Caldera Cone Under Glass

Well I got my two Starlyte stoves with lids in today and I tried two preliminary burns on top of my stove at home. I don't have time for a lot of testing because I help out at my church on Thursdays, but here is what I did on a preliminary basis.

In the first test I used an MSR Titan .85L pot with a four row hardware cloth potstand from smokeeater908. I carefully measured out 1/2 oz of SLX alcohol fuel and put it in the REGULAR Starlyte which was sitting directly on the kitchen stove-not jacked up. I did not use a windscreen. I didn't keep track of the time because I am more interested in fuel consumption than speed of boiling. The Starlyte not only boiled the two cups of water, but the water continued to boil for several minutes after boiling was achieved.

On the second test I used the Caldera Cone Sidewinder Ti-Tri cone with the ,9L REI/Evernew pot. I used the MODIFIED Starlye on top of two layers of carbon felt from MiniBullDesigns. I think it jacked it up about 1/2 inch, but I didn't measure it. I did not use the tent stakes to elevate the pot but rested it directly on the cone. Again, using 1/2 oz of SLX the two cups of water boiled and continued to boil for several minutes after initial boil.

I've been fooling around with alcohol stoves for about 3 years and this is pretty impressive performance in terms of fuel consumption. With most alcohol stoves it would take about 3/4 oz of fuel to get the same results. Due to time constraints, I didn't get to read any of the comments since my last post, so I apologize for that. When I have more time, I can read through all the posts and do some more testing. The real test is outside under field conditions.

do make sure to test outside, indoor testing, due to the lack of moving air, removes a key variable, and a critical one.

But those are great fuel consumption/boil times for the starlight design, it's clear that alcohol stove/cannister stove reviews need to do a lot more homework before they make claims of any alleged weigh savings etc.

Also of course make sure your measuring device for the alcohol is accurate, I found that using tablespoons or tblspn measuring sets have a huge margin of error in the actual quantity, so I use an irrigation syringe, 10 ml size, to calibrate the measuring mini cup I use, which I mark in 2.5 ml intervals, my initial attempts to do that without the correctly marked syringe were over 15% off, maybe 20%, not sure.

Sgt. Rock did a lot of work on the Ion stove:

http://hikinghq.net/ionstove/instructions.htm

He was able to boil two cups using 12 ml in about 8:30. I tried making his stove and it required 13 ml and the time was a bit longer. Given a nice Sidewinder with the right shims, it may be a practical way to get to a super efficient system. My 2 Cents – Jon

yeah, I read the sgt rock ion stove article, that was very interesting, he's clearly doing very solid research, which is refreshing to see, and it's what made me decide to test an optimized, slower burning, penny stove design. I wish there were some way to get smaller pieces of insulation so I could test that difference, ace hardware has a very small roll, but it's still gigantic for my needs. The article he should update is the older one, where his fuel consumption / heat reached is way out of date, even for him. I've come across that article many times googling and following stove talk, so it's something that is cited frequently, as it was here for example.

However, once you get the flames down in size, the height of the pot stand gets more critical, and that's a variable I'm not really testing at this point because it's too hard to make an adjustable height pot stand, I did make adjustable diameter wind screens to find the optimal diameter, and that was very useful.

However, I believe though I'm not certain that the more efficient the stove is, the weaker the flame, and the more prone to wind the design will be, ie, these designs have to be tested out in the open air with moving wind etc, not at home inside, otherwise it's not a fair test.

For example, lifting up the wind screen off the ground outside, in the wind, is going to create a lot of turbulence and probably ruin the burn time, in fact, I would guess the water would never boil at all in a windy situation with the screen lifted up all around the edges. so to me that's not a real thing.

If I'm not mistaken, your stoves are also non too shabby when it comes to efficiency, heh.

By the way, given that most gas cannister stoves say not use a wind screen at all, one has to wonder what their true real world efficiency is outside. Or with a partial, top only windscreen, etc, another area I just see no real data, except for the jetboil. I'm trying to do most of my testing outside, both for accuracy and real world conditions, and because slx is toxic and should not be burned inside for any reason.

Stove designing takes a lot of time and effort. Sgt. Rock kinda set a "Bench Mark" for us. Optimum Conditions to start with. No breeze, 70 degree starting water and air temperatures. Denatured alcohol was the most used at the time of his stove testing career. It takes me many many hours of design and testing to get a stove to a place that I can place it in the hands of people that become interested in it. I first start out by showing a design in a DIY thread. If people like it they voice their opinions and ask if they will be for sale. Ask in private and in a thread. I don't let anything out the door unless I (emphasis on I) like it and will use it.

Once a stove has been designed to boil 2 cups of water under optimum conditions by using 1/2 ounce of denatured alcohol using an aluminum pot with 2.5 cup capacity, only then will I deem it a good stove worthy of making available for purchase or gift.

Once it gets off the benc it's up to us as individuals to make it perform the best we can under "field" conditions.

sent from mcdonalds free WIFI camping station southern illinois, weather is great!!! wish you were here :-)