Need to refill small gas cylinders?

[Moondog55]

Is there any one refill adapter that performs the best or are they all similar?
The one I am looking at on ebay at the moment looks OK but I'm wondering if it is available anywhere else cheaper
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/161200918337 ... 1423.l2649
I have now accumulated a half dozen smaller gas cylinders and I'm working out how many recharges I need to pay back the purchase cost

[Strider]

MD there is another G Works unit that has a relief valve that allows easier filling apparently.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/New-G-Works- ... 2a8&_uhb=1

That said, my older model works fine and gas in the flyspray cans is cheap enough to waste a little anyway.

[Moondog55]

Thanx Strider
I collected a half dozen discarded 100 gram cans at PV hut and I was going to recycle them but I thought it was better to refill and reuse them Big containers of low temperature gas are also cheap enough but those small ones are expensive

[Franco]

"Big containers of low temperature gas are also cheap enough"
What type do you have in mind ?

[Moondog55]

460gram Elemental cylinders

[Strider]

Can get 12 x 200g canisters iso-butane for $13 from Big W.

[Moondog55]

Those for warm weather Strider, I think I need the other mix for my winter kit The butane were on sale at my local Safeway 6 for $5.60 so I got one batch

[Strider]

They are for any weather with a stove that allows the canister to be inverted

[Moondog55]

I may also need a second little stove. My MSR Pocket Rocket + small gas won't fit inside the 850ml kettle
Any suggestions there Strider? I was / am looking at the Kovea Titanium

[Strider]

Kovea spider is surprisingly compact

[icefest]

FMS-300T

$50 delivered from china, and weighs less than 40g.

[Moondog55]

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Olicamp-FMS- ... 35d9f3f550
???

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Authentic-FI ... 4897.l5659

???

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Fire-Maple-S ... 4897.l5676

$24- sounds almost to good to be true

[Strider]

$101 and $53 for me?

[dancier]

I filled a small cylinder up the other day with the adaptor below, haven't used it yet but put about 50 grams of gas in it, only took a few minutes with one of those long slim cylinders.

http://store.taiwancamping.net/home/fie ... ll-adapter

The comments are worth reading.
http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com ... lling.html

I bought one of these recently, haven't used it yet but it fit's ok.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/121310707259 ... 1439.l2649

Want a cheap stove? - $4,26
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/140642727463 ... 1439.l2649

[Moondog55]

The last link is the stove in the Aldi cook-set, I was after something very light so I'm not tempted to leave it behind; those are quite heavy.
I seriously need to rethink my day trip survival kit after the F***-Up this winter, so I'm trying to get everything including food into the 850ml titanium cup. If I can't then I'll use the 1 liter aluminium billy.
Seems silly to throw out the empty containers when they can be refilled "Hey?"

[dancier]

I find with the cylinders, you get close to empty and don't take it because you might run out of gas, so adding some gives you a safety margin.

I'm not a stove enthusiast but not all stoves are equal, the lighter ones can suffer from thread wear because they're made of aluminium whereas the likes of the Gigapower, it's made of stronger material and these cheap and heavy stoves are probably made the same.

[corvus]

I may also need a second little stove. My MSR Pocket Rocket + small gas won't fit inside the 850ml kettle
Any suggestions there Strider? I was / am looking at the Kovea Titanium

Moondog the FMS -116T won't fit nor will the FMS300T if you want to use the 220/230/ gm gas cans however it will do it you use the 100gm ones .

[Strider]

http://adventuresinstoving.blogspot.com ... e.html?m=1

[Moondog55]

It is the small 100gram containers that got left in the PV hut, I buy the 230 and 460 gram Elemental.
I figure a small would get me through a nights bivvy, a half hours burn time should allow me to melt a liter or two of water and make a cuppa soup plus a coffee. I already have the billy and the weight difference isn't huge.

[andrewa]

I have a Kovea titanium little stove (not sure of model), but, with a 100g gas cylinder, it all fits nicely in a 750-800ml titanium billy, which is perfect for carrying in a day pack for emergencies. I also bought one of gas fittings from eBay that allows old cylinders to be drained, but haven't used it yet.

A

[Moondog55]

Well I just purchased the exchange unit via eBay [ the cheaper one going on Striders comment ] and I'm still thinking about which stove. I bid on a Kovea titanium unit but i have reached my maximum already and I think I'll be outbid, also I am looking at a Katmandu Titanium stove on Gumtree but the seller hasn't got back to my yet.
I have become a convert to these little gas stoves even tho I think the big MSR is far superior in what it does best, melt snow. Shellite is becoming so expensive that gas is starting to work out almost the same cost ; 100 gram canisters not counted.

