Alcohol Stove Users Only

I see you ared oing your reasearch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSdBB1vBDKY

As you saw in the video, the large diameter wire had to be preheated for the reaction to start. Also interesting is the statement that enough oxygen had to enter the flask in order for ignition to occur.

If you preheat your wire it should react.

If you draw out your 0.005 wire to 0.001 I think you'll get the reaction without the preheat.

Finally got glowing.

Very small (1×3 mm) piece of very thin platinum "foil". Smashed it between sandpapers as mentioned above it got really creased. Then took 1 match and made a crack in it. Then inserted one end of the platinum piece in it. Then burnt the match, the platinum remained in the coal. I'm gaining here something I can hold while coal does not conduct heat well. Then I took a cap of a regular plastic bottle, took cottonwool and made a "circle" with it. Soaked it in pure methanol.

It was tricky to find a "hot spot" above the cottonwool. But when it was at the right place it glowed! OMG!

Now, I've ruined this piece because all the stuff is so small and breaks and get lost easily.

I have also successfully made the experiment with flask as shown on youtube. Preheated wire glows brightly.

Still a lot of work todo. While I got the glowing, I wasn't able to light methanol. Then, I think the piece should be with smaller thermal mass but with greater surface area. This is my primary goal. Need to find a way for making it. Have some ideas for that need to try.
Then, I'm still curious if I will be able to make lighter with battery: just preheat the wire with electrical current while in methanol vapors. This is another project however…

Will update here.

The flask video was cool!

Glad you are progressing and got the "glow".

The "fire" comes next with great anticipation :-)

"…I'm still curious if I will be able to make lighter with battery: just preheat the wire with electrical current while in methanol vapors…."

RC Airplane glow plugs would be perfect for that. They only cost about $7 and are preset up with a platinum coil and ready to run a current through it.

Everyone can make one work with a battery ;)

Make it work with just the 0.001 wire.

photobucket video, click on it to view
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Dan, can you make a close-up macro photo of the lighter (wire with ball) with some millimeter or even smaller scale on background? This would help me a lot to engineer lighter from thick wire.

BTW, this foil maybe even better: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/267244?lang=en&region=IL

0.025 mm thickness.

Best I can do for now:

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Thank you! it is exactly what I needed. It seems to me that when you place your lighter in methanol vapors what ig glowing is not that ball, but the wire itself. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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You’re welcome.

The very 1st time I light the stove when it’s cold, the area around the ball seems to start glowing first. After the stove heats up vapours are coming out fast and the wires glow just as they approach the stove as you can see in the above video.

That source for foil platinum will only sell to authorized customers due to the hazardous materials they sell. Bummer!

This time I've ordered a 0.003 wire. There is more on ebay now. From the same seller. I confirm he sells pure platinum.

Just in case there is somebody who want to experiment…

But I'll get it in one week or so… No thinner platinum wire available though.

Greg,

You should have told me you were going to order 0.003, I would have sent you some of mine. You can get 0.001 from Omega.

-Ben

Ben, thank you! Don't you need this wire for experimenting? Don't give up! :) It is difficult, but if you flatten it and then cut very small piece and then flatten it again you may have the same effect. My issue is that it's so small I'm ruining most of samples…

0.001 wire is available from Omega? Do they have minimal quantity?

Thank again for your offer!

Good day.

http://www.omega.com/pptst/SPPL.html

SPPL is there pure platinum thermocouple wire. The 0.001" stuff is Omega part number: SPPL-001. It cost $2/inch and shipping is $8 for me. I just ordered 10 inches.

i was able to get a 10 foot roll of 0.002 at auction for 30.00 and free delivery. it's coated with teflon bringing the od to 0.004 coated. i think i can burn it off with no problem and then use cerium oxide cloth to polish it. we'll come up with something good a geeky :-)

I was unable to reproduce my last successful experiments. Any luck with you guys?
I think 0.001 or thinner is a good stuff. No chance I can reach it here.

Gregory, give me your address in an email/pm and I'll send you some of my .002 wire. It looks like the same size used in the lighter.

My tests with it makes me feel as if the ball of platinum black is necessary for the catalytic action to occur. If I wrap my .002 wire around the out side of the brass support of the lighter, the wire will glow red hot in the presence of alcohol vapor. By it's self nothing happens.

Gregory, give me your address in an email/pm and I'll send you some of my .002 wire. It looks like the same size used in the lighter.

My tests with it makes me feel as if the ball of platinum black ball is necessary for the catalytic action to occur. If I wrap my .002 wire around the out side of the brass support of the lighter, the wire will glow red hot in the presence of alcohol vapor. Just the wire alone, nothing happens.

I finally got around to doing some more tests last night. I tried the 0.001" stuff and got nothing :(

Man that 0.001" stuff is thin. I have pretty good near-sight but I have a real hard time seeing that stuff. I tried to wrap it in a coil and it wouldn't hold the shape. I ended up wadding it up in a ball which wasn't easy. I got some carbon felt to wick the methanol but I saw no indication the wire was heating up. I was thinking about using all of my wire at once to see it I just need more platinum, but the more I think about the physics I don't see why that would be the case. The 0.001" stuff must not have a high enough surface area to volume ratio. Seeing hoe thin this stuff is its shocking to believe that.

I also tried the rc airplane glow-plug and didn't get a reaction (no surprise to me).

Dan, you mentioned you might be willing to sell an extra lighter you have. If you are still interested shoot me an email at bzhayes@gmail.com I am going crazy here and pretty interested in just seeing this reaction happen. I think your right it seems like platinum black might be the only stuff with a high enough surface area to volume ratio to work at room temperature. Prices I have seen on the stuff makes me think you never be able to make a lighter in a cost effective manner. Plus I have no idea how you would make a ball out of the platinum black powder.

I had a hard time wrapping the .002 wire around the lighter support framework.

All the lighters seem to have the wires attached to a ball or disc as seen in this photo:

Dan, thank you for the offer! It would be nice to test the 0.002 wire. I'll send you PM. Not sure how much it will cost to ship it to Israel.

Regarding your test. It drives me crazy. You say that when you wrap your wire around brass frame, it glows if methanol vapors present? So brass actually contribute to the reaction? Or the presence of the black ball in vicinity of the wire? Can't understand it. And if the wire glows before the black ball (don't know if it glows at all) so why do we need that black ball?

It could be black platinum. Maybe it's not…

Now I see how I got glowing of the tiny platinum piece. As I wrote above I inserted it into crack of match. Then burnt it. So in that process the platinum got really hot and the glowing I saw was just like in that experiment with flask. Later I reproduced that experiment with flask. This is another prove that the wire I have is platinum.

So now I'm really curious how the heck the thing works. That black ball …

Dan, I can't PM you since I don't have a paid account on BPL.
So I'll write here all my data and will remove after you take it.

Gregory Stein,
59/10 Shdema st.
21990, Karmiel,
Israel

I want to pay you for the shipping at least. Please send me a paypal invoice to stein.gregory@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Ben and Gregory, I'll be in touch with you soon.

I'll try and find some info on the powdered platinum that is on the ball. The stuff reacts alot more than just plain platinum wire. It's starts the reaction of changing the alcohol to formeldahyde and then the heat.

meanwhile: http://www.zeebase.com/blog/2010/11/04/homemade-cigarette-lighter-popular-mechanics-1928/