I'll have to sand off; the wind screen will be ventilated, lightened and tabbed so it can be secured in place with small rocks.

Hi Erik,

There are probably plenty of 1L pots that are lighter, but there aren't many remote gas stove and pot sets that have the same combination of weight, cost, packability and durability. If you could flip that canister, they'd be almost unbeatable.

I think you have a winner for scouts.

Anyone considering the Firemaple 118 stove should read Firemaple 118 scroll down to August 9. I will stick with the 117 and my Evernew 900

Here's my new cooking setup, for either one or two people. I actually cook rather than just boil water, so I prefer a wide, shallow pot to a narrow, tall one.

3.4 oz, Pot (Evernew 0.9L Ti with handles)
1.2 oz, Lid* (came with pot)
3.5 oz, Stove (FMS-117T)
1.1 oz, Windscreen* (homemade from Aluminum flashing)

* I could save weight by replacing the lid and windscreen with thinner foil but I prefer durable gear.

When not using alcohol, my previous stove was a Snowpeak Gigapower which weighed 3.1 ounces. With my new setup I get wind protection for only a 1.5 ounce penalty (0.4 oz extra for the stove plus 1.1 oz for the windscreen).

Question: How efficient is a setup like this compared to a stove / pot with an integrated heat exchanger (such as a Jetboil or the XK6 pot above)?

That's a cool setup! It's 3 ounces lighter (!) than the Fire Maple setup above if we standardize the other parts (ie use same windscreen) and I ditch the bag and lighter. In terms of efficiency, we'd have to measure with use of the windscreen, though: my experience is that one is still required with an HE pot.

I like the low, wide pot you've got! Will it contain the 220g fuel and stove, though? How much does that one cost? On of the cool things I like about the stove head on this, and on my Crux, is the wide burner that enables more control/less movement with a flat pan/skillet.

Hi Eric,

I thought the point of the heat exchanger pots was that you did NOT need a windscreen, I've certainly never seen a Jetboil user with one.

The stove and canister will NOT fit in the pot.

I have had the pot many years and don't remember what it cost back then, but they appear to be about $50 online now.

Casey,

No, we still need a windscreen with an HE pot, because the pot sits up on top of the supports, well above the stove head. The exceptions are the dedicated rigs, like the Jet Boil and Reactor, where the pot's connection incorporates a windscreen down around the burner.

The point to the HE is just increased surface area for transfer of heat to the pot, and the testing out there does show they're more efficient than the same pot w/o the fins. Now, they're not necessarily more efficient *per gram*, however. Anyway, the darn things boil stuff faster, and it's noticeable right off the bat!

Using my Optimus .9l HE pot on my Crux stove, I've loved the pot but noted that breezes in the Sierra not only gave me the impression they were stealing heat and reducing flame output, but created focused hot spots that burned sections of my HE ring. This will not do! So, I constructed a wind-screen for the Crux that's got an open bottom for draft, shields just the burner and HE ring and directs hot air up the sides of the pot.

The Chicken Pot Pie windscreen…hunkered down in 20mph+ gusts on the High Trail.

This setup works great: the stove doesn't sputter in wind, stays on strong and boils faster. On a tabletop in San Diego w/o much breeze, 20 seconds faster on average with 20oz. Next to another Crux that was boiling the same volume of water in wider but non-HE pot, it was a minute faster with 20oz at Thousand Island Lake.

However, there are problems: the wind does toss around the flame a little and it burned up the windscreen (note jagged lower edges after a week of use in the photo above), the windscreen is badly beaten up after 15 or so uses, I don't know how long KFC will keep making pot pies and the pot sits real tall on the canister-top stoves.

So, I'm sold on the HE pots in concept, but we still need a windscreen similar to the one I photo'd above. My solution is to keep using my own Crux, but to work on a cool setup for use by 2-6 guys that's based on the 117t remote canister. It might be the hot ticket is the Fire Maple HE pot, or one of those 1 or 1.5l kettles. Not sure. So far, I am somewhat attached to the ability to stash the stovehead, fuel, mini Bic and windscreen all into one "unit".

Erik,

Thanks for the explanation. I made a foil windscreen similar to the one you posted above for my canister mounted Snowpeak stove and, not unexpectedly, it is badly beaten after minimal use. I'll gladly carry an extra ounce and have durable equipment.

I agree it would be nice if stove, fuel, lighter, spoon, etc. could all fit in the pot. Maybe tonight I'll see if works with my 1.3 liter Titanium pot.

Casey, if it fits: snag a photo and show us!!

In terms of wind screens, I've been looking at the ti-foil available out there, but I think I will need to join two pieces to get the diameter I need.

So, last night a buddy asked me for the info to buy this same kit, after checking out the set up. This morning, I pulled up my order for $59.80, hit the links to get a direct address to paste and… the prices are up about $20 for the set.

Hmmm, so do a search for Olicamp on eBay and the same set (but in blue trim) is about this price at its lowest (and up to $20 more at the highest). Search Fire Maple and the 117t is a hundred bucks. So, was this a monetary conversion on the Ali-Express site, or did those burgeoning capitalists just adjust upward to what the gringo market will bear?

Fire Maple has supposedly posted here on BPL. Perhaps they’re anticipating an uptick in orders based on your post? :)

HJ
Adventures in Stoving

I think that might count as a heat deflector:

trapped gases around burn may cause more heat to to travel down column:

see this tread where the OP melted their lindal valve
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=65243&skip_to_post=560783#560783

If you're referring to the shield on the canister-top stove, I understand your concern but suggest that might best be discussed in thread(s) about canister stoves and/or the Optimus Crux. However, that additional heat shield you might see above the lindal…never even got warm.

Eric,

The Fire Maple 117T and canister (220 gram I think) easily fit in my Evernew 1.3L titanium pot, as the photo below shows. They did not fit in my 0.9L Evernew Titanium pot. Interestingly enough, switching from the 0.9L pot (3.4 oz) to the 1.3L pot (3.6 oz) will end up saving me 0.8 oz since I'll use an Aluminum pie pan lid (0.2 oz) instead of a titanium one (1.2 oz).