COMPARISON & TIPS: Mr. Heater Buddy Flex VS Big Buddy VS Portable Buddy with HOSE & PROPANE options

hey everybody how's it going welcome back to the channel i'm putting together a video today i have quite a few of the different body heaters propane tanks hoses and whatnot i've had quite a few people asking me what i prefer for when i go out on the ice ice fishing so i'm going to go through that today i've got three of the different heaters here three different propane tanks and i'm going to talk about some of the hoses and everything i've got some notes here a lot of specs i'm going to go over and i'll have them on the screen as well while the video is going but let's go ahead and jump right in my goal of the video is to be able to help anybody that's wondering what the differences are between what i would consider three of the most popular ice fishing buddy heaters this year yes the flex buddy is also included i have that i've been able to take it out a couple of times and it works great so we're going to go through that if you have questions comments you like this type of content please comment below let me know what you think i'm by no means no expert i just have looked up some stuff i've read the the specs on a couple of these things and i've ran into some issues previously that i've been able to figure out so hopefully i can share some of that knowledge with all of you and let's jump in today what i'm going to do is go through a few of the different uh buddy heaters here i've got the portable buddy this is the smaller one that i use i've got the flex buddy this is the brand new one this year so we'll talk about that one a little bit the big buddy i've also got some propane tanks that we'll talk about here in a little bit which ones i prefer how they all work size differences so on and so forth i've got some hoses in a bucket below we'll talk about that in a minute um so let's start with the buddy heater the first one that i'm going to talk about is the mr heater buddy flex this is the brand new one for this year i'm just going to give high level overview of these heaters here if you want me to go into detail on any of them i can absolutely do that but i'll create a new video for that so comment below if you want any more detail on some of the things that people sometimes ask are like how they start how long it really lasts do some time tests i can do all of that if you guys want just comment below but not in this video i don't want to get it have it be too long so the first one uh the mr heater this is the buddy flex so this is the new one what's unique about this that's different than these other two that i have out here is that this is not a super wide unit like these two are but it is long so if you think about the depth of the unit you're losing a little bit of space there but you're gaining it on the sides one of the things that's super special and unique about this heater right here 180 degree heat so not only do you have heat coming out of the front in the top of like these two heaters it's coming out of the front it's coming out of the top and it's coming out of both sides of the heater the handle does collapse on it which is great on this side of the heater if you open it up this is a little accessory area here you can actually put in here like an ice fishing jig box you could put in a small maybe thin pair of gloves uh you could put like your like a battery pack and like a charging cord for your phone piece of paper your fishing license whatever you want to do you can put in there on the backhand side this is where you can hook up a one pane propane cylinder it is a rotating regulator here that you can slide it into you've got your heater here your accessory mode one of the big selling points of this heater is the fact that you can actually attach accessories to it right now the only one that i know of is they have a cooking heater so you can actually turn it over to that side and then over here you have an accessory out for the propane so you can actually hook a hose up here into a cooker heater that actually clips into the bottom of it i don't have that i have no intentions on getting it but that's there so you can actually cook the one main reason why i'm not getting that and i'm using my other cooker that i have is that you can't have the heater running at the same time that you're using the propane cooker i'm not always a big fan of turning my heat off for the period of time that i'm cooking sure i could probably optimize and figure it out but i'd rather just you know have the heater going and have a completely separate unit running off of butane or propane so that's what works for me above that you've got a battery door i've got it screwed shut there's a little phillips screw in there inside of there's a bat a couple i think they're double a batteries and what that's for is this has if you can hear it electric ignition so it's no longer holding down pushing that the pilot button and clicking clicking clicking so that's a nice thing with this the way that the igniter is on this is the igniter is actually behind this little metal grate down here that's a little windshield so that way when it's igniting it can ignite easier in the wind and it helps keep snow and rain and sleet off of it if you are outside and then this is like a like a brush like cotton type of material and i found it to do a lot better out in the open so if you're doing like tournament fishing or anything outdoors where you've got a little bit of wind this actually holds up to the wind better and doesn't blow out these guys i have a tendency where the wind can come in it can either totally blow them out or it's flickering so much and it can't keep a steady heat temperature that it's almost pointless to use this guy does a lot better with it as well as the heat coming off the top the front and the sides pretty compact i really like it um