View Full Version : Vargo Triad XE Help!
I have a Vargo Triad XE and can not get the meths burner to work reliably!
I have used the wind deflector recomended on the web site etc all I get out of it is a very fierce burn to start (Hot enough to melt the first windshield I made out of foil!) then hardly any burn at all (I have yet to bring 1l of water to a full boil)
I am following the manufacturers instructions!
What am I doing wrong!
Hi mate, i got one of these, not really used it in anger yet, but got a pint to boil no probs, i used the widshield from my whisperlight, but left a small gap say 10-13mm round the edge of the pot. also i noticed that some of the burner holes were not punched out well and had to use a safty pin to push out some swarfe on a couple.
hope you have better luck
steve
Will check out the holes and have a look!
buffalobill
06-10-2006, 14:59
I had teething problems with this stove - just make sure you prime it really well.
I got 2 (3/4 full) crusaders of boiled water out of one stove-full the other week.
donīt try to boil a full liter.
Better split it in 2 half liter parts - remember: meth. spirits contains only half of parafin/petrol(gasoline)/butane BTUs
The Triad is made from titanuim?
That makes it even worse since titanium is the least material useable to fabricate an alc. stove from due to its thermal conductivity (it needs priming even at moderate temperatures etc. for some numbers scroll down www.brasslite.com/about.html titanium .157 vers alu 2.125 and brass at 1.220) - Iīd for sure take brass or aluminum.
For the same reason I donīt like the Trangia clone made by Tatonka - stainles steel is even a tiny bit worse than titanium
p.s.
priming is pure science :D : use only a few drops for priming- just enough to heat up the main fuel. Excessive priming fuel will just waste a lot of main fuel without increasing the heating power.
Did you use a lid on your pot? :rolleyes:
Thanks all!
I think i may be over priming the stove! and prbably trying to boil to much water in one go!
will give these tips a try and get back to you!
Still no joy with this!!!
What is going on! :censored: :censored: :censored:
I'm coming around to the idea that what is going on is that these stoves are crap.
I've the XE and t'other one, both chuffing useless for anything other than a novelty item.
I am coming round to this way of thinking! There is certainly no room for it in my pack at the moment!
I'm coming around to the idea that what is going on is that these stoves are crap.
I've the XE and t'other one, both chuffing useless for anything other than a novelty item.
It's a great design, I dont think I've ever willed a stove to be good as much as this one, but the XE is a piece of junk.
The stand is a great idea but the stove itself is flawed terribly. The side ports mean that the jets go out almost horizontally, which is great for big pots, but who carries 8 inch pots and a titanium ultralight stove? Also, how do you refill a hot stove with a sealed lid without handling it? You have to wait for it to cool enough to open the lid in order to top it up. Priming is a nightmare and very fickle - awfull when it's windy. I found it to be difficult to prime, poorly designed, difficult to refil, underpowered and generally untrustworthy.
The other version of the triad is a little better - well it is if you bore out the fill hole. It's still underpowered, difficult to prime in windy conditions and generally untrustworthy. It does work better than the XE, but still not a patch on a trangia. If only it were made of brass!!!
These mini alcohol stoves need to have a certain thermal mass to work efficiently in all weather conditions. The very thin stoves and stoves made of titanium and steel etc, simply dont have that thermal mass. They will work, but you have to get the fuel inside them boiling first, this makes them very fickle to use.
I think the humble trangia, plus westwind type stand and foil windshield is extremely difficult to beat. It wins on so many points. It's efficient, hot, reliable, robust, easy to prime, fuel conserving, you can simmer with it, it will take almost any pot size, you can light it in strong wind, it cooks well in bad weather, it's reasonably light, easy to refill, it's compact, very stable... etc.
It's the benchmark stove. Anything else has to be better than this to find it's way into my daypack and frankly, I dont think anything is better than this. It draws such perfect compromises between weight, robustness, efficiency, output etc.
http://zenstoves.net