It certainly.looks like they've done their homework there John @presscall. Quite impressive heat distribution. I think it'll be a present in the New Year on the back of that excellent sales pitch. If there any left by then. The price of the combined set is pretty reasonable. I picked up an ali ice bucket scoop for the pellets, the ones you see used in pubs.
I suppose it could be seen as such! I should emphasise perhaps that I have no commercial connection, family or friendship link with the seller!
Apologies John 'technical review'. I'm 'sold' either way. As many advantages as the TEG may give in respect of independance of powering the fan it does come at a cost atm. The developers if this seem to have offset that with a rather larger solar charger which are currently probably a cheaper option longer term especially as it'll actually be charging when not using the stove. As you have deonstrated, the Biolite TEG would have to be used as a campfire for a fair duration to effectively charge the battery and any USB ancilliaries you may be carrying. TEG technology isn't moving into ambient earth temperatures as far as I've found so far, it's still in the realm of satellite power as they work reasonably well at absolute zero.
@presscall Thanks John, from your review the performance of the stove is more than adequate. A good combination of one of mans oldest tools (fire) with one of the newest (solar battery) . The scenery in your field office was very enjoyable also.
Well mine has arrived. In three separate parcels over three days. Probably due to the xmas traffic. Got it together but not fired yet. Mine is slightly different to @presscall 's The speed control is only two speed not three. Not sure from what has been said if that will make any real dif.
@salan3 nice early present there Alan, hopefully the weather keeps reasonable enough that you can actually get outdoors with it. Interesting that the speed controller spec had changed slightly with yours.
Front panel colour options, manufacturer’s website illustration, but only the silver one seems to have made it to the UK.
@salan3 @Simes An update. I’m still counting the stove/grill as among my better purchases and I’m reporting on a cheap refinement. Amazon and no doubt other sources list ... I paid something like 4GBP for two, inclusive of postage from China. 2-3 weeks from ordering to receipt. Variable fan speed control and like the stove’s original speed controller the voltage is stepped up slightly to achieve the maximum speed. The device is an effective enhancement, reducing the fan speed to a speed lower than the stock item achieves, with a corresponding ‘simmer’ output for the stove. It’s handier to operate the control knob than the push button toggling on the controller that came with the stove. Additionally, a micro-USB on the side of the unit makes it possible to site the powerbank/solar charger further away from the stove as an option to plugging the controller directly into the power pack. This is the configuration. Fan is a spare for the stove, should I ever need it - another Amazon purchase. Cheap, but lesser quality than the stove’s, having sleeve bearings rather than the ball bearings of the stock item. Brushless as the original item though, so quiet. Usable as it is to be honest, but I made a box for one of the two I bought. Internal dimensions 35x20x20mm.
Thanks for that John @presscall. I'll be ordering the stove and grill in a couple of days. What made you go looking for the variable controller? I'll certainly be ordering those as well, was it the original shortcoming with the toggle arrangement? The IP rating of the bare controller certainly needed improvement for useability.
@presscall Very interesting thanks. I have not used mine yet as the wood pellets have not arrived yet(a few days). I will def be getting those controllers. Alan
Hi Simon. The stock speed controller is fine, but I wanted to explore combustion characteristics with a lower fan speed than it’s low speed setting provided. I can now get the fan to provide just a trickle of draught, just a notch up from the stove’s inherent gasifier (fan off) mode. You’ve remarked before now on how at Newark we’d sit around a Biolite, favourite tipple in hand, just watching the flames with nothing actually cooking or set to boil on it. The low speed now gives a particularly effective ‘campfire’ setting in that guise, and makes recharging with fuel a more leisurely activity. Simmer capability’s enhanced too. The highest speed is higher than the high speed setting the stock controller provides. I’ve said how it steps up the voltage, but judging how the fan behaves I very much doubt it’s over-revving it to a destructive extent. Why use that ‘turbo boost’? I did something I’d avoid with the Biolite and that’s overloading with fuel (pellets) when the fire had died down to glowing embers. On the Biolite there’d be a lot of smoke before it would eventually pickup, maybe having to apply a lighter to the smoke to ignite the wood gas pouring out with the smoke. On the OE stove the boost fan speed regenerated the fire so much quicker and without me having to apply a light. Lot of fun! John
@salan3, I was given a discount option when ordering the controllers, bought 2 @ £1.59 ea. incl free postage.
