Snow Peak LiteMax stove malfunction? or was it the canister’s fault? or maybe just my own stupidity?

[Roger Caffin]

A little puff of gas does often happen during connection. It shouldn't, but it does. Spin the stove on and off fast, with ventilation.

A steady leak on the other hand is BAD!

Cheers

[Stuart R]

I have an old Pocket Rocket which releases a small puff of gas when un-/screwing the canister, I think this is normal.

The important point is to un-/screw the canister whilst it is held vertical ie upright.

Biomechanically, it feels easier to un-/screw with the stove and canister almost horizontal. AVOID doing this as you will get a small squirt of liquid which will expand into a much larger volume of gas.

[Billy Ray]

VERY good point Stuart. Defenatly feels better horizontal… but as you said…

[Katy Anderson]

Snow Peak asked me to email them a photo of the stove and I sent them the one that is up thread. They didn't see what they were looking for on the photo so had me mail in the stove. They took a closer look and emailed me this update today:

"We're shipping a new stove to you today. The issue with yours was not the o-ring as I had thought but severely damaged threads on the base of the stove. Some, typically cheaper, fuel canisters have poorly cut threads and given time mixed with bad luck it appears the threads were worn down enough that gas was leaking around them. Stoves like the GigaPower have a secondary larger rubber seal that covers the entire contact area around the top of the fuel canister as a further precaution against this. The LiteMax with its emphasis on light weight and portability foregoes this additional precaution. What was happening the last several times you used the stove and were hearing more and more noise from gas escaping was the threads being slowly worn down. Going forward I would recommend keeping a relatively close eye on both the o-ring and threads on the stove. This is not a common situation and in your case I think it is simply the result of bad luck. Please let me know if there is anything else that I can do for you.

-ryan"

[BlackHatGuy]

great customer service.

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Katy

I am going to call B******T on what Snow Peak wrote. Whoever wrote it was NOT a techie who knows stoves – imho.

> Some, typically cheaper, fuel canisters have poorly cut threads
ALL the valves, with their threads, come from The Lindal Group (with the possible exception of some cheap Chinese ones). The threads are pretty much all the SAME between canisters. They have to be, to meet industry specs. Well, that's according to The Lindal Group, anyhow.

> the threads were worn down enough that gas was leaking around them.
Threads never have sealed off gas – unless they are tapered threads with lots of Teflon tape. Normally, when the threads are worn down the stove can't open the vavle.

> Stoves like the GigaPower have a secondary larger rubber seal that covers the entire
> contact area around the top of the fuel canister as a further precaution against this.
Yes, the Gigapower does have what they call a secondary seal ring – but mine does not always contact the canister. To rely on that secondary ring would be … hazardous imho.

> The LiteMax with its emphasis on light weight and portability foregoes this
> additional precaution.
Let's put that in perspective. The Gigapower is the only stove I have ever seen which does have a secondary ring. I do not know of any other stove on the market which has one, so apparently everyone else relies (properly) on the big fat O-ring.

> What was happening the last several times you used the stove and were hearing more
> and more noise from gas escaping was the threads being slowly worn down.
My first GigaPower died from having the threads worn down (after many years of hard use), but that is because the threads are ALL extremely crappy. When the threads wore down too much the stove was not able to open the Lindal valve any more. It never leaked.

Great spin, but just not credible. Ah well, they have replaced the stove.

Cheers

[Katy Anderson]

The new LiteMax stove that Snow Peak sent me arrived today.
Was curious to try it out. Specifically I wanted to see if a little bit of gas escaped when I screwed on/off the stove. This had been my experience in the past and others up thread seem to concur.
Well interestingly, this new stove does not leak gas as it is threaded / unthreaded. None. No little puff noise and no slight smell of sulfur. Nothing.
I am pleased with the new stove and impressed with Snow Peaks customer service.
It does make me wonder though. Did my old stove start out like this and maybe just wore out over time? I will be paying careful attention to any signs of gas leakage in the future.

[James holden]

My jetboil with a brass thread has always had a slight escape of gas when mounting

Most of the other stoves ive used have had this issue as well

Of course the faster you spin it the less this happens

Thats VERY impressive service from snow peak

;)

[Larry De La Briandais]

While their reply isn't technically accurate, it was probably the threads causing the leak. They were worn enough that they caused the stove to not align correctly on the canister, or could not keep enough pressurize between the stove oring and canister. They replaced the stove and that is what really counts. :^)

[Roger Caffin]

> it was probably the threads causing the leak. They were worn enough that they caused
> the stove to not align correctly on the canister, or could not keep enough pressurize
> between the stove oring and canister.

