XTherm: use the included pump sack or lungs?

I know it's Hella light and all, but I'm always trying to avoid single-purpose items.

Not much, but I use my Instaflator as a stuff sack to store the XTherm. I'm not really worried about wear from abrasion, but I try to baby my inflatables.

>Clayton, when I first read this I was wondering how little weight you could save by
>cutting the Instaflator in half

If memory serves, I saved somewhere slightly more than half an ounce. It's really not much, but it just made the Instaflator simpler as well as easier to use.

I've saved enough weight that my priority these days is keeping my kit simple and easy to use. I've gained a few ounces on some things, saved a few on others, but my hiking has fewer parts than it used to.

I haven't tried it yet, but I see no reason why my plastic pack liner couldn't work nearly as well as these pump sacks by cinching the top of the inflated pack liner around the pad nozzle with thumb and forefinger, or just as well with the simple addition of a nozzle to the bottom of it. Costs about a dollar and it's something I already carry with me.

For the instaflator: it seems you could customize the length of the device to suit the exact volume of your pad depending on how many separate fills of the instaflator you were willing to deal with to inflate your pad each night.

A pack liner would work. Just cut the corner, and the nozzle from an Instaflator would install easily. I'm sure you could work something up with other nozzles too.

I imagine the shape might be difficult to pump through. My sense is that the long narrow shape is ideal, and the much wider chape of a pack liner might be less so. But you could buy an instaflator and test out the nozzle with a pack liner. If you didn't like it, you could re-install it on the Instaflator easily.

del

My Xtherm is a few months old and unless the pump sack design has changed, I find it to perform just fine. I can inflate the pad pretty quickly and I can keep warm, moist, bacteria ridden air out of the pad. Oral inflation never seemed to have any effect on any of my old foam-based Therm-a-rests, but the NeoAir mattresses are much lighter and delicate so I've switched to the pump sack and have zero issues.

"I am surprised folks are finding new reasons to buy more stuff. NOT!!"

I personally take great pride in seeing my $3 circulate through the U.S. economy.

So I just looked at the XTherm stuff sack, and the valve is easily removable. So, if you already have the XTherm, I'd try that with a pack liner first.

Personally, I never bothered with it since I already had the Instaflator, and the pump sack was pretty obviously a pain to use. Good to know I have that option though.

I bought a medium XTherm last summer and have been using it in warm and cold weather. I am 6' 1" and the medium is only 66" long, but it works for me since I am a scrunched up side sleeper. If I lay on it on flat on my back, my feet hang off the end, but I can't sleep in that position. Well I could, but then I would sound like a bull Elephant in heat.

I tried the stuff sack pump that came with it, but after 20 minutes of torture, I yelled pinche cabron and threw it against the wall where it slid into ignominious defeat behind the couch. I suppose it is still there.

Then I obtained an Instaflator, which was cheap and worked fine. Next I saw a comment from Ray Estrella touting the Microburst, and I thought, hmm not much heavier than the Instaflator, but totally decadent, just set it and forget it and if it's good enough for Ray, it's good enough for me. So I got one of those, it works fine, and I have been using it ever since, although some of my backpacking buddies ridicule me for being decadent, then they ask to borrow it.

John Coyle, I think you're the cleverest person on this forum.

Where does the air go? I'm wondering with the stock pump/stuff sack, where does all that air go that is trapped after you start rolling it up? Fabric too porous, leak out around the valve? Anyone check? Thoughts.
Duane