@presscall, I'm far too familiar with that chart John. Did you adapt a commercial box for the enclosure? I was going to look at the elecectrial section for a junctiin box in B&Q. ABS enclosures are readily available online. although I might aim to enclose the USB socket you have left exposed. I might as well spend the time waiting for the delivery looking at plastic boxes. It's a shame Maplin closed shop.
@Simes I used a craft knife on 2mm thick art card, Araldite for jointing (drafting tape to hold together until epoxy set). USB ports and male connector masked off and whole spray painted with a rattle can.
Well the stove turned up a couple of weeks ago, and the atrocious weather finally relented enough to actually venture outside to fire it up. As John has provided far better images than I can manage with the phone I'll not try and replicate any general shots here. A couple of initial observations are that mine also came with the yellow controller, twin speed., also assembling the BBQ tray clamps proved 'interesting' Overall package for the price can't be faulted and am looking forward to using it's full capabilities. For this occasion I decided not to repeat the reviews John has given but thought a simple comparative run as a TLUD would be informative, John has already shown it will function as a simple gassifier without fan assist. For this I've used the modified gassifier as the comparison as I have a fair idea of it's general performance with pellets and John hadn't already done so. Using a set of mini kitchen scales I filled the tray full which came to 350gms, or a @Big Si slack hand full. First off the old stove. I'd never actually measured the pellets previously but 350gms looks about the same as I'd used. This amount fills the new stove to just below the upper vents. I need to check how this compares to the Biolite. Mounting the fan below the chamber has reduced volume available, It's certainly narrower than the simple gassifier. A.couple.of starting images using ordinary BBQ lighting gel. I've not used a stopwatch but warming up takes a reasonably amount of time, this after 10 mins. Beginning to gassify properly as natural draught takes effect. Full burn after about 15/20 mins. Okay the timings from here are to complete gassification of the pellets leaving just the char. @Marc. The simple modified stove ran for over 30 mins as in the images, the unpowered TEX ran for approx 1 hr. If used in areas where people are reliant on wood stoves, the burning process would be stopped at this point and the char used as a soil improver as shown in the video Marc posted. In reality the charcoal continues to provide some residual heat for a while. what I did in this instance was to empty the char from the old stove into the TEX and turn the fan on. This proved to be quite exciting, I think there was probably a good 15 mins more cooking fire left in the charcoal, and as expected a nice clean burn, in fact the upper burn stream was actually blue. Conclusions. An excellent stove that I'm looking forward to using weather permitting. Further work is needed on the small modified gassifier to reduce main airflow further. I need to estimate the equivalent grate opening in the TEX, which will probably explain the difference in fuel consumption rate. I clearly need to assess efficiency in a real life situation, as in boil water times. The old gassifier needs fine tuning to either reduce the excessive gas production or find a way of improving combustion. I'll have probably forgotten some relevant comment while posting this, if so I'll update.
Interesting Simon. Regarding when you switched the fan on you said, As in ‘like a rocket’ presumably! Tell me, with the combustion chamber stoked pretty much full to capacity and without using the fan the whole burn (1 hour) had a potentially destructive quantity of heat conducted to the lower half of the stove, and hence the fan? I’m supposing not, since you utilised the fan for the concluding part of your experiment. When you come to try out the stove entirely in fan-assist mode you mustn’t forget that the range of speeds offered by the use of one of those regulators you ordered from China surpasses the function of the two-speed stock item - lower lowest speed and a raised top speed useful as a short-duration turbo boost to quickly get flame out of new fuel added to dying embers. John
@presscall. Apologies for.my admittedly short description, I must spend a little more time on the explanations. I wasn't entirely sure when I posted if it came across as I intended. The problem as I see it is due to the chamber being too full to begin with. It takes ages to heat the stove up as the fire is in the top and heat transfer takes far longer to get the thermal draw along the walled section. The base isn't hit enough to gassify anything at that point. It just burns slowly down through the fuel stack. The lower section remains just dying embers. I used the low speed setting for the final finish, and it's quite a bit higher than the Biolite low. It was at that point I was concerned knowing what temperatures pure charcoal can reach, sparks and pretty intense heat. I took the advice and ran the fan for a few minutes when the ash had dropped below the inlets. It was at that point that a lower speed would have been potentially less destructive. I'm still not sure that entirely explains it, but in the image of the stove in fan mode shows the sparks coming out. Hoping the variable controller arrives soon. As an afterthought, the burning process of the pellets probably hadn't reached the base of the stove till the last 15/20 mins. ETA, I'm not.sure that explanation does it justice either. It certainly stays cool to the touch.
