I got a jet flame lighter from "Poundland" for yes you guessed it for £1 and they work ok for the money, they're refillable and come with a bottle of gas and at that price you can carry a couple.
Richard
Richard
Turboflame Lighter (Lakeland Bushcraft)
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I went through a few Turboflames...ok in warm dry weather. Poor quality materials though and badly manufactured. Mine all died after refilling them with gas (following manufacturers instructions). Dont bother.
Wow, I've filled mine loads of times and never gone through that palaver.
Are you using carp gas?
Are you using carp gas?
I'm with Shewie on this one. My favourite lighter is the mini clipper (refillable) or mini bic. They are both small enough to be stashed in all sorts of places, are better made than cheaper disposables so are reliable and cheap enough to lose or throw away in the case of the clipper if it doesn't refill. The daddy versions are also good but not as easy to fit into things, also you can get cool cases for the mini bic.
Don't get me wrong I also love min bics and have lots of them in kits and things, the deal extreme lighters are better in high wind conditions for lighting troublesome hexi/gas/meths/fuel, but soe does my turboflame. I have a collection of different lighters for various uses and costs I use them all at different times and for different stuff. I love the good old permant match too(just to through that one in there too) and the peanut lighters. But on the gas front I find some better than others. My turboflames are still going after several refils but it is a tricky method of refilling them and and does occassionaly take a few tries to get it right, I put the deal extreme in this thread so you could see a cheap alternative and I find them ok too.
Those deal extreme ones look good, sort of like a mini "mini chefs blowtorch" - which is my lighter of choice around the home. Like all of us, I carry many many methods for lighting fire. My point about the bics is that if you need to have something that you can count on, take a bic!
I've had one of these for ages and refilled several times with no problems on a standard butane canister nozzle. It doesn't get daily use, it lives in my, ahem, 'manknitting' bag and melts paracord ends. Another 4 arrived today for friends who keep trying to nick mine. I'd say order a couple and see what you think.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11868
Another vote for the bushcraft orthodoxy.
I only replaced my aged original after dropping it mid-cleaning (it spends its life in the same pocket as a bag of tinder). Somewhere on my shed floor, hidden in swarf and sawdust, is the tiny part that made it work.
My only problem filling has been when I got to the end of the last gas canister: sorted by spending money on a new one, rather than trying to eke out the last millibars.
My better half bought me a lighter from a place called 'Amber Value' in Ripley here in Derbyshire. It's a turbo style, that is it gives a blue flame which can be directed even downwards, like the 'Turboflame' brand. This one is 'Bull Brand' and made in China. The differences between it and my (third) genuine 'Turboflame' are
1. It is a plastic thing that you can see through, so you can see how much gas is in it.
2. It was 99 pence including a small (18ml) refill canister.
3. It works.
Apparently the shop assistant who sold the lighter to my SO is a smoker, and said that she's used one regularly for about three months and never even had to refill it.
I'll keep you posted.
1. It is a plastic thing that you can see through, so you can see how much gas is in it.
2. It was 99 pence including a small (18ml) refill canister.
3. It works.
Apparently the shop assistant who sold the lighter to my SO is a smoker, and said that she's used one regularly for about three months and never even had to refill it.
I'll keep you posted.
See my original thread:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59294
Sounds a bit fussy but it only takes 10 minutes - I'm coming up to my 7th refill now and the lighter has proved totally reliable - as long as you equate pressure with temperature. If the lighter is, say a quarter full, and you leave it out in the cold - don't expect it to light too well. Put it in your (warm) pocket for ten minutes or so and it'll light fine. The fuel reservoir has to be pressurised and you manipulate this with temperature.
I'm sure your method involving freezers and armpits will work, but if I have to do that for a lighter I don't want the lighter.
Are you talking about the PB-10 or the Turboflame? If it's a Turboflame I think you've been one of the lucky ones. I'm on my third (two 'Original' and one 'Phoenix'. They've all been unreliable, although the Phoenix would at least light reliably. It just went out almost equally reliably. The third one (another 'Original') seems to be a lot better than the first one but the jury's still out. It seems to be improving with use but I've had more trouble with it than I'd ever expect from a lighter that costs nearly a tenner.