dimensions on this guy this is where i'm going to my notes so don't laugh at me too bad here the actual rated weight is 11 pounds on this guy the width of it so from side to side they're saying is up is 10.95 inches so about 11 inches i think they're they're being very conservative um this is closer to 10 so it's about 10 inches wide and then your depth from front to back is about 15 inches your height is about 16 16 and a half as well the next one that i'll go through here is the portable buddy so the portable buddy has your standard what i think everybody's used to you've got your standard rotating switch here so off pilot low and high there is no medium setting the one thing i forgot to tell you about this is it has a variable heat i don't know if you can see it here but if you turn this you can go low high in in the switch is like if i get it over here you can see i can turn it in between with this guy again you've got low in high settings only pilot and off so the lighting is the way that you normally do it where you have got to click it foldable handle super compact this fits one one pound propane cylinder the body flex does the same in the back um it's a pretty basic unit but it's really light it does have holes here in case you wanted to mount to the wall inside of your fish house or somewhere else or hang it up in your garage or something so in terms of dimensions for the portable buddy weight wise 10 and a half pounds width wise so it is again it's wider but not as deep so it's 14 inches wide and then the depth on this is 9 inches deep and the height is 15 inches and then the big buddy heater so this is the biggest baddest hottest heat producing one that they make so the front looks the same is standard it does have it does have on the top your off pilot it does have a low a medium and a high so the front coils of this guy on the left hand side are what light up so you've got the left hand side for low in medium and then it doubles that and lights up the right hand side of the for your full high heat setting fixed handle mine's melted a little bit because i've been cooking on it you've got one pound propane tank cylinders that can go on both sides it's the same on both sides you've also got that some people don't know about you've actually got a quick connect nozzle in here that you can actually hook a hose up to which i'll talk about in a little bit so that's that side the back you've also got your screw holes where you can hang it up there's also a battery door down here which i don't use but this is one of the older ones where you've actually got a fan on the top in a switch i just don't use it batteries die too often and yes i know there's mods available for it and then a propane on this side too so this big body heater allows you to use two one pound propane tanks and you can only use one on both of these guys the dimensions on the big buddy this is 17 pounds you've got 19 inches wide you've got 12 inches deep from front to back the height 16 and a half the next thing i want to talk about with these heaters is the heat output so on the portable buddy on the low setting 4000 btu on the high setting 9000 btu the big buddy same settings low as 4 000 mediums 9000 and the high is 18 000 btu so this doubles what this can do on high body flex sits in the middle the variable so on the lowest end this is 8000 btu on the highest end it's 11 000 bt run time if you have each of these on max heat the buddy flex will run for two hours portable buddy will run for three and the big buddy will run for three and that's if you have one pound cylinders in each of these in the two one pounders in this guy here if you have them on their lowest setting the longest run time that you can get out of them again with those one pound cylinders is six hours on the portable buddy three and a half hours on the buddy flex in 12 hours on the big buddy they all have the safety tip over switch they all have the oxygen depletion sensor this is the only one that has the electric ignition both of these have the piezo igniter so if it were me if i'm in a big hub with a bunch of guys um i like actually the big buddy just because of the heat output however if i'm in a little bit smaller hub or have maybe the floor mats down or something this gets the job done the 180 degree heat is actually super helpful and then if i'm in my one man or it's a warmer day and i'm on my uh my two to three man i'll actually just bring this guy and most of the time i just run it on low all day just to keep it kind of warm in there but the high setting works as well so that's my preference one of the other things i haven't talked about yet is clearance so they for all of these heaters they recommend not having anything within 30 inches above the top of it just because of how hot it gets and then 24 inches or two feet out in front of it that the one thing to know about the buddy flex is now that you have heat coming out of the sides you also are supposed to have two feet of space on either side of it so think about you can't really throw it in a corner unless the corners back here and you've got two feet of space you've got to make sure that you have clearance all the way around two feet in both sides two feet in the front whereas both of these guys two feet in the front the sides only need six inches of clearance all three of them zero inches of clearance is needed on the back side so another thing there i love all three of them i use all three of them one of the fun things i do with this guy is it's the one that i can actually take out if i'm planning on cooking some hot dogs i don't want to get the grill going i've got a hot rack that i can put right on here and that works out well that's also from when i put a pan on there or some tin foil or something why my handle is melted on that so that's enough on the heaters i'm going to go over to the propane tanks and the cords and