All- I don't know if anybody else has discovered this, but the Esbit heat exchanger pot is almost a perfect fit on top of the Svea 123, with the little L-shaped pot support thingies removed. Just sits right on top of the brass windscreen. As is well known, these heat exchanger pots are a great way to maximize the stove efficiency as well as cut down on the time it takes to boil water. The pot's heat exchanger section has fins that are oriented radially outward, so the gas flow has a clear path away from the burner. And the thickness of the section keeps the actual bottom surface of the pot at roughly the same distance from the burner head as before, so the flame dynamics are unaffected. Plus the fins end up doing a pretty good job of blocking the wind. I suspect the stove runs a tad hotter, but I've never had any problems with it overpressurizing. I'm consistently getting boil times a bit over 3 minutes per pint of water (average say 3:15), and it takes about 6 grams of fuel to do so (not including aprox. 1 gram for the initial priming). Thanks to the wind blocking effect, I get almost exactly the same results with or without a breeze. (Try doing that with a Pocket Rocket!!) This is now my go-to setup whenever I'm using the stove backpacking. -Paul
I've been regularly using a Primus Eta pot with similar heat-exchanger fins on my Svea 123R but still with the pot support legs attached. The stove fits inside the pot with a 650ml titanium mug inverted over the top of the stove and the Eta pot lid on top. There's a small cloth wrapped around the bottom of the stove to protect the inside of the pot.
Paul - I'm not familiar with the Eta pot, and so I'm having a hard time visualizing how exactly it sits on the stove. When in use, does the pot heat exchanger function as a wind shield? Or does the pot sit above the stove so the wind can affect it's performance? I got interested in measuring how stoves perform in the wind after reading that MSR says the efficiency of it's open canister stoves (e.g.: Pocket Rocket, etc) drops to about a third of it's advertised performance in even mildly breezy conditions - like 5 mph. That makes a huge difference in how much fuel you need to carry. And they specifically warn people not to use a windscreen on these stoves, for fear of overheating the cannister. So I wondered if liquid gas stoves like the Svea have the same problem. With my arrangement, they don't seem to suffer much.
It is a pot with a heat exchanger very similar to yours except for the lid, which I got as a kit with a Primus EtaExpress butane stove and a windshield which clips onto the gas cartridge (as in the photo above - not my photo but the same stove and pot). The pot stands straight onto the stove pot supports with the fins in the heat-exchanger not shielded from the wind, presumably to aid the flow of heat through it. I simply stand the pot straight on the pot supports of my Svea 123R. If it's windy I set up an old foil MSR windshield partially around it on the windward side. No problems overheating as the foil windshield only covers about a third of a complete circle on the windward side and is good 4 or 5 inches (10cm or 12.5cm) from the stove.
Well that makes sense about the windshield. I'm guessing the MSR prohibition on windscreens was written by the legal team to avoid liability in case somebody wrapped it around the stove, and it exploded as a result. They do talk about setting up the stove behind a pack or a wall to block the wind.