Some truth in that, pure butane boils at about -0.5 degrees Celsius so don't expect it to work well when it's freezing. Better if the gas has a lighter fraction e.g. propane (boiling point -42 degrees C) in it as well.
I don't follow that at all. If there's liquid in the reservoir, the pressure in the lighter depends on the temperature, not on the amount of gas in it. It's the same principle as the pressure cooker. The pressure is the same whether it's full or a quarter full. If the thermal capacity of the lighter, gas and liquid in the reservoir is so small that the gas temperature drops sharply when you try to light it then I could understand that having more liquid in the reservoir would help keep the temperature up, because the liquid has more heat stored in it. But that doesn't seem to be the issue with the Turboflame brand lighters. These lighters are fairly chunky, so they should store enough heat to keep the butane warm as it boils off while burning, but even when it was full (just under 3 grammes of gas in it) my first one wouldn't light most of the time. Although it hadn't lit, I could hear gas coming out of it while I hold the ignition button down, so it wasn't a gas pressure problem. Holding the burner close to something to trap the flame in a small space seemed to help, and strangely enough with my second 'Original' so does holding the lighter on its side, but it still isn't as reliable as I expect.
If you're lucky. I could stand my first one on the stove for half an hour and it still wouldn't light.
Correct, but it isn't the whole story with the Turboflame. I have two other 'turbo' style lighters and they're absolutely no trouble. The one from DX is a dream. Easy to fill (no messing around with freezers, and you can watch the liquid going in because it's clear plastic), it lights practically every time, and it stays lit. My latest acquisition is just as good. Bull Brand, 99 pence including a small refill bottle. It looks like a disposable. I've just been out in the woods in the bucketing down rain to try it out in challenging conditions. Cold lighter, wet hands, soggy tinder and it worked just fine, absolutely no failures to light. I had a life-saving (if life had been at risk) fire going in a few minutes. In those conditions I wouldn't even have attempted it with the Turboflame. Tinkypete is an expert with these things and even he couldn't get my first Turboflame Original to light at North Wood in August despite nearly swallowing it.
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Voila! Glad it worked for you Andy!
Ged - don't forget mate - that every time you use one of these lighters you are depressurising it to a certain degree, which is why you have to gradually turn up the output nozzle - which depressurises it more - and so on around the vicious circle! Boyle's law equates volume and pressure at constant temperatures - so pressure is related to volume in a fixed space - and pressure (not volume) increases with external temperature (not the latent heat of the liquid - which I think you're alluding to).
What I found, through the various sites, was a way to maximise the volume (and therefore pressure) of the gas/liquid of the lighter at the filling stage - by trying to create as near to a vacuum as you can get within the lighter itself and then creating as large a pressure differential between lighter and fill canister as possible - so the lighter sucks in as much fuel as it can. Once the lighter warms up - you've created extra pressure which equals more lightings.
My lighter is the PB-10 - the upgrade to the PB-207. When the liquid volume has reduced to about a quarter full (about two weeks normal use) - I've adjusted the output to maximum to get a decent burn in average ambient conditions (and I know I'm a couple of days away from refill). If the lighter gets cold in this state then the pressure will reduce so that it won't burn at all (hence the warm it up in a pocket advice). Sooner or later you will still have visible liquid in the reservoir but the volume has reduced beyond a point where pressure is sufficient to light - refill time!
I know this is all pretty geeky - but I had been frustrated in the past by failures of what should be a good tool - so I did some research. I think it worth noting here that certain cheaper brands may not do much QA with the quality of the piezo electric crystal igniters and some of the problems I have had in the past (with Turboflame especially) is that after a while they just stop sparking.