When the threads on my first Gigapower (GST-100) wore out, all that happened is that the stove could not stayed attached to the canister. There were no leaks. There was no gas getting out.

The bottom line is that the threads on ALL the Lindal valves are really crappy, because of the way they are made and the thin metal used. They will wear out the threads on ANY brand of stove over time. That lack of reliability is one reason I redesigned the canister connector on my winter stove to work more like the Campingaz one.

Cheers

[Hikin’ Jim]

Let's put that in perspective. The Gigapower is the only stove I have ever seen which does have a secondary ring. I do not know of any other stove on the market which has one, so apparently everyone else relies (properly) on the big fat O-ring.

Roger, I (completely) agree that reliance of the "secondary" ring would be a bad idea, there are a number of stoves that have them. The ubiquitous MSR Pocket Rocket comes immediately to mind (at right in below photo).

I'm not quite sure why that "secondary" ring is included since it's not reliable.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim's Blog

[Stuart R]

As Jim points out, the Pocket Rocket has a secondary sealing rubber washer. It's a really BAD design – when it is cold, it takes an excessive amount of force to compress this washer sufficiently to open the Lindal valve and that puts an excessive strain on the stove thread (which are aluminium in the PR) and this is a sure fire way to strip them.

Back to the Litemax. As Roger points out, the threads do not to provide a seal of any kind, so the 'explanation' from Snow Peak is BS. I don't like their inclusion of 'bad luck' as a factor either. It really doesn't sound like the representative knows what (s)he is talking about.

So what was the real reason for the gas leak? Threads do wear down: the thread on the canister is very shallow, so only the tip of the thread on the stove makes contact and the tip will wear off eventually. When that happens, the canister will not screw on at all and therefore there can be no leak.

My guess (without having the stove to examine) is that with a partially worn thread, it becomes easier to cross-thread the canister, that is to say the thread on the stove is not correctly aligned with the thread on the canister. If that did happen, then the o-ring will not be evenly compressed and gas would definitely leak out.

[Hikin’ Jim]

Out of curiosity, I started looking at some of the small upright canister stoves I have. There may be others, but the following have the "secondary ring:"
-SnowPeak GigaPower (GS-100) — which I've always thought of as an overall excellent design
-Soto MicroRegulator
-Soto Windmaster
-MSR PocketRocket
-Markhill Hot Rod

The SnowPeak, Markhill, and MSR stoves are all manufactured by Kovea in Korea. Basically, it looks as though Kovea and Soto have used that secondary ring.

Markhill Hotrod (which is basically a Kovea Titanium):

I imagine the Vargo Jet Ti, which is another variant of the Kovea Titanium, also has the ring.

Soto MicroRegulator, left, and the Soto Windmaster, right.

My guess (without having the stove to examine) is that with a partially worn thread, it becomes easier to cross-thread the canister, that is to say the thread on the stove is not correctly aligned with the thread on the canister. If that did happen, then the o-ring will not be evenly compressed and gas would definitely leak out.

That sounds like the most reasonable explanation.

HJ
Adventures in Stoving
Hikin Jim's Blog

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Jim

So they do! My mistake.
SOTOs – I haven't looked at the recent models.
MSR PR – I try to not look at it. Really poor design imho.
Kovea Titanium (or Markhill Hotrod or Vargo Jet Ti) – I should know this one!

Crossed threads idea – could be. Either way, the Snow Peak reply was BS.

Cheers

[Hikin’ Jim]

MSR PR – I try to not look at it. Really poor design imho.

Well, I try to be a little more gentle, but yes. It's an older design, it's not particularly compact, and it's prone to bending of the pot supports. For the same price, one can get the (in my opinion) vastly superior GigaPower.

For $10 more, one can get the Kovea Supalite which is roughly an ounce lighter (25 to 29 g lighter depending on which version you get), far more compact, and has better pot stability.

My attitude is that the Pocket Rocket isn't a bad stove, particularly for it's era. It's just that there's so much better out there now. If you really like MSR and or the Pocket Rocket, just get the upgraded version, the Micro Rocket, which is basically a Pocket Rocket with all the short comings corrected.

Just my opinions of course.

HJ
Adventures In Stoving
Hikin' Jim's Blog

[Author]

Posts