Butane noobie here... I just got this stove (for free!) but I'm having trouble with it. It's a Taiwanese Athena pocket butane stove and it has it's own internal doughnut-shaped tank that you fill with a butane cartridge. I think my problem is it's not filling correctly. You press the cartridge needle into a port for 30 seconds or so, and the cartridge fills up the tank. Problem is, I might be missing something from the port. The needle doesn't seal very well, and a lot of butane leaks out when you press the cartridge in. The port has internal threads, so I'm wondering if there's a part that's missing? This is what the internals of the stove look like: I get a flame, but even after filling for 30 seconds, it doesn't last very long, so I suspect there's not a lot of fuel in the tank. Anybody have any suggestions? Normally I stick to white gas, so I'm kinda clueless.
Ahem... update: Turns out that the problem in fueling the stove was the refill canister. Once I exhausted the small canister that came with it, and bought a new one (different brand), I was able to charge it up completely. ...if only I had stopped then & there... Problem was, I got the stove for my daughter for an upcoming camping trip. So as a responsible dad, (and wanting to play with it some more), I decided to do a boiling water test. I first did a leak check to make sure everything was tight, then proceeded to fire it up. As one could guess by the small flame, it was taking forever to boil 2 cups of water. Until, that is, the heat caused a small fuel leak, which quickly caught fire, which caused a rather large inferno, which melted the internal plastic fuel line, which dumped raw butane onto the flames... which admittedly was quite a sight on my kitchen countertop. Fortunately I was able to grab a large set of tongs and carry it still burning out to the back yard, where it eventually burned itself out. The remains went out with the morning's recycling, and good riddance. I think I will just bite the bullet & show my daughter how to work the Svea. It's so much safer.
-- yeah, no kidding. Lesson: never trust a stove with plastic parts inside the burner assembly. I shoudda known better. Wish the Taiwanese designers had as well. Silver Lining: Amen. Regrets: Woudda have made one heck of a flame shot. Wish I had thought to grab my phone at the time. (I was going to post a picture of the smouldering remains, but somehow that failed to capture the excitement of it all.) -Paul
I'm glad it went wrong in the right place! Well done Dad for giving it a thorough try out before they went to camp Alec