Ged - don't forget mate - that every time you use one of these lighters you are depressurising it to a certain degree, which is why you have to gradually turn up the output nozzle - which depressurises it more - and so on around the vicious circle! Boyle's law equates volume and pressure at constant temperatures - so pressure is related to volume in a fixed space - and pressure (not volume) increases with external temperature (not the latent heat of the liquid - which I think you're alluding to).
What I found, through the various sites, was a way to maximise the volume (and therefore pressure) of the gas/liquid of the lighter at the filling stage - by trying to create as near to a vacuum as you can get within the lighter itself and then creating as large a pressure differential between lighter and fill canister as possible - so the lighter sucks in as much fuel as it can. Once the lighter warms up - you've created extra pressure which equals more lightings.
My lighter is the PB-10 - the upgrade to the PB-207. When the liquid volume has reduced to about a quarter full (about two weeks normal use) - I've adjusted the output to maximum to get a decent burn in average ambient conditions (and I know I'm a couple of days away from refill). If the lighter gets cold in this state then the pressure will reduce so that it won't burn at all (hence the warm it up in a pocket advice). Sooner or later you will still have visible liquid in the reservoir but the volume has reduced beyond a point where pressure is sufficient to light - refill time!
I know this is all pretty geeky - but I had been frustrated in the past by failures of what should be a good tool - so I did some research. I think it worth noting here that certain cheaper brands may not do much QA with the quality of the piezo electric crystal igniters and some of the problems I have had in the past (with Turboflame especially) is that after a while they just stop sparking.
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Sorry, you misunderstand the physics. The butane is stored in the lighter as a liquid, not as a gas. Take a look at any cheap disposable with a clear body. You can see it swilling around in there. Take a look here which shows butane/propane vapour pressures without reference to volumes. When there is any liquid butane in the lighter at all, if the temperature of the butane is constant then the pressure is constant. Yo do not depressurize the gas when you use it because some liquid boils to replace the gas you've used. That isn't strictly true because the liquid cools when it boils, and that does reduce the pressure. But the gas doesn't cool very much for small gas flow rates for a short time, and it warms up again anyway when you stop using it and put it back in your pocket, so it's close enough for this discussion. If you empty the lighter really quickly by opening the filler valve of course that's different, you will notice that ice quickly forms around the vent because of the rapid cooling. But that's not what we're talking about here.
If there's any liquid in it at all, the pressure in the container is independent of the volumes.
Yes, it's a good idea to empty the lighter as much as you can before filling it, and freezing it will ensure that as much liquid is forced into it as possible. There's no such thing as suck. The filling container blows. The lighter doesn't suck. Well, unless it's a Turboflame.
I'm not doubting that this kind of thing is going on. But I am doubting the explanation. The physics is wrong. I think it might be something to do with temperature when the liquid butane is boiling but from my experiences with 'Turboflame' brand lighters I haven't been able to come up with a theory that I find plausible yet. OTOH with the 'Bull Brand' lighter I don't need to -- it just works like you'd expect. Maybe I should try to get hold of a Turboflame with a clear plastic body so I can see what's going on in there.
Well I'd call it physics.
You ain't the only one.
I still think there's something I'm missing with these things. I agree with you that they should be fine but some of them aren't. I'm at a loss to explain some of the things I've seen these things do. More research needed...
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Ok - you made me do it!!
First - some facts (Physics if you like)
Boyle's law - to be accurate, states that the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to it's volume. The more liquid butane you have in a fixed container - the less gas there will be and therefore more pressure is available at the outlet. With use the amount of liquid decreases and the volume of gas increases to fill the space - greater volume of gas = less pressure.
Charle's Law states that the pressure of a gas within a fixed container will increase proportionally with temperature.
When any liquid boils off to a gas, the temperature of the remaining liquid will cool due to latent heat of evaporation - and in the case of Butane this can be considerable because it is easily evaporated and condensed. So, although the ambient temperature may be above 0.5C the temperature within the cantainer may be considerably cooler. Especially when the liquid gets low and is producing more gas as a proportion of volume.
