Companion forum thread to:

MYOG - A Winter Canister Stove using your Summer Upright Stove and the Brunton Stove Stand

Thanks for your insight and design for converting a standard canister stove for winter use. I was looking at the Brunton stand as an option for liquid feed but was concerned about the the preheat feature it lacked. I was considering a MSR WindPro but didn't want to buy another stove. I'll be converting my Crux with this setup for winter.

Where can I purchase the Kovea inverted canister stand?

Roger, I have a question about materials for you. By selecting brass you say that allows the heating strip to pivot easily. Does that mean if an aluminum block were paired with a brass strip then too much friction would result and it would sieze up? Just curious about further weight savings. Thanks!

Hi Roger,

Thanks for another great article.

As a myog SUL stove designer and maker I like your metal strip pre-heat idea.

I am wondering as copper (401 W/(m.K) has nearly four times the thermal conductivity of brass (109 W/(m.K) and nearly the same density if some weight saving could have been made by using copper.

Tony

Hi Patrick

> Where can I purchase the Kovea inverted canister stand?
Ah - sorry, I'm lost.
Details please?

Cheers

Hi Monty and Tony

Brass vs Aluminium vs Copper

Yes, copper is a better heat conductor, and aluminium is lighter.

The problem with both copper and aluminium in this application are that they both wear badly under high sliding forces. Brass, on the other hand, is an excellent bearing material. You will note my comment about how the bolt did not come loose over the length of the field trip: I suspect that might not have been the case with copper of aluminium.

It is instructive to compare the weight of the brass block with that of copper and aluminium:
Brass: 8.06 g
Copper: 8.54 g
Alum: 2.59 g

There is negligeable difference in weight for the copper (as expected), and the 5.4 g difference for the Al block is, all things considered, not a large price to pay for the far greater life and reliability. Imho.

EDIT Nov-2008: I now strongly recommend that you use a copper fin rather than brass. Brass is not sufficiently conductive.

Cheers

Edited by rcaffin on 11/19/2008 02:35:42 MST.

Very Nice! I saw that stand and thought of doing the same kind of thing. Thanks for pointing out that the pre-heater doesn't have to be red hot itself. That makes it a lot easier.

I might have to try this with my Pocket Rocket?

Roger,

I'm in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Tried looking on the Kovea website but I saw nothing there in stove accessories.

Hi Patric! Kovea is the company that makes the Snow Peak stove, Brunton is the company that makes the stand. I'd like to find one, too! Tomorrow I'll try to make it out to REI and special order one. Happy trails!

Roger, thanks for the clarification regarding metals!

Great article Roger!

I just ordered the Brunton Stove Stand from Brunton directly. With shipping it came to $30. They only ship to US and Canada, but some retailers also have them in stock.

It occurs to me that this should also work with the Jetboil components with the advantage of the added fuel efficiency that the integral heat exchanger would bring. I'm going to have to go back and research some component weights of Jetboil kits now.

Brunton Stove Stand Manual

Edited by jbrinkmanboi on 05/08/2008 10:50:19 MDT.

Brilliant and simple. I really like it...

Hi Jason

I am sure it will work with bits off a jetboil - in fact it will be much lighter than the helios I am sure.

But will the few grams of fuel savings be enough to outweigh the extra weight of the Jetboil stove? Do the sums yourself, but I have my doubts.

Cheers

Hey Roger,

No, I am certain that the fuel savings would not offset the extra weight of the Jetboil stove and pot (especially the standard pot with neoprene cozy and rubber lid), unless you were on a very long trip (Roman?). However, carrying less fuel cannisters is pleasing to me, and the Jetboil design is nice too.

Personally, I am waiting for someone (are you listening Jetboil?) to produce a titanium pot with an integral heat exchanger. Preferably in two sizes - a 700 mL boiling pot, and a 2L snow melting pot.

I found a cut down Jetboil PCS project posted recently, unfortunately I couldn't read it, but the weights were getting down to acceptable.