[Moondog55]

Update
Just tried out refilling the little 100gram containers and it really is an easy process if care is taken.
The Gasmate long cylinders in the old packaging are actually 20% Propane and I managed to get 4 packs at Bunnings last week so I also have the most cost effective way to use the MSR Pocket Rocket as well
And if you didn't already know I bought the little WASP stove for the winter survival/brew-up kit to keep in my daypack. WASP plus 100g gas fit well inside the small billy or even the Tital kettle

[Gadgetgeek]

Just got the adapters for filling, now just need to get some bayonet cans to try. I got two adapters, one just changes the bayonet to the thread fitting, and then a female-female with a valve. I figure that way I can either fill off the cheap cans, or the 400g cans since they seem to go on sale once and a while, and even at retail are only a couple bucks more. Plus makes picking up a couple little cans a little more sane considering the markup.

[hikin_jim]

Can get 12 x 200g canisters iso-butane for $13 from Big W.

Those for warm weather Strider, I think I need the other mix for my winter kit The butane were on sale at my local Safeway 6 for $5.60 so I got one batch

They are for any weather with a stove that allows the canister to be inverted

100% isobutane isn't bad if it doesn't get too far below freezing. It boils at roughly -12°C. One needs to be something like 5°C above the boiling point (i.e. -7°C) for an inverted canister stove and something 10°C above the boiling point (i.e. -2°C) with an upright canister stove to get reasonably good pressure, and of course you can't let the fuel get colder due to internal canister cooling or heat loss to the environment. If you're well above sea level, you get some cold weather performance improvement, somewhere between -0.5°C to -1°C per 300m in elevation gained. I used to say one degree Celsius improvement per 300m gained, but people argued against that saying it was too optimistic, so I'm going with 1/2 a degree Celsius per 300m gained, a more conservative number.

The ideal of course is to have propane added to the isobutane. If one has 20% to 30% propane in a canister with 80% to 70% isobutane, one should be able to operate a stove that can handle inverted canister operation down to something around -15°C to -20°C which is pretty darned chilly. This assumes of course that one knows the basics like insulating the canister from the ground, starting with a warm canister, and keeping canister "warm" (around freezing, which is actually comparatively warm in -15°C weather).

If anyone were interested in gas and cold weather, I just finished a re-write of my "Gas Stoves: How Cold Can i Go?" post on my blog.

HJ

[stry]

Thanks for the heads up in the rewrite Jim.

I found the original article very helpful

[hikin_jim]

I found the original article very helpful

Well good. The re-write is similar but I included more context in terms of planning, things like what happens if it gets colder than you expected. I also added a lot of practical things about how proper gas, proper preparation, and proper canister handling matter just as much as the boiling point of the fuel mix. Some of those things I take a bit for granted, but some people felt that the post would lead people to think that the boiling point of the fuel mix was the only issue.

I'll probably update the post with a more accurate graph in the next few days, one that shows values that are pretty close to exact rather than the pseudo chart that I have now that while illustrative doesn't give accurate figures.

HJ

[madmacca]

Nice work Jim!

[hikin_jim]

Thanks. I hope it's useful.

There's so much misinformation out on the web. I can't tell you how many times people have written "canister gas stoves don't work at altitude" (or words to that effect) which is completely laughable. The opposite is true. They work better as you ascend (in terms of cold weather performance). Of course it gets colder as one ascends, so you have to take that into account, but there's no fundamental reason that a canister gas stove won't work at altitude. Cold, at whatever elevation, can shut down a gas stove, but that's about cold, not altitude. A gas stove can fail due to cold at the Dead Sea (-413m elevation). I think it's safe to say that the Dead Sea is not at high elevation. Interestingly, the boiling point of your fuel goes up by something on the order of 2°C at a low elevation like the Dead Sea, something to keep in mind the next time you're on a bushwalk there.

The odd thing of it is that the relationship between elevation and boiling point has been known in the "outdoors world" for at least half a century. The 1963 American expedition to Mt. Everest famously used Bleuet stoves, which ran on 100% butane, in temperatures approaching something on the order of -20°C. Butane won't boil below -0.5°C at sea level. So how does one cook with butane at -20°C? Well, it helps if you're 7,000 or more meters above sea level. No doubt they were cooking inside their tents and warming their canisters as well. but above 7000m, the boiling point of butane is something on the order of 25°C lower than it is at sea level which doesn't exactly hurt.

HJ

[horsecat]

Very true Jim. I've never had any problems at altitude or in extreme cold with my stoves or canisters (and I've used some dodgy looking Chinese things in the past). The attached pic was well over 7,000m and later that night, at around 1am, I boiled 2L water with an outside temp in the order of minus 40 dgrees C. If they didn't work reliably at altitude not many would be climbing the 8,000m hills

[Moondog55]

Hi HJ
It was partly your website that encouraged me to try the refilling/saving dollars scenario so may thanks for all the information and advice you have posted.
I do however have a problem and I need advice on the best way to tackle it
When I refilled 3 small 100 gram cylinders and one of them has bulged alarmingly on the base and isn't safe to use, Has this happened to any body else refilling canisters?
Pictures later when I go down the shed to retrieve the dodgy article