I was in the mood to create tonight, so I decided to once and for all create a windscreen for my Snow Peak LiteMax canister stove and Evernew 0.9L pot. May still add some small notches to prevent shifting and call it a day. Here's what I came up with.

- 9" of S.S. wire
- Wire cutters
- Tiny pliers
- Clikstand Ti Windscreen
- About 7-10 minutes of time







Test Results:
===========================================
(In the following order)

Canister Stove
:: Windscreen
:: 60*F Water
:: 44*F Ambient
Boil: 2:50

Canister Stove
:: No Windscreen
:: 60*F Water
:: 44*F Ambient
Boil: 3:40

Canister Stove
:: No Windscreen
:: 60*F Water
:: 44*F Ambient
Boil: 4:30

Canister Stove
:: Windscreen
:: 60*F Water
:: 44*F Ambient
Boil: 4:00

Canister Stove
:: No Windscreen
:: 60*F Water
:: 50*F Ambient
Boil: 5:20

Canister Stove
:: Windscreen
:: 60*F Water
:: 50*F Ambient
Boil: 4:10

Summary:
===========================================

With Windscreen:
2:50
4:00
4:10

Without Windscreen:
3:40
4:30
5:20

Avg. Time Saved w/ Windscreen/Heat Accelerator:
50 seconds

--------------------------------------------

Hopefully that should get me an average of an extra 2 boils (aka - 1-2 days of cooking) per 4oz fuel canister.

If anyone wants to make one for themselves, I will happily take some photos showing to to make it.

KJ

Edited by f8less on 11/21/2012 20:40:35 MST.

1) Surely the main reason for using a windscreen is to minimise the effect of wind on the stove?

2) Even in apparently consistent conditions you get a wide variation in boil times - two of the 'with windscreen' times are slower than one of the 'without windscreen' times. Try measuring mass of gas used instead (you will need scale with a resolution of 0.01oz).




If the mood takes you.

Edited by Scunnered on 11/22/2012 01:47:20 MST.

That is a very nice looking wind screen. I've thought about doing something like this for the same stove, and have a couple of questions. Where do you hang the wires from the stove? Do you find that the screen is fairly stable on the stove once you position it? Does the wind screen roll up so it can be stored in the pot? How high was the flame on the stove? When I've done something like this using a high stove flame, I've had problems with the stove overheating, and once even melting a part. In general I heat with a moderate to low flame anyway since I find it more fuel efficient. Thanks again for showing us your work.
Jim

Would love details and pics! Thanks for postign - always fun to see DIY projects like this and it's definitely one of the more elegant canister stove windscreen solutions.

1) Correct. I just noticed the benefit of it trapping more heat around the pot than without.

2) This would take more free time than I usually have. Last night was a rare occurrence. I can definitely show others how to build this and perhaps they can run tests.

Jim

The stove wires hang from the large holes in each of the pot support arms. The wires are bent almost to the exact thickness of the pot support arm to minimize side to side play. It is fairly stable with my blowing on it hard. The worst thing that happens is that it tilts up slightly and maybe against the pot on one side. Nothing horrible as it sit close to the pot as is. This should be minimized if I trim off the extra screen length. The windscreen can be adjusted to be 5.9" or 6.4"(?), thus making it heavier on one side when I have it set to the 5.9" for this application. Also, the addition of small (exactly spaced) notches or very shallow slots for the wires to sit in should also help this. For all my testing, the only time it shifted was when I forcefully blew on it...and even then the result was nothing o be concerned about. Just may heat one side of the pot a but more as it would trap more heat (Caldera Cone style).

The windscreen cones apart and cam be rolled up pretty tight. Honestly you could make the windscreen out of aluminum roof flashing. I just happened to already have this Clikstand titanium windscreen that I believe is purposefully sized for the Evernew 0.9L and 1.4L wide pots.

The flame was on all the way for the purpose of testing and ensuring that all tests were conducted with the same level of heat. Wasteful? Yes. More precise than me guessing the same flame height each time? Yup. Didn't have any overheating issues at the ambient temps that I conducted the tests at. I even at one point felt the top of the fuel canister to see if it was at all hot, and it was just slightly warm at best. This was most likely just from heat transferring from the aluminum stove base itself.

Example pictures below:









HTH

KJ

Weddy, weddy clever!

I have something similar but with an MSR windscreen for my Brunton Crux stove.

There may be a good reason that you can't buy a canister stove windscreen in the store. Just sayin ...

Yes, there may.
We know from Roger Caffin's articles and posts that reducing the distance between the burner and the pot bottom may greatly increase carbon monoxide emissions.
Completely surrounding the burner? I don't know. But I do know how deadly and insidious CO can be.

Sometime ago, SP introduced an ALU screen for its Gigapower stove that sits above the burner head, thus does not direct heat toward the canister.
Some of us have redone that product in Ti, using Ti pot bottoms:

Something like this, but less fancy, has been done with a foil pieplate.

When it is cold, windy and/or and the rain is pouring, it is nice to have a hot meal under the vestibule cover. But the cover greatly reduces ventilation compared with being outside the shelter. That is especially so for those who prefer vestibules that come right down to the ground (Not I).

Until I know beyond doubt that a full screen is safe, the less confining screen, with a design from the manufacturer, is comforting, and also works great. It increased the burn time on the SP-GP, already great, by at least 20%, and eliminated the need to hunt for further wind protection when using the stove outside the tent.

Hope this is worth some food for thought.

Edited by scfhome on 11/23/2012 20:32:34 MST.