I have always wanted to try cutting the plastic off the base of a Jetboil PCS stove to see how much weight can be saved, but I fear I would end up with an unstable system that would require further mods.

Maybe I am the only one here still facinated with the Jetboil's heat exchanger, but a BPL MYOG article on an UL version would be great.

Edited by jbrinkmanboi on 05/09/2008 13:22:09 MDT.

Hi Jason

I think this was the link your were mentioning.

found Jetboil change

Personally I will stick with an alcy stoves and a caldera with esbit as an option.

Edited by rogerb on 05/09/2008 13:19:07 MDT.

Yup, that's the one. Anyone got a Jetboil PCS that they want to part with for cheap? :)

I've modified a Jetboil PCS to remove the black plastic base. The modification is easily reversible--you basically disassemble the stove and remove the black plastic part. The result can still be stable with a minor modification. It takes some fiddling to unscrew the valve part from the metal tube that goes to the burner--this is needed to remove the black plastic. To prevent the metal pot base from wobbling, I used a small ring of thin aluminum tubing between the burner head and the pot base, but anything that pushes the pot base against the circlip will work. Of course, after doing this, the piezo lighter is no longer usable. You also can't lock the cookpot to the stove, since there's no way to grab the hot stove to twist the pot off. I think this results in a ~2-3 oz. weight savings...

Jason writes: Personally, I am waiting for someone (are you listening Jetboil?) to produce a titanium pot with an integral heat exchanger.

The key feature of the Jetboil is greater efficiency through superior conductivity of heat from the flame to the pot and into the contained fluid. I'm afraid that TI's poor heat conductivity would be a buzz kill at this party.

Ti is an amazing material that solves many problems; weight, strength, corrosiveness, durability, heat weakening. But poor heat conductivity makes it a poor choice for a cooking pot. Thin aluminum pots easily outperform Ti pots when you weigh in the extra time and fuel consumed.

Additionally, for 1 and 2 person teams I use a .9oz Heineken can which is lighter than any Ti pot I've seen and conducts excellently.

Hi Jason,

Here is the URL of my MYOG - A Winter Canister Stove with Jetboil Components I have had it working at -7C.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/xdpy/forum_thread/7265/index.html?skip_to_post=53450#53450

I think Rogers Winter stove conversion would be much more difficult to do than the stoves he has used as the burner is enclosed in the pot support, it possible could be done if the heating sstrip is easily removable by a wing nut or some similar system, I like the stove support Roger has used it is much better han mine.

Al

>Ti is an amazing material that solves many problems; weight, strength, corrosiveness, durability, heat weakening. But poor heat conductivity makes it a poor choice for a cooking pot. Thin aluminum pots easily outperform Ti pots when you weigh in the extra time and fuel consumed

I thought the same before I did some tests, I could not make Al pots perform better than my Ti pot, this was true with alcohol and canister gas. Below is a graph of my results and the points are boiling time for different flame settings. SS even performed better than Al.

Tony

Edited by tbeasley on 05/09/2008 16:34:28 MDT.

> Ti is an amazing material that solves many problems; weight, strength, corrosiveness, durability, heat weakening. But poor heat conductivity makes it a poor choice for a cooking pot. Thin aluminum pots easily outperform Ti pots when you weigh in the extra time and fuel consumed

Both Tony and I have tested this belief, and neither of us have found enough evidence to justify it. The reason is fairly simple however. Yes, Al is a better conductor of heat than Ti, BUT all things are not equal. A Ti pot wall is so much thinner than an Al pot wall that the difference becomes negligeable: 0.2 C from memory!

However, when it comes to FINS, then things are really different. The Ti fins will NOT conduct heat into the pot with the speed Al fins do, because the heat won't flow along the length of the Ti fins nearly as well. Here the difference in thermal conductivity becomes very significant.

Cheers

The Brunton adapter would allow me to invert my canister for winter use, but none of my stoves have pre-heat tubes. Is this a problem? Would liquid fuel spray everywhere in an expanding fireball?! The good experiences of other posters would indicate otherwise, but yet pre-heat tubes do exist.