DIY Ultralight Remote Inverted-Canister Winter Stove – Version 4, Part 1

[Backpacking Light]

This article series describes the development of my 4th generation of Remote Inverted-Canister Winter Stoves.

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 2

[R]

Not possible to integrate the heat shunt in to the burner head and use the burner tube for conduction down to the body?  Or attaching the shunt at the top of the burner tube instead of the bottom?

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Rene

A good question, but the answer is, as you might guess, no. The explanation is a bit complex, but obvious once you read it.

Briefly, you can not get any significant amount of heat going past the air inlets. The reason for this is that there is a large (well, significant) flow of cold air in through those holes, and the bits of aluminium between the holes don’t have a significant cross-section. All the heat is sucked out of the aluminium around the holes by the cold air flow. And in the snow, the air is quite cold.

This is NOT theoretical: I made several attempts to get enough heat down from the burner head, and failed. I could actually FEEL the difference in temperature. Then the penny dropped.

So the heat shunt has to go some way south of the air holes if it is to get enough heat to the hose inlet to vaporise the liquid fuel. This was not so apparent with V1 as the heat shunt in that model went direct to the hose inlet.

Could I have redesigned the heat shunt to connect at the hose inlet? Yes, but with difficulty. The result would, I suspect, have been heavier. But there is always room for ingenuity.

Cheers

[Jon Solomon]

I’ve been meaning to sing praises here about Roger’s stove. I have a V3 was really impressed by it during a week’s use in the Chartreuse and another week in the Belledonne this winter.

It is very very light, easy to use (minimal fiddle factor), easy to use in the cold, and is extremely economical. Example: for my trip in the Chartreuse with mild winter weather, during six days boiling water for one three times day, three of which required melting snow for water at temps from -10 C to 5 C, as well as a couple of nights of special frying, I didn’t use even a full 450 gr iso-butane cartridge.

The only gripe I have is a wish for the feed tube to be slightly longer (for which I’d gladly accept a small weight penalty).

Totally awesome.

[Sheldon F]

I like this stove, how much would this be if made for the light weigh crowd , I have no time to make this, but great build

[Al F]

Hi Roger. Love your work as usual. Let us know how much. I was particularly interested in your chuck setup for the jet. Does the jet have to be drilled perfectly concentric? If not perhaps you can put the part in the tailstock and the drill bit in the headstock instead, assuming your head has acceptable runout.

p.s. mcmaster has the bits too, dunno about shipping to australia: https://www.mcmaster.com/drill-bits/decimal-size-equivalent~0-0118inches/

[R]

Ah, cold air flow – hand’t thought of that.

Cheers!

[Roger Caffin]

Thanks Jon. I find how much gas I use depends as much on how careful I am with the stove as anything else.

Sheldon – if interested, email me direct at [email protected] Price with shipping depends on country of destination. Price is compatible with Western brand remote canister stoves.

@Al – no, the jet does not have to be drilled perfectly concentric. But NO lathe chuck or collet has zero runout, so putting the drill bit in the chuck will ALWAYS mean the tip of the drill will wobble slightly. OK, more wobble on a small Chinese lathe than on a very expensive Swiss lathe. My technique puts the drill tip within microns of the centre of rotation regardless of wobble. I align with a head magnifier.
Yes, McMaster Carr has the drill bits – at a price! Fortunately, I have stock of such drills already. I have no idea how the (Swiss) mfr manages to grind them though!

Cheers

[Scott B]

Thanks Roger, fantastic write-up. Looking forward to Part II.

[Eric Blumensaadt]

Interesting section on wider burner heads/wider flame ring. One of the reasons I bought slightly heavier Brunton CRUX folding upright stove is B/C of its wider flame ring.

I have an older MSR Wind Pro I got for car camping. I’d like to modify the canister connection so I can invert it. Seems If I order a new hose as used on my MSR Universal  from MSR that may be the (expensive) way to solve the problem.

But Roger, after reading the entire article my brain is full and I need a Jim Beam moment to clear my thoughts. Cheers! Looking forward to Part II.

 

[Rod Wolfy]

I don’t understand how your stove is much different than a Kovea Spider stove. Other than a heat shunt, vs. heated tube?

[Roger Caffin]

@Rod

Kovea Spider is actually quite a good stove imho. One of the best and I think the lightest of the commercial offerings.

It is however 80 g heavier than mine (170 g vs 90 g), it can only use a standard screw thread canister instead of all three sorts, and the Kovea thread on the canister connector can/will wear out.

Cheers

[Paul Schuyler]

Where can we get one?!

