Biolite Stove - anyone have one of these?

[Franco]

The BioLite was delivered to a Californian address early last week and it has just arrived at my place in Melbourne this morning.
First it is heavish at 2.2 lbs but (unexpectedly) it has a LiIon batt built in and that is what will make the USB charging work...
Rated USB output is 2W at 5V continuous ,4w @5v peak.
It is very well made , feels strong and rated to hold 8 lbs.
This afternoon I will shoot a short video on this doing the first burn...
BTW it is about 4" in diameter so just a bit wider than a 1L Nalgene.
My YouTube channel is 'francodarioli"
Franco

[Wise Old Owl]

Well Franco - you are ahead of everyone... what is the return policy and take your phone down to about 30% and see how much wood it takes to get back to 90% forget about boiling water - but that would be good to know too... I am sure you have a stop watch.

[rocketsocks]

with all the preparedness buying going on,I would expect these to fly off the shelfs,and maybe later models will,and then recharge the batteries for the wing motors,but for hikers,it'll be a while for the weight to come down.I'm thinking something like a mat,that you just unroll,lay flat on ground,and light a fire on it,which is totally doable,with out the added weight of a fire box so to speak

[Franco]

WOL
I have never returned anything in my life because I believe in personal responsibility...

First this is a good example of perception and reality.
The burner is 540g and the charging/fan bit is 435g however holding them it feels like it is the other way around ..
(it has to do with the size... but only for me if I hold the orange bit on my right hand)

anyway I have in mind that maybe the burner by itself may work somewhat like a Bushbuddy and clones, so it is still heavy but it has a non scorching bottom and possibly it can be handled without gloves/bandanna..
As it is designed to work, it should be able to burn at higher temps (so faster and also using poorer fuel) than the non built in fan competitors however it really does not compete directly with anything else.
I suspect that the best use will be for car camping, for guys like hunters and survivalists that like to go out and stay more or less put in the bush and for a small group (say 3 or 4) of hikers where the weight split is possibly better than a light stove plus fuel.
Now having a built in battery will make it difficult for me to do the candle test, that is to determine if a candle is enough to trickle charge the unit, so i will leave that to someone else..
Franco
BTW, the tricky bit of the Peltier power unit is that you need to have a hot and a cold side. Heat is easy enough, keeping the other side cool enough is the problem.
Maybe easy at home holding bits and so on but not so much in the bush

[rocketsocks]

WOL
I have never returned anything in my life because I believe in personal responsibility...

First this is a good example of perception and reality.
The burner is 540g and the charging/fan bit is 435g however holding them it feels like it is the other way around ..
(it has to do with the size... but only for me if I hold the orange bit on my right hand)

anyway I have in mind that maybe the burner by itself may work somewhat like a Bushbuddy and clones, so it is still heavy but it has a non scorching bottom and possibly it can be handled without gloves/bandanna..
As it is designed to work, it should be able to burn at higher temps (so faster and also using poorer fuel) than the non built in fan competitors however it really does not compete directly with anything else.
I suspect that the best use will be for car camping, for guys like hunters and survivalists that like to go out and stay more or less put in the bush and for a small group (say 3 or 4) of hikers where the weight split is possibly better than a light stove plus fuel.
Now having a built in battery will make it difficult for me to do the candle test, that is to determine if a candle is enough to trickle charge the unit, so i will leave that to someone else..
Franco
BTW, the tricky bit of the Peltier power unit is that you need to have a hot and a cold side. Heat is easy enough, keeping the other side cool enough is the problem.
Maybe easy at home holding bits and so on but not so much in the bush

Interesting,I did not know about the cooling side,hmis there a heat sink on the cooling side?Not sure what I read there Franco,but I see now the unit is 2.2 lbs and the loading weight is 8lbs,big oops on my end. 2.2 lbs is certainly packable ....for many.have fun with the new toy.

[Wise Old Owl]

Well I get the message but implore or beg that you fire it up at home and give the phone or another device a good charge test with it.... otherwise bush buddy will still be king.... so to speak.

Please do the candle test... the built in battery will be ok use a battery charge app and that should be good enough.

[Franco]

Quick update
As a stove it is brilliant.
The first burn took about 15 minutes to boil 1 liter of water however I was fiddling about and let the flame die in between having the starting kindling and then feeding thicker stuff.
(you will see that in the video clip)
I did another couple of burns later and realised how important it is to keep feeding the stove if you don't want any smoke about.
This is the nice bit, once you get a good flame the smoke is almost not there...
On my fourth burn I put the pot on after having fed some bigger bits (about 2 minutes into the burn..) and got a roaring boil (1 L ) at around 9min.
BTW the wood I was using was bits that I collected from the nearby park and not particularly dry nor necessarily good for fire...

