A couple of years old and barely used, not at all on liquid fuel until it came into my posession. Packed in a padded bag that also serves as an insulated container to keep food in the Eta pot hot while the stove is used to heat a kettle of water or a fry up. Not an idle boast, I tested it with boiling water and twenty minutes later it was still steaming hot. The stove's clip-on windshield is used in conjunction with the Eta heat-exchanger pot ... ... the Primus frying pan or any other pot or kettle is to be used without the windshield, the user instructions advise. The contours of the lower part of the Eta pot and the windshield facilitate the dispersal of heat without overheating the windshield. Any other pot's liable to divert heat onto the windshield and damage it. 0.22mm jet for kerosene, 0.28mm for Coleman fuel or equivalent, 0.32mm for isobutane, replaced by removing the burner from the stove base (a spring clip holds it) and swapping jets using the tool stowed in a zipped pocket in the flap of the stove bag. I've tried all three fuels and their relevant jets and used alcohol to prime when using white gasoline or kerosene. The user guide suggests priming using the bottle fuel, but not surprisingly warns of difficulty priming and lots of smoke, if kerosene is used as fuel and to prime with. The priming pan is a tiny rectangular pan and I found it difficult enough priming with alcohol when using kerosene as the fuel. I'd rule out using paraffin to prime with. Once hot enough to vapourise paraffin the stove burns it cleanly ... ... with a hint of rich fuelling intermittently and consequent discolouration of the base of the pot - that wipes off Burning white gasoline is optimised using the 0.28mm jet and the stove performs well on isobutane using the same jet, so I see no need to bother changing jets when using those two fuels. The user insructions give this advice to achieve simmering on liquid fuel. I tried pumping 'once or twice' and got a decent simmer setting, but surely it's usual to start at a higher setting and reduce the heat to a simmer. The only way to create the low bottle pressure to drop the heat to a simmer from a hotter setting would be to release pressure from the bottle, which would of course release volatile fuel vapour - a very dangerous thing to do. Isobutane gives complete control of heat output so my way of using the stove would be to resort to liquid fuel for (very) fast boiling, tolerable frying (raising the pan off the heat to prevent scorching) and use isobutane for 'serious' cooking involving simmering. A niggle. The burner is a sloppy fit in the stove base cradle bracket and tilts, dropping the priming pan at one end, reducing the meagre priming fluid capacity even more. The burner is a Primus Spider Express with a priming pan added and the solution to the 'tilt' was to pop a circlip in the groove not utilised in this incarnation ... ... then by shortening that lug (an end stop for the burner) a fraction ... The circlip slips underneath it and firms up the assembly, getting rid of the tilt and levelling the priming pan. Would I have bought one at full price ... or even the discounted price? I might, if I didn't know of the versatility and availabilty at much more modest prices (often) of 'classic' camp stoves. Functional stove nevertheless and a hellishly fast water boiler. John
Great presentation, John. Using my Optimus-Primus spreadsheet with hyperlinks, I found your stove in a few seconds. Here is an extract from 2008.
Great review, thanks. So you say even with a tiny .22 jet for paraffin this one burns slightly on the rich side at times. I tried the burner of the Eta Pack Lite (first version, same as you have here) with a .26 paraffin jet from a Gravity (Gravity has same burner base, different much bigger burner head) and that was for sure burning rich and partly yellow. I found the tiny priming pan unpractical, so I simply used a Trangia burner for priming. The Gravity stove is OK on paraffin, more of a water heater on petrol. All in all I find these stoves are canister stoves first and the liquid fuel capability is not impressive. And I agree on the classic point, but not just the price – the good ol’ ones stands up pretty good. All the best, e
@tofta Yes, that's right, it intermittently ran rich on the .22mm with paraffin. You're right of course about the performance with liquid fuels but it's true of quite a few 'bottle' stoves to a greater or lesser extent. John
One of our other Troop ASM leaders has one of these and I got to experience the efficiency of this stove. It was amazing how fast it boils water. Honestly it was one of the fastest stoves to set up and fastest boilers I have ever seen. Even compared to the jetboils this thing was even faster in my opinion. I only got to see it used with a Canister of gas as a fuel source. The windshield with the magnets and the way it nest in the cushy pot cozy is brilliant. Such a great little stove system. I was very impressed with it.
@Viscara Yes it's a quick boiler sure enough. There are no magnets in the windshield on this one though. John
Strange as the one my fellow Scout Leader had I was pretty sure it had the magnets. I may be incorrect maybe as it was a year or so ago. Great stove regardless.
I have one of these, as well. I love it! On mine, the burner to base attachment is a bit different, and sits level. I'll try to get some pics of it to add to your thread.
