I have taken the plunge and purchased the stove, battery pack and grille as a complete kit. I already own the biolite package with the grille so will experiment to see which I prefer and which offers the best cooking / bbq experience. I also want to experiment further with my stove top oven thingy I have.
I will also be ordering a USB fan controller as advised within this thread and as I have a 3D printer will print a box to house it, I see that thingiverse already has a design on their site.
Managed to print off the couple of designs I found for the controllers, hopefully the controllers themselves will arrive tomorrow so I can see how they fit.
I received my Stove Kit (stove + battery / Solar + Grill) today. I bought some USB power controllers as recommended earlier in the thread + made up some 3d printed cases for them (it made more sense to buy 5 controllers for near enough the same price as 2 on Amzn, just need to find a use for the spare ones). Initial unboxing thoughts regarding the stove kit, the stove itself is well made for the price paid. The grill looks ok but would have preferred if they had spent a little bit more money on the top grille plate, its a bit cheap and flexible for my liking, reminding me of a disposable BBQ grill so will make replacement item. The grill itself looks better made and fit for purpose. The battery/solar pack, not too sure on how the solar charger will fair as my past experiences of using such chargers they haven't preformed all that well, even in bright sunlight, I might just use a £6 £land power bank, time will tell. For a complete stove kit however and the money paid circ £96.90 at time of writing, I am happy that I took the plunge and buy the whole kit (didn't make much financial sense just to buy the stove + grill) and the nearest comparison is the Biolite stove, which is quite a bit more expensive + have never liked the pot stand options for that. BTW anyone seen the LOFI stove, that is due to come out later this year? Will post again if / should anyone be interested in my future findings upon using the stove. Cheers Barneey
Well, that’s the benefit of a long-term test. Three years on, regular use of the set and I’ve not had to USB charge the panel’s battery.
Unfortunately I did have much spare time this weekend to fire up the new stove but I did have an hour spare this evening so thought I would knock up another grate from some thicker stainless wire mesh I had. Fingers crossed I will be able to see how everything works next weekend. I don't know if any edge clips like the original will be needed and may or may not round off the edges.
Take it from me, they will be. Visualise: burger/steak/sausage sticks to the mesh, requiring spatula or tongs to loosen and release. Everything scorching hot and bathed in radiant heat. Last thing you want at that point is to juggle with a loose grate.
Thank you, for your words of experience again I'll see if I have some suitable stainless wire and make a few similar to the originals. Its been a fun project so far and any excuse to try out a new piece of equipment or make something is always good for the soul.
@Barneey The original mesh works perfectly well and has lasted without degrading in the slightest on mine. Yes, it appears flimsy, but sags only as far as the corrugated heat diffuser/drip tray directly below it and the ‘sag’ has no bearing on its effectiveness. The clips are easy to engage and release for dismantling to clean the grill after use.
Absolutely! Been with us on three to four camping trips and the occasional balcony fire department drill. We just love it. We cook on it, we sometimes grill on it and we mostly use it after sunset to watch the flames. Afterwards when it's just coals glowing, we put in it the tent to warm it up a bit when it's cold. I bought a variable fan speed adjuster on AliExpress and put it on it's lowest settings possible. Still feels like a bit too much air due to the fan, which i incidentally have not changed. With the fan and dry wood, absolutely no smoke whatsoever. I harvest wood on the ground, saw it in 4/5 cm long pieces and use that as fuel. As backup I have dry sack filled with pellets, since my girlfriend is a true feeder when it comes to managing a fire. I'm still baffled this stove hasn't been picked up by someone who knows how to market camping related items to Western audiences.
Be really careful, glowing coals produce enormous amounts of carbon monoxide, if you've got enough ventilation to avoid risk of CO poisoning, you probably won't be benefiting from the heat... Look after yourselves!
Just a little 2025 heads up, I still absolutely love this little car camping stove. We use it all the time while on holiday. It is so ridiculously quick tor get a few liters to boil, it truly is an unknown gem of a biomass gasifier stove. We still use it as a camp fire and for boiling water for a cup of tea. I did cheat for a second and bought another version of this stove, but after receiving it & opening the box, I send it back right away. Just an inferior product compared to the OE-TEX stove. I really should post some images of the little improvements I added. I finally found now a 12V PWM 4pin 60x60x10mm fan with a PWM fan controller that runs on 5V USB C input. I understand that PWM controller is better at a better finetuning of RPM versus a voltage regulator of which I bought all the AliExpress options and field tried all of them. Powerbank with solar charger is still alive and powering this awesome stove.
@Don Octavio I’d be interested to see your additions to refine the stove. Mine’s still in use regularly.
