Smallest possible butane-stove set-up?

[Roger Caffin]

Seems the Lindal valve is very inconsistent.

I will dispute this, on several grounds. First, Lindal must have made millions of these things, and they have not gone broke as a result of the valves not working. That in itself should make one hesitate. Secondly, I have a huge box of empty canisters, and the Lindal valves on them have always worked. Thirdly, I have refilled ‘a few’ canisters myself over the years, and that process has always worked fine.

The Lindal valves are very consistent – after the first million they usually are. But the pin on the connector which is meant to actuate the valve does vary between manufacturers. Some make the pin longer than it should be, so some gas leaks out as you make the connection, before the seal is made. Some make the pin a bit too short so you have to really screw the stove down hard to get any gas out at all. And some canister filling companies damage the Lindal valve when they crimp it onto the can, so that some connections to some stoves don’t work properly. This involves an adjustment on the crimping machine which needs to be monitored. I have seen all these problems.

Cheers
——
EDIT:
A slight back-pedal is needed here. When I talk about the ‘Lindal valve’, I am referring to the B188 valve made by the Lindal group of Germany. I think it is reliable.

BUT! Rumour has it that there are Chinese clones of this valve on the market, and I have no experience of any of them. If the air horns are made in China, who knows where the valve was made? (But I still think the pin is probably the problem.)

Cheers

[John K]

Roger – These may not actually be lindal valves on these air horns or maybe modified out of spec on purpose to prevent attaching the wrong thing to them. The 1st manufacturer I tried recessed the valve so deep in the top of the canister that nothing could reach it other than the plastic horn. A second manufacturer I tried had non standard center pins, again, that only the rod in the horn could reach. Now that I have a couple that work well I’ll continue playing with it. :)

[Roger Caffin]

Hi John

OK, check the writing on the box and the can. Is the country of origin stated?

A more deeply recessed spigot may be intentional, OR it may mean a mis-adjusted crimping machine. I have seen the latter on some gas canisters.

Cheers

[John K]

The canister states made in USA on it.

 

[Brian Devlin]

I can’t confirm if it is a deeper depressed pin.  I need to devise a way to measure.  I can tell you that at the moment I can get my BRS to vent out the gas from it but not from that 2-way $12 valve David shows on pg 1 of this thread.

EDIT**  I can say that it is mucho easier to manually depress the pin on my 220g Coleman Cannister than it is to depress this air horn’s pin.

[Roger Caffin]

I published an article on the Lindal valves back in 2014 which covers a lot of this. The URL is
https://backpackinglight.com/lindal-valves-caffin/

The critical bit may be how far the spigot sticks above the rim. This photo shows a range of brands with different protrusions.

The amount of protrusion does not matter if the stove screws down onto just the spigot withOUT touching the rim. However, some stoves try to have a secondary seal at the rim, as well as the primary seal on the top of the spigot. I know that if the spigot is depressed too far, the stove can bottom out on the rim without having the pin work the valve.

In an extreme case, where the crimping machine was badly adjusted, the middle of the Lindal valve can be distorted downwards. This photo shows a good (or bad!) example on the right.

The red line on the right points to where the inner part of the valves has been depressed. It should look flat, as shown by the blue line on the left. These are actually old Coleman Powermax canisters, but you do get exactly the same with screw threads.

Funny story about the Powermax canisters and the Xtreme stoves. A lot of people had complained to Coleman that they could not get the canister to mate with the stove in the snow. Coleman could not work it out. The reason was that the canisters had deformed Lindal valves AND the cold weather made the sealing O-ring so hard so it would not compress. I discussed this with the relevant Coleman product manager, whose reaction was ‘Oh, that’s why they have been complaining!’ Lab testing, in a nice warm lab, had not suffered this problem (of course).

As a result, Coleman had the crimping machine adjusted so the top of the spigot was just level with the rim, and I think they modified the later versions of the Xtreme stove to have not one but TWO O-rings for sealing: more elasticity.

Can you photo the canister side-on as in my 1st photo?

Cheers

[John K]

Wow, that’s a bunch of variation! I can’t post a photo right now, but will. I looked at this closely when I first had the problem and noticed the variation and picked ones in the store that protruded the most. Mine looks most like the one in your top left #1 slot.

[Brian Devlin]

Sure enough I do see the variation in the spigot height.  The Coleman canister of course being the highest.  I did modify my 2-way refill valve a bit to allow further clearance.  I also dropped oil in the valve and manually actuated the pin several times.  Not sure if that helps or not.  There was also excessive rubber not centered and kind of protruding out.  I cleaned that up carefully.  I am now able to fill the canister but only in increments of 4 to 5 grams.  The Shoreline Marine Horn seems to be the more difficult of the two to fill and it has the shortest spigot.

[Roger Caffin]

Does the adapter hit the rim (on either canister) at all?