[Roger Caffin]

You email direct to me, [email protected]
Please include your country.

Cheers

[Lachlan]

Hi Roger

Good to see development of a silent burner, addressing the main annoyance I have with your v2 stove which I have enjoyed over the last two years. I find the sound intrusive, so much so that I often select the spider, alcohol stoves, or even my old Optimus Explorer (cobra burner) for car/moto camping.

A simplified pot support would also be appreciated; the v2 triangular version works very well but the fiddle factor is again an annoyance at the end of a long day. The v3 design, would it be adaptable to my v2 stove?

Also interested to hear of your appreciation of the Kovea Spider, I love mine despite its vulnerability to wind. If you can get your v4 stove quieter than the spider I think you will be on a winner; you may tempt me again! LoL

Oh and I have not checked, is your gas multi-connector suitable for the cheaper ‘rim vent’ butane gas canister (for summer use)?

Cheers

Lachlan

 

 

[Roger Caffin]

Hi Lachlan

>> The v3 design, would it be adaptable to my v2 stove?
Do you mean V3, which is also a vortex burner, or V4? In any event, I think the answer is no.

The V4 is pretty quiet. How it compares to the KSpider – it’s similar. It’s a lot quieter than a vortex burner, which is a bit ‘macho’.

No, the current canister connector is not compatible with the rim-vent butane canisters. Looking at creating a small modification to my stock canister connector for the rim-vents is a project for the future. Chuckle – a delay is that I can’t find any of them at the local shops right now! This too shall pass.

Cheers

[K. Urs Grütter, LL.M.]

absolutely awesome! Congrats!

What a shame the “main-stream” industry does sell their junk labelled “ultralight” instead of hiring you as a designer!

Happy trails

Urs

[Roger Caffin]

Thank you :)
Cheers

[Jeff McWilliams]

Just want to jump in and add that I’ve been a happy user of the V1 with the FMS-116t head for several years.  I got the FMS-116t specifically for the wider head.  To be honest, it hasn’t had hardly any winter use, but I find it’s a nice stove for fry-bake cooking following videos that Ryan J has posted as well as videos & techniques from Jon at FlatCat Gear.

I recently took the V1 on our (my wife and I) 4-day trip backpacking Death Valley at the end of January. Combined with an Evernew titanium 1L pot and a super thin titanium windscreen I purchased off of Amazon, I think it’s actually lighter than my Jetboil Sol Ti.  The real reason I took it was because we car-camped for a few days prior to backpacking and we did Ryan’s bean burrito cooking method in the fry-bake.  The fry-bake pan was left in the car for the backpacking portion of the trip.

 

 

 

[Roger Caffin]

I use my stoves in summer as well: the pot is lower to the ground and more stable. I am, of course, biased!

Cheers

[Johan Larsson]

How does the rotating hose connection work? I can’t really get my head around it. Is there a pressed fitting on the hose that stops it from being pulled out?

[Roger Caffin]

A quick sketch of the connector at the stove end of the hose.
The grey is the hose itself.
The brown is meant to be a round O-ring which seals the hose to the stove body.
The pink is the end of the stove body.
The green is a hollow nut which screws onto the end of the stove body. You can’t see the thread.
The pale blue is a ‘sleeve’ into which the hose is locked (your ‘pressed’), and it has a shoulder which the hollow nut retains. But it is free to rotate.

At the canister connector end a flat plate replaces the hollow nut.

Cheers

[Tjaard Breeuwer]

@roger, if I understand correctly, this is (going to be) a stove with integrated pot supports? If so, what diameter are you aiming at?

I ask, because, (for winter camping) I prefer a big, flat pot (~4l) in order to be able to easily fill and refill it with snow for melting. Also because I have 2 kids, so melting snow/boiling water for 4 people at once.

Anyway, as usual, super fun to read the engineering, problem solving and design choices!

please keep doing this stuff and writing it up for us!

 

 

 

[todd]

Man I love (and miss!) your articles and creativity, Roger!!!  You’re such an amazing contributor to this community.

[Roger Caffin]

@Tjaard

Part 2 should be published next week, and all will be revealed. Yes, integrated pot supports are part of the design.

That said, a 4 L pot could be very big, and I cannot recommend putting something that large on any camping stove. Very few of our stoves are designed to support 4 kg of water (4 L)

The big diameter can create problems with excessive heat being reflected downwards from the bottom of the pot. This is more likely to affect the upright stoves than the remote canister stoves of course.

Chuckle: the more common concern is with beer-can pots. They are often too small to sit on the stove pot supports.

Stay tuned.
Cheers
PS: thanks todd.

[Author]

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