Hee Prescall, About time I wrote something about the bits I changed. For some snobbish reason, I swapped out the Philips bolts and rivets at the bottom for hex M4 x 16 mm bolts. It just fits the design of the stove better, if that makes any sense. Since I’ve clearly grown even more pretentious, I’ll probably replace them with Torx next, for absolutely no good reason at all. I never liked those three tiny pegs for the feet, never used them either, so I slipped into full AliExpress mode, ordered a pile of bits and fitted M5 stainless threaded rivets. Into those I screwed M5 x 25 mm thumb bolts, topped off with M5 thumb nuts at the bottom, and fixed them with either Loctite or nail polish (can’t remember which; same result anyway). It actually helps level the stove on uneven ground, which is great for my steak pan, if only it wasn't warped. We, meaning me and my girlfriend Anne, only use it on our balcony while sipping homemade glue wine, and always on holidays. On holidays it usually serves as a campfire that warms absolutely no one, but the flames look so good we don’t mind. It’s become a little ritual now. Anne takes great joy in feeding this stainless steel beast dry pinecones and the perfectly sawed, half-a-fat-finger-thick sticks I’ve spent hours preparing, only to see her burn through them in minutes. The fan and its original control were a bit unhinged. Settings were basically hard, harder, volcano. I prefer angelic whisper to devil’s roar, so I tried all sorts of voltage regulators, but nothing played nicely with the original 5V fan. I have now seven voltage regulators with little use. Recently I gave it another go on AliExpress and found a portable PWM controller with a USB-C input, bless the wonderful Chinese manufacturers. After far too many hours comparing endless fans I finally found a 12V 4-pin fan with the right dimensions (60x60x15mm). Kinda sad the fan arrived after our holiday, but I must say, it exceeds expectations. On the lowest setting I can’t hear it at all, perfect for flame staring. On the highest, it spits out embers like fireworks and on medium, it’s ideal for boiling water. I don't record boiling times, as it depends entirely on the fuel, the weather, and the pineapple burn strength index. It seems quickest with wood pellets, but don’t quote me on that. The original fan has, I assume, rubber feet resting on the bottom air-intake lid. They do fit on the new fan, but a bit too loosely. So, off to AliExpress I went and ordered 20 pcs “Case Fan Soft Silicone Anti-Noise Reducing Vibration Screws Fan Rivet Mounting for PC Case or CPU Fan.” Snipped them to the right height and called it a day. The only little thing I haven’t found a quick fix for is that, at a certain low threshold, the fan draws power but doesn’t spin. I suppose I could just mark the controller where the fan actually starts turning, to avoid burning it out. I should also add a fire-proof sleeve to the fan wires and a ferrule to prevent fraying & damage. That does mean pulling the pins out of the 2510 connector, though, and I’m not entirely confident I can get them back in without breaking something. Still, I’ll do it anyway eventually, how hard can it be? **** The only thing left to do, is order a different model of the OE-TEX stoves, preferably the bigger one. Unfortunately the oe-tex.com website seems to have gone up in smoke. And finding online webstores selling their stoves is neigh impossible. Some were rebranded as 'Anbull', but also none available. Not sure if they are produced at all anymore. I did a tiny bit of detective work and it seems the domain changed hands in 2024. Original registar was: Name: Yun Zhou Liu (2 domains) Company: Cheng Du Yuan Neng Ke Ji You Xian Ze Ren Gong Si Email: kf@symansbon.cn (42 domains) Source: Oe-tex.com [Whois Lookup & Whois History] Not sure if he was ever the owner of OE-Tex stoves or just the registar. The stoves themselves have popped up on a new site, www.usb-stove.com, which was registered in 2022. I haven’t contacted them yet. I might try ‘oepy2501’ or Adrian on eBay again, where I originally bought the stove, just to see what’s up. Last time I asked, he wasn’t planning on importing anything other than this stove. So I suppose I’ll have to throw some money into that black pit called Alibaba or Taobao and hope for the best. If I can even find them on there. P.S.: I'll edit in the pictures from my phone later.
Hm, I have a 10 minute window to edit. Too short. So I spread the pictures out over several replies: You see a stainless steel M5 rivet, a M5 25mm thumbbolt and a M5 thumbnut. Looks like this on AliExpress: In case someone in the future wants to Google Lens these images and find the same stuff on Ali. The silicone fan holders: The PWM Controller: The 12V fan in question: How it looks in real life:
And how not to use this wonderful stove: Sorry, I can't add the short. So video with dumb sideburns it is.
@presscall Which one would you pick, for camping and possibly emergency purposes (since so many EU governments are sending out information leaflets to prepare for disaster) the Biolite or this unknown gem?
@Don Octavio The dependency of the Biolite on electronic circuitry for charging and speed control would rule it out for me in those circumstances. The subject stove of this thread requires an external power source, but that gives it more resilience in terms of solar or battery. In comparison testing I’ve done it’ll burn wood that’s a bit damp, once fired up on drier stuff. The Biolite won’t so readily.