Cheers

[Brian Devlin]

No, it did not come close to hitting the rim of either canister.  BTW, I just finished filling the Shoreline canister without much problem after oiling and removing some of the rubber.  It also only filled in increments.  I may know why.  While testing the run time when I first filled the Air & Stream canister I noticed the flame would die down at the end of each boil.  The canister is so small that it may be affected more dramatically by temperature change.  It got pretty cold in my boil tests and worked fine with a minor heat shielding/wind screen. Conversely, when filling, the canister warmed up pretty fast when accepting that warm fuel from the donor.  Does this all seem plausible?

[Roger Caffin]

Yes, certainly plausible.

You could try sitting the canister in a bowl of ice water (with ice) to hold the temperature low and stable when refilling.

You could also try sitting it in a bowl of ‘warm’ water when cooking, where ‘warm’ could be 10 – 20 C. When I do this I top up the bowl with a few spoonfuls of hot water from the pot halfway through.

Try it and report results? Interested.

Cheers

[Brian Devlin]

Took my Air Horn canister BRS combo out for a field test.  It was tough keeping the BRS on tight enough to engage the gas flow. It was much colder than I expected but above freezing.  I need to see if I can do something about that.  Refilling at home was attempted while keeping the donor in warm water.  I was still only able to fill in increments.  About 4 grams a whack.  Maybe I should try making an ice mold for the air horn canister??

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I’ll stick with the small iso-butane steel canisters and my Brunton Crux folding burner – and try losing an few pounds on my  love handles.

[David Thomas]

Someone PM’ed about buying some of these little canisters (empty) from me because he didn’t find any (plus shipping) that were reasonably priced.  I slept on it, thought to google a few things and found that party air horns are cheaper than marine air horns, by a lot, and appear to use a similar canister:

I’m not sure it’s a Lindal valve but I’m sure that 3 for $12 off of eBaby including shipping out of California is a lot cheaper than the marine version.

[”V” (CzechClown)]

Yes, those are similar type canisters  1.0 – 1.4 oz. but they generally don’t have the screw top.  The smaller horns are the key thing to avoid, they are pressed on.

 

Thanks,

Someone

 

[David Thomas]

Thanks, V,  for catching that!  Alas, I can’t go back and edit my post now.

I’ve found one of my marine air horns (with the aluminum cylinder) and will PM you when I find the other another one – the garage is in some disarray now with many spring projects after a snowy winter.  Looks like I could send them USPS First Class in a small box for not much.

[”V” (CzechClown)]

Does anyone have a empty small marine air horn canisters they wouldn’t mind parting with? One that has the Lindal value.

 

Thanks

 

[”V” (CzechClown)]

Happy to pay for cans and shipping 😀

[John K]

Reviving an old thread…interesting canister that appears to be part of the Soto Hinoto:  

[Roger Caffin]

The stove itself loks like a genuine BRS-3000T stove.
But the canister is interesting. A cross between a conventional screw-thread and a Powermax. Fairly small capacity – probably good for two nights?

EDIT: looks like the canister from a SOTO MUKA gasoline stove (see SOTO catalog). Does it have a Lindal valve? Very interesting.
Ah, but while some are selling it with a conventional SIGG-style fuel bottle, the SOTO catalog seems to show a smaller canister.
Aha – has someone made an adapter to go between a SIGG screw-thread and a Lindal screw thread? Clever!

Cheers

[John K]

Appears to be native lindal – trying to get a hold of a Hinoto without breaking the bank: 

[Roger Caffin]

Not sure about the ‘native’ bit: the valve looks like brass! Unless of course it is brass-plated steel, which would be both stronger and cheaper.

Key question: does it have the Lindal undercut rim?????

And does the top row of images ADVERTISE refilling the canisters????? The second from the left looks like a stock butane canister on top. The setup on the right looks like a commercial refilling adapter.

Cheers

[Piney]

The Hinoto canister is very interesting. However, based on the dimensions it looks to have even less capacity that the air horn canisters. Also the top/valve looks to be machined brass. Based on some similarly sized/shaped brass parts I’ve weighed, I would guess the Hinoto canister weighs at least 1.5 ounces.

I’ve been experimenting with the Falcon isobutane horn canister John K mentioned. So far I have only been able to fill it with 24 grams of isobutane (capacity printed on the canister is 28 grams.) As others have mentioned, it only likes to accept 3-4 grams at a time. The canister warms within a second or two of opening the valve and the flow stops. There is tons of head space at 24 grams – still very sloshy.

The only stove I have been able to successfully connect it to is the BRS, which seems to have a longer pin. You have to tighten the BRS all the way down to the rim, which puts a tiny bit of tilt/sideways pressure on the Lindal valve.

[Piney]

Linking a review of the Hinoto, which discusses filling it with gas (use google translate)

 

https://happycamper.jp/_ct/17425516

[Roger Caffin]

You have to tighten the BRS all the way down to the rim,
Could be dangerous if the thread is poorly formed steel as on all screw-thread canisters. The steel trashes the much softer thread on the stove.
Been there, done that.

Cheers

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