The MOST FUEL EFFICIENT alcohol stove - the DIY HAMZ Starlyte

hats off to the folks at self stove works for their innovative designs on the originals elf starlight alcohol stove it inspired me to build my own alcohol stove using some of their concepts to fit my needs for high-altitude performance this stove design uses some of the zelf starlight stove components a much smaller scale with traditional alcohol stove burning fuel ports without these fuel vapor burning ports the stove would not burn I've tinkered with dozens of alcohol stove designs and permutations in an effort to maximize fuel burn time with the shortest possible to cup water oil time one of the issues I have with tests on the internet is most of them are with one cup of water most of the meals that I hydrate in the high country went on backpacking require 2 cups of water so all my tests include 2 cups of water as a well time benchmark from lowest to highest in efficiency is the capillary pressurized stove the common photon pressurized stove turbojet and pressurized stove this also has fiberglass on the inside to prevent any spilling and the most efficient design is what I call my high-altitude modified zelf starlight or hams starlight for short to make the stove you'll need these tools and materials a soft hammer a marker a pin vise that holds 8.03 inch or 3-1 hundreds of an inch drill bit stick that will be used to mix and apply the jb weld common brass grommet kit to 12 ounce soda cans about a 10 inch section of masking tape household installation fiberglass cloth and some stainless-steel screening from a common kitchen strainer first market 30-millimeter line from the bottom of the can on the second can mark a 20-millimeter line from the bottom of the can there are many ways to cut the can using a razor blade or a dremel tool I just puncture a hole in it and use a common pair of chopped scissors on the 20 millimeter or shorter piece take some sandpaper or steel wool and rough up the edges this will help these jb weld adhere to both sides and we glued the two pieces together mark the center of the shorter piece so we can drill a pilot hole to accept brass grommet it's okay that the hole is rough sometimes not holding it steady would give you an oblong hole as long as we can get the grommet through there that's all we care about using a scrap board as you're pounding base put the flanged piece of the brass grommet on the grommet die put the stovetop upright over the flange place the finishing brass ring give the punch a few good pounds to curl that flange down over the finishing ring and cinch the two pieces together there doesn't move a nice round hole in the middle measure a section of fiberglass cloth about one inch larger in the diameter of the can from the stainless steel mesh cut a piece commuted square or round just enough to cover the little hole that we just punched in the middle of the top of the can this happens to be about an inch and a half by an inch and a half the top of the can will slide inside the bottom of the can when we fit it all together to make that easier about three quarters of the way up from the bottom of the rim to the top of the crease just bend inwards just a little bit about every half inch make a bend and twist it inward test fit the two pieces together before we do the final assembly it should fit quickly and easily and snugly don't push all the way until we're finally done now we're ready to install the fiberglass wicking notice how this is striated and layered let's keep that integrity as we build the stove I cut a few 1-inch pieces I'll layer it in here like so that aids in wicking the vapors to the top you don't need much noticed I only used two pieces that were one inch thick by about four or five inches long both fit nicely inside there next we'll install the fiberglass cloth I like the round the edges a little bit which helps make it neater when its installed you next place the fiberglass on top and use something like a flat screwdriver to punch the edges down against the wall of the stove mix up some 24-hour cure jb weld and apply it to the inside about a quarter-inch down don't worry if you get some on the fiberglass that's okay with the jb weld applied on the inside place the piece of stainless steel mesh on top and gently assemble the entire unit take a paper towel to wipe off excess jb weld I've experimented with many whole configurations on the top here are seven holes on the inside with seven holes on the outside the outside holes are in a smaller diameter burn fine but the flames were too short for my liking I found the optimum configuration is just simply to put seven or eight holes on the inside here I've drilled them in an angle so that creates a whirling vortex as it burns upward place the masking tape around the edge of the completed stove cut it where the two pieces meet the entire circumference subject 12-ounce can is approximately 210 millimeters that's easily divisible by 3 which gives me seven holes eight holes is fine I wouldn't go much more so every 30 millimetres I make a mark I'll transfer those marks to the can so I can drill my holes transfer the markings on the tape to the inside where the inner pan meets the vertical wall again seven or eight holes is sufficient more than that and it reduces the flame size use the hand drill to drill a hole at each marking can angle them so you can create a vortex drill holes when finished should look something like this remove the tape keep that for later in case you build a couple more stoves or we got a pre-marked it's easy to keep that aside when it's dry 24 hours later take some steel wool if you prefer you can rub off the paint the completed stove looks like that for this burn experiment I'm using a backpackers lightweight pod that has a built in heat exchanger sometimes you just can't build a better mousetrap and in this case this pot really helps out with the efficiency of burning in high altitudes here I have 30 milliliters or approximately one ounce of heat or you can use to nature Davo you

Channel: Sven Svenson

Views: 1,928,480

Rating: 4.7991905 out of 5

Keywords: Zelph Starlyte, alcohol stove, turbojet alcohol stove, photon alcohol stove, capillary pressurized alcohol stove, high altitude alcohol stove, denatured alcohol, DIY alcohol stove, soda can stove, HAMZ Zelph Starlyte, HAMZ alcohol stove, penny can stove, tea light stove, Camping, backpacking, penny stove, zelph starlyte alcohol stove, alcohol stove diy, alcohol stove stand

Id: wTbAVPdwzqQ

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 02 2015