Now the not so good bit
I tried a couple of USB LED lights I have , the Bio Lite could not power them up. Then I remembered that my Garmin 60 CSX can be USB powered but that did not work either .
I do not have any other USB powered devices that I can try so not sure as yet what is going on here but it is possible that the BioLite was not hot enough for that even though it did have the "green:" light (USB power OK) on.
I will try again...
Franco

[leaftye]

Does the internal battery have to be charged before it can power another device? That's the way it is with my solar charger.

[Franco]

Yes you do need to charge the internal battery.
Here is the video :

Franco

[Wise Old Owl]

Nice video Franco - That about answers all my questions

[Franco]

This video will give you a better idea of how it is supposed to work (power out) :

[rocketsocks]

Hey Franco,glad to see you got her workin,cool.uh oh,starting to like it,gotta go now!

[leaftye]

Have you been able to get power out of your stove?

[Franco]

Hi
That second clip is not me...
I had another go at it. Charged the internal battery again via computer USB than started the burn and let it burn well past the green "USB OK" setting but I cannot keep my Garmin GPS on nor power up those LED.
I think that possibly those devices all take more power than the Bio Lite can provide but I have seen others powering up somewhat similar gear so maybe mine is faulty.
Anyway I'll keep investigating
(there is some power coming out so for example my Garmin screen comes up for about half a second and then dies again)
Franco

[Franco]

Here is an update...
My Bio Lite was indeed faulty but they sent me another one. That works...
To produce power it needs to have a good fire burning , so no candle power.
Now that I have the Power Pot I have been able to test the idea of charging a LiIon batt first then to use that to power up the other bits, and that works.
The Power Pot (as expected) works only if the water is not boiling and particularly well when it is cold, the colder the better.
So great if you are the guy in charge of melting snow for the troup...
In theory you could use the Power Pot on top of the Bio Lite and charge two devices/batteries at once.
In this video (if you can understand the accent...) I explain how the Power Pot works ;


Franco

[Sgt. Snape]

I got a Biolite a few months back and I love it! I would never use it for serious backpacking though because of the weight but it's a great thing for car or weekend camping. I do plan to use it for backpacking this winter though when there's enough snow to pull a sled behind me while snowshoeing. Normally I just use my MicroRocket for solo trips.

[leaftye]

Do you guys still like the Biolite? We're thinking about getting one.

[Franco]

leaftye
having tested the two devices I have gone another way...
Just to summarise, the Bio Lite is (in my mind) like a self powering but much heavier Sierra Stove that can also produce some power .
So if you are a fan of the Sierra it will work for you.
You can also remove the power generating section and you have a very solid (still over 1 lbs) and stable BushBuddy type stove.
The Power Pot will work with a lower flame but it is really meant to only boil water and not cook with it.
It will probably work well for a few spending some time in huts or in a shelter with a wood stove where feeding the stove is a bit of a pastime.
Could work well melting snow....

power-station.jpg

Since then I bought a 12000 mAh battery with USB in and 2x USB out .
235g for the battery (8 1/4oz)
This comes with various plugs to power up iThings (including iPad) and various phones or other USB powered devices.
For example I have a AA/AAA batt charger with USB in (AA charger 110g/ 3 3/4 oz)
So with the 12000mAh battery and the AA charger I am still well below the extra weight of the BioLite and PowerPot

[Starchild]

The nPowerPeg produces even less energy then the bio-stove. You have to walk a long, long time to get just a few minutes worth of charge out of it.

They claim full days AT hike can get a 20% smartphone charge, which ain't bad as that is all one would need using it conservatively, though it is nearly a pound.

Of the three, the thermal electric seems to be the most reliable and has the advantage over solar in that you can use it at the end of the day at night. Since the TEG is removable on the bio-stove, I bet it could also be placed near a camp fire to make electricity.

Thermoelectric uses the difference in temperatures hot side to cold side, not just a hot temperature so I don't think placing it by a campfire would be that effective, a controlled 'stove' fire I would suspect would give a much better cold side.

[leaftye]

It won't be used for backpacking, and probably not even for camping, and probably not ever. The family wants a feel good emergency preparedness tool. I proposed this stove as an alternative to a $150 gravity filter that does the same thing as my Sawyer Squeeze and MSR Auto Flow gravity filters. Being that much of the family is addicted to their iPhones, the usb power output was the clincher. I was kind of joking when I suggested the Biolite...