Kovea Spider failed in cold weather…now what?

Just curious, how cold was it?  I’ve used my Spider stove on a couple of cold winter trips (so far) down to the mid-teens without any troubles.  In fact, I bought it largely for winter trips to melt snow, etc.  Your experience is… alarming.

Has anyone else out there in BPLandia had this happen with their Kovea Spider?  Curious if this is a known issue or a random fluke.

I believe it was down into the single digits.  The coldest I’ve seen for sure.

Weird stuff failed on me….My contact solution froze (I thought the salt content would help it suvive the cold?), my bandaids lost their sticky and became brittle, and boiling water in a nalgene grew ice crystals on top within 5 minutes.

The stove worked fine the first night.  Just fluttered here and there.  The next morning is when it failed.  I kept it in my bear can in the snow….so maybe that was my mistake….

Optimus Vega would be a good choice.

A friend has used the MSR XGK down to around -30f

(white spirit/Coleman gas)

I am a Kovea Re-seller.  I have reached out to the US Kovea Representative and forwarded this thread to him.  I will keep you up to date with any responses.

I have not heard of this problem before and have personally take this gear out to freezing temperatures as well as placed the unit in my sub zero freezer for testing.  Best regards

+1 for the Optimus Vega.  Used to melt snow at what was probably -12 fahrenheit a couple winters ago.  Have only used it in winter conditions about a total of four nights, but it performed without a hiccup every time.

Oh Geez, and i just bought a Spider for primarily winter use…. hope it’s just a freak incident.  Sorry to hear about your epic gear destruction btw.

Where’s Jim when you need him… the “dang it man, i’m a stove expert, not a doctor” guy.

That is VERY odd. Normally those hoses are lined with PTFE, PFA or FEP. These materials are rated to below -170 C (yes, minus one hundred and seventy degrees centigrade). Equally, they are usually rated to above 200 C.And they are very tough too.

So having a hose crack or blow out is almost unbelievable. I don’t suppose the hose could have been full of water – ice in this case? I thought not.

I would certainly be asking Kovea for a replacement. Perhaps Jon can help.

Cheers

“Hellfire death was spitting out of the hose where it connects to the stove.” was it the hose that failed or the fitting at the end of the hose that connects the hose to the stove? any visable damage/burn marks at the point of ignition that you can post a picture of?

I use a old MSR of any flavor that uses Coleman fuel, or an old kerosene stove like a Radius 43 or Primus 41 roarer burner.   Heavy, but they work and for me, it’s about the experience.  Cool factor is off the charts.  Of course I’m biased as I collect the old stoves.

Duane

Really happy with my Optimus Vega remote canister stove.

No issues after 3 years use in some real brutal cold conditions.

“Hellfire death was spitting out of the hose where it connects to the stove.”

Picture?

was it the hose that failed or the fitting at the end of the hose that connects the hose to the stove?

Um – yeah, good question. If it was the connection, that’s a whole different story.

A photo of the stove with an arrow showing where it faild is needed.

Cheers

Here ya go: 

Looks like the flexible hose with PTFE (or similar) liner was crimped onto the end of the hose.  Funny that is where most crimped hoses meet there death is at the crimp at the end.  I have seen several hydraulic hoses, power steering hoses, refrigerant hoses, etc all fail in similar places. I know where I am going to inspect my Kovea!                                                                                                                Chris was this ever bent / flexed / kinked way to hard at this point?

The hose was frozen and stiff that morning…so I bent it a little so the stove would sit upright.  That was probably what did it.

Also noteworthy is that when I turned on the gas…it only seemed to hiss a tiny bit.  Like it was clogged or something.  Took me a while to light it…and when I did POOF!!

Lost a few knuckle hairs!  haha.  Just glad it didn’t melt my hexamid beak which was nearby.

I’ll be ordering one of those primus stoves soon.

interesting … notes to self:

1. don’t sell that MSR Windpro 2 just yet
2. When (IF?) truly cold weather finally arrives, leave the spider out on the deck overnight and do  more setup & fire up tests … repeat
3. Even if it passes, pay attention to how I stow it in cold weather.

maybe don’t bend hose when it’s frozen?

you can use upright canister down to 25 F.  Then one of the techniques to go below that – container of water or a metal strip into flame.  Experiment before hand to make sure you can make that work,  Then you don’t have to worry about stuff from inverted canister gumming up your valve.

I’ve not yet seen a commercial stove with a hose made from PTFE, PFA, or FEP. Those materials vary in colour between milky white and almost clear. All commercial stoves that I have looked at have a hose material that is black. That suggests some form of rubber, that may become stiff and brittle in extreme cold (Challenger anyone?).

Yeah, extraneous gear. I STILL use my SVEA 123r, ha, hey.

I don’t like white gas because it occasionally flares up and singes my eyebrows

I remember camping in the snow once and couldn’t get my Svea to work.  It was my own lack of technique, but they are trickier to get to work when it’s real cold.

Stuart makes a good point here. I am used to PFA hoses, but I note that some recent Chinese hoses have used a black rubber of some sort instead – possibly nitrile or worse. I remember a discussion here about one Chinese stove/hose which shed black rubber crumbs from inside the hose – really cheap and nasty! Cost is obviously the motive, but the cheaper stuff can perish or crack in severe cold. That a Kovea brand stove would suffer this is poor.

Moral: treat hoses gently!

Cheers

There is an easy way to prime white gas stoves and our very own Hiking Jim has a clip showing just that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4-8DClpNho

I have seen it working with the Whisperlite and the XGK. (on snow but not Arctic temps…)

It’s easy  to carry a separate small alcohol container, easy to pour into the priming dish a tablespoon of alcohol and light that up instead of  sort of guessing how much fuel comes out of the bottle trying to prime the usual way.

That’s how I primed my whisperlite way back when.  :)