"Normal" lighters burn a butane/ oxygen mix (hence the yellow flame). Torch lighters on the other hand burn 100% butane under pressure.
So - When the liquid gets low (in my case about a quarter full) the volume of gas has tripled and therefore the pressure available has reduced by a factor of three. The only way to increase this pressure is with temperature.
Correct filling is essential - basically the more liquid butane you can get in (with a correspondingly small proportion of gas) the better and I (and LandyAndy) have found that the above method works.
Er...that's it. Phew!
First - some facts (Physics if you like)
Boyle's law - to be accurate, states that the pressure of a gas is inversely proportional to it's volume. The more liquid butane you have in a fixed container - the less gas there will be and therefore more pressure is available at the outlet. With use the amount of liquid decreases and the volume of gas increases to fill the space - greater volume of gas = less pressure.
Charle's Law states that the pressure of a gas within a fixed container will increase proportionally with temperature.
When any liquid boils off to a gas, the temperature of the remaining liquid will cool due to latent heat of evaporation - and in the case of Butane this can be considerable because it is easily evaporated and condensed. So, although the ambient temperature may be above 0.5C the temperature within the cantainer may be considerably cooler. Especially when the liquid gets low and is producing more gas as a proportion of volume.
"Normal" lighters burn a butane/ oxygen mix (hence the yellow flame). Torch lighters on the other hand burn 100% butane under pressure.
So - When the liquid gets low (in my case about a quarter full) the volume of gas has tripled and therefore the pressure available has reduced by a factor of three. The only way to increase this pressure is with temperature.
Correct filling is essential - basically the more liquid butane you can get in (with a correspondingly small proportion of gas) the better and I (and LandyAndy) have found that the above method works.
Er...that's it. Phew!
Your physics are a bit off, I'm afraid. And ged is quite right.
Your reasoning about pressure and volume is only true if the amount of gas, in gas form, is constant. That is not the case here. Some of the gas is in liquid form and it will "boil" off to keep the pressure up. As long as there is liquid gas remaining, and the temperature don't vary, the pressure will be exactly the same either if the lighter is full, or if it is almost empty.
As the level of liquid gas decrease, the cooling effect of the "boil" as you release gas may increase, since the volume of liquid to cool decrease. And the lower temperature will temporarily reduce the pressure. Not the greater volume of gas in gas form.
Your reasoning about pressure and volume is only true if the amount of gas, in gas form, is constant. That is not the case here. Some of the gas is in liquid form and it will "boil" off to keep the pressure up. As long as there is liquid gas remaining, and the temperature don't vary, the pressure will be exactly the same either if the lighter is full, or if it is almost empty.
As the level of liquid gas decrease, the cooling effect of the "boil" as you release gas may increase, since the volume of liquid to cool decrease. And the lower temperature will temporarily reduce the pressure. Not the greater volume of gas in gas form.
I don't think so. This does not explain why you generally have to gradually increase the output of any gas lighter as the liquid contents decrease - whereas Boyle's law does. You've already said that as the liquid decreases you will get an increase in gas volume within the fixed chamber. Boyle's law again: An increase in gas volume = a decrease in pressure.
Anyway I give up! To all - just get as much liquid butane in these torch lighters as you can on refill and, providing the igniter is working, you'll get better performance from these lighters.
Works for me!
No, it doesn't. You're very keen to quote Boyle's Law but I don't think you've actually read it lately. To quote a famous person whose name escapes me at the moment, "Physics is the science of making the right approximations".
So far as the old gas laws go, they're more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules. They're approximations. Like any approximation, Boyle's Law states the conditions for which it holds good. One of the conditions is that we must be dealing with an "ideal gas", which butane at room temperature is emphatically not. Boyle's Law does not apply. Not even approximately.
Please don't do that. Just drink a little deeper.
As I said a couple of posts ago, the physics of the fluids in the gas lighter is much the same as in a pressure cooker. You have a boiling liquid in a closed container. Read up about that and forget Boyle's Law for now.
Agreed.
