Yes, a video will be uploaded also. How are you doing on your wire reduction project?

View it at youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_pivu43u-Y

Dan, what diameter of the wire in that lighter? Why did you punch the hole in the mesh of your stove? It gives more evaporation? Or have you distributed the fiberglass in the stove differently?

As I see it, greater area of evaporation is needed for providing more vapors. I think that absorbent like the fiberglass in your stoves is good for making evaporation faster. After I saw your video (thanks), I even confirm this because sometimes you need to find good spot above the stove where vapors of methanol are more concentrated.

Have you tried to light it in wind?

My current project is to make the lighter as follows: spiraled platinum wire within small cylinder open on both sides. This cylinder will act like a tiny windscreen. In order to light the Starlyte stove you need to put it on the opening and wait a little.

Version two of it: two cylinders. One inside of another with greater diameter, both same height. The wire is inside the middle cylinder. There is some gap between cylinders, and outer cylinder is same diameter as Starlyte stove. While the wire in the center gets hotter, the gas (formaldehyde, water, vapors of methanol and air) goes up causing lower pressure in it. Therefore the air (oxygen most importantly) is sucked from space between inner and outer cylinder through the Starlyte stove, taking necessary methanol vapors for the reaction.

Have to try them both. What I'm trying to do is to get the lighter work in windy conditions.

Regards, Greg.

Edited by tauneutrino on 03/02/2013 23:14:41 MST.

I'm guessing the wire diameter is .001 or less.

The hole in the StarLyte is a duplication of the original lighter. Placing the platinum wires in the StarLyte hole makes it work. After initial ignition the burner heats up and gives off an enormous amount of vapour that is easily lit by holding the wire above the burner.

I have not tried to light it in the wind. That test will come next.

Greg, have you been able to make the wire small enough to glow red in the presence of the alcohol?

For now, the GEEK stove is the only one in the world. :-)))

Good luck on your DIY project.

Dan, the wire is in the lab now for the tests for platinum. When I'll get to it, I will continue and report. Yes I got it why you made a hole. Congrats on your success with the geek stove!

Thanks Dan!

looks good. It sounds like you had to play around a bit to get a stove configuration that lit easily. Is that correct?

My own project has been at a standstill since I have been traveling for work. I did pick up a glow plug for an rc airplane. It has a little platinum coil in it and it only cost about $7. The wire is much thicker than the 0.003" stuff I have though, so I don't hold much hope of getting a reaction out of it at room temps.

The ignighter has a small black ball at end where 2 wires meet. No dought it plays a big part in ignition/thermal reaction.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Platinum black (Pt black) is a fine powder of platinum with good catalytic properties. The name of platinum black is due to its black color.

Platinum black is widely used as a thin film covering solid platinum metal, forming platinum electrodes for applications in electrochemistry. The process of covering platinum electrodes with such a layer of platinum black is called "platinization of platinum". The platinized platinum has a true surface area much higher than the geometrical surface area of the electrode and, therefore, exhibits catalytic action superior to that of shiny platinum.

Platinum black powder is used as a catalyst in proton exchange membrane fuel cells. In common practice, the platinum black is either sprayed or hot pressed onto the membrane or gas diffusion layer. A suspension of platinum black and carbon powder in ethanol-water solutions serves to optimize the uniformity of the coating, electrical conductivity, and in the case of application to the membrane, to prevent dehydration of the membrane during the application.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_black

I assume that something like this is far too thick?

http://www.crscientific.com/platinumwire.html

Yes, I think it's too thick of a wire. It looks like the wire is used to support a piece of mineral/rock in the 1/4" loop and then placed into a flame to be analized.

It needs to be in the .001 range.

Update:

First of all it is platinum. Several tests we made in a lab shows it is pure platinum.
So far no success with the ignition. But I don't give up. I have still some ideas to try. I'm trying to increase the area while retain thermal weight. Currently after flatten the piece of platinum wire to thin sheet I want to put it between two sheets of sandpaper and pressurize so that platinum will get that texture and therefore will have greater area. I'll try to do that with different sandpaper size.

Any ideas are welcome!

I see you ared oing your reasearch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSdBB1vBDKY

As you saw in the video, the large diameter wire had to be preheated for the reaction to start. Also interesting is the statement that enough oxygen had to enter the flask in order for ignition to occur.

If you preheat your wire it should react.

If you draw out your 0.005 wire to 0.001 I think you'll get the reaction without the preheat.

Finally got glowing.

Very small (1x3 mm) piece of very thin platinum "foil". Smashed it between sandpapers as mentioned above it got really creased. Then took 1 match and made a crack in it. Then inserted one end of the platinum piece in it. Then burnt the match, the platinum remained in the coal. I'm gaining here something I can hold while coal does not conduct heat well. Then I took a cap of a regular plastic bottle, took cottonwool and made a "circle" with it. Soaked it in pure methanol.

It was tricky to find a "hot spot" above the cottonwool. But when it was at the right place it glowed! OMG!

Now, I've ruined this piece because all the stuff is so small and breaks and get lost easily.

I have also successfully made the experiment with flask as shown on youtube. Preheated wire glows brightly.


Still a lot of work todo. While I got the glowing, I wasn't able to light methanol. Then, I think the piece should be with smaller thermal mass but with greater surface area. This is my primary goal. Need to find a way for making it. Have some ideas for that need to try.
Then, I'm still curious if I will be able to make lighter with battery: just preheat the wire with electrical current while in methanol vapors. This is another project however...

Will update here.

The flask video was cool!

Glad you are progressing and got the "glow".

The "fire" comes next with great anticipation :-)

"...I'm still curious if I will be able to make lighter with battery: just preheat the wire with electrical current while in methanol vapors...."

RC Airplane glow plugs would be perfect for that. They only cost about $7 and are preset up with a platinum coil and ready to run a current through it.

Everyone can make one work with a battery ;)

Make it work with just the 0.001 wire.

photobucket video, click on it to view
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Edited by zelph on 03/11/2013 21:04:50 MDT.

Dan, can you make a close-up macro photo of the lighter (wire with ball) with some millimeter or even smaller scale on background? This would help me a lot to engineer lighter from thick wire.

BTW, this foil maybe even better: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/aldrich/267244?lang=en&region=IL

0.025 mm thickness.

Best I can do for now:

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Thank you! it is exactly what I needed. It seems to me that when you place your lighter in methanol vapors what ig glowing is not that ball, but the wire itself. Correct me if I'm wrong.