kind of talk through that all right so now i want to talk to you guys about the propane tanks and some of the hoses and the connections because i know that's confusing for a lot of people because there's a ton of options out there what i have up here are the propane tanks that i use most frequently so we've got the 20 pound propane tank this is an 11 pound propane tank and then this guy is a five pound and then of course that's the one everybody knows those are the one pounds all of them will work with each of these these three you need to use a hose which i'll talk about next um the 20 pounder 40 pounds full okay 11 pounds 23 pounds so it makes about sense in weight but that extra you know 17 pound savings is really nice this thing will for sure get you through a weekend um depending on how cold it is maybe even longer this five pounder this is perfect for day trips or maybe even a weekend for you the five pound is 13 pounds so 40 23 13 in two pounds is how much a one pound propane cylinder weighs that's the full weight for all of these i really like going with this guy if i'm going on a day trip it works out perfectly you'll you'll not run i i mean unless you think you're gonna go through five of these one pounders in a day which you probably know because you've you've used them before this guy is really worth it i'll put links to all the stuff below so you can just click on it if you have a 5 gallon bucket what's nice about the 11 pounder is it fits in there pretty nice i actually have a a sleeve that i put over it just to protect it from the elements because i usually just set this outside or keep it on my atv but as you can see it fits in there really nice it it goes over the top but in terms of keeping it stable and just throwing it in a bucket that's nice to keep it from rolling around obviously this five pound guy will fit in here as well and you can actually you can put a lid on it because it clears the lid which is really nice and then everybody knows the one pounders so that's what i wanted to go through there so cords so there's a few different options i'm going to try to keep this as simple as i can and this is all based off of what i've experienced to work with no issues as well as what the manufacturer recommends so i have two hoses here i have this hose right here this is a 10 foot buddy series propane hose this guy will work with any of those heaters the way that this is hooked up this end of the hose one end goes in where you would screw in a one pound propane cylinder in any of those heaters that are behind me there the other end is this guy right here which comes with a little plastic washer thing to help you turn it a little easier this goes into the inlet of one of these so it's threaded to go inside of it but this will work with any of these with any of those hooked directly into one of the one pound slots the big buddy heater you can actually if you really wanted to get two of these and two of these and you can actually hook these up to both sides of it overkill i would never do it but it is an option so that's this hose the other option that you have which i don't have here is they make a 5 in a 12 foot hose for these guys that you have to use with a fuel filter put all these model numbers on the screen with explanations so you guys can see it the one the other one so this is what i use when i go out with my big buddy later in the year is this guy right here so this is this is one hose so this is the quick connect with a regulator already attached to it they make this exact same hose which you can use as well that does not have the regulator attached to it and that is useful you still need a regulator to use with the big buddy but if you're running from like an rv or you're running from your your ice castle your ice house or something else that already has propane running through it and maybe you have a extra accessory propane out but it's already regulated propane you don't need to double regulate it so that's why they make this hose without this this is a 12 foot hose it's got this end here that you just screw right onto the propane tank this only works with the big buddy heater and then on this end you've actually got your quick connect so this you just push down pop it right up in there and it goes right onto your big buddy heater i think i got through everything that i want um if you guys like this type of content like these reviews my goal here is to help you guys out with my experiences and some of the equipment that i use i have a ton of ice fishing stuff so i'm looking forward to giving out more tips and tricks in my opinions comment below if you have other questions or want my opinion on anything else i'm more than happy to help out however i can i love this stuff so if it can help some other people and i can you know make it easier for you to know what hoses work with each of these versus one of those which i'll have in this video and link down below as well i'm more than happy to help so please subscribe if you haven't already so you can see more of this content as it comes through hopefully you guys like ice fishing and like this type of content comment below if there's other topics that you want smash that like button and i appreciate it take it easy [Music] you

Channel: Alex Timm

Views: 34,853

Rating: 4.9400501 out of 5

Keywords: mr heater big buddy, mr heater big buddy propane heater, mr buddy heater 20 lb tank, buddy heater flex, buddy flex, buddy flex heater, mr buddy flex, mr heater flex, mr heater buddy flex, big buddy heater, big buddy heater 20 lb tank, flex heater, portable buddy, big buddy, portable buddy heater, buddy heater hacks, buddyflex, mr heater buddy, mr buddy heater, mr heater propane heater, buddy heater, propane heater, ice fishing, mr. heater little buddy, mr. heater

Id: uUqogfs7cVU

Length: 18min 9sec (1089 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021