MylesLI
New member
just saw that MSR came out with an even bigger size cannister..might make the Reactor even more stable
Can anyone confirm the stories of the Reactor having a safety shutoff that can't be reset by the user? It sounds like it could be a serious problem under the wrong circumstance.
Pretty much what he said word for word. But add bulky to list as well.
just saw that MSR came out with an even bigger size cannister..might make the Reactor even more stable
I'd estimate that the Reactor melted snow and heated it to boiling at a rate roughly twice that of my Whisperlite. It was comical how fast the Reactor was.
Some asides . . .
- Most of the heat needed to boil snow is used to 1) melt the snow; and 2) heat that water to boiling. Simply warming up cold snow doesn't use much energy. So I'd expect the Reactor's production to be similar, within 10%, even if it was quite cold out.
- Now, if you could find a source of liquid water, you could double your production, both in terms of liters produced per oz fuel, and in terms of time required to produce each liter. That's something to think about.
- For those of you who like numbers: heating 1 kg of snow from -25 C to 0 C requires 51 KJ of energy; melting 1 kg of snow to water (no temperature change - temp stays at 0 C) requires 334 KJ; heating 1 kg water from 0 C to boiling requires 418 KJ.
But it's more than a mere non-linearity. My point is that approximately half of the required energy is used just for the state change.To generalize a bit on your 2nd aside: the warmer the water you start with, the faster (and hence with less fuel consumption) you'll be able to boil it. The state change is merely a non-linearity
Alex I think it's the Dragonfly that's loud, not the Whisperlite. My Whisperlite, at least, really does whisper. I find the gentle hiss quite soothing, but I find myself wanting to poke sporks in my eyes when I have to listen to the Dragonfly.
I will point the major caveats with any butane mix stove. The capability of the fuel canister to vaporize fuel reduces as the temperature goes down. Different companies supply different mixes of fuels so cold weather response can vary.
To overcome this problem, I kept the fuel canister warm (between 40-80 F) for the duration of use on this most recent trip by keeping it in a warm water bath. At that temperature, both propane and isobutane are firmly in the gas phase. To add experimental evidence, I ran completely through my canister on this trip (large group) and did not notice ANY change in performance over the course of use. I punctured it with a screwdriver and hammer when I got home and recycled it.
OK, so you can get the canister stove to run long enough without a bath to warm the bath water?
The answer to your question is yes. For the time it takes to warm new water, *any* liquid water will do (32 degrees is plenty warm for the isobutane). Typically there'd be at least a few ounces in peoples' bottles, and/or a stream source. If your group has no liquid water at the ready, then all you need to do is stick the canister inside your jacket for a few minutes to warm it up. The stove will then run fine for a few minutes before the canister again gets too cold.
Alex
If you are warm, putting a canister inside you jacket will warm it up in few minutes. If you are in survival situation where you need heat now and your core is chilled it may be more difficult to warm up. In general it comes down your definition of winter conditions, in moderate winter conditions 20 F and above canister stoves work well with the exception of the full versus empty derate but if you get into temps as forecast this weekend, below zero and windy I expect that liquid fuel is the way to go. The nice thing with canister stoves are they are simple to set up and get going. A whisper light is far more complex and that's where the older peak one white gas stoves work well as they don't require setup and also don't suffer lack of maintenance issues like a whisperligh can.
I cannot comment on jet boil fuel or the stoves as I haven't dealt with them. They owned the market for few years and the Reactor appears to have been designed to give MSR a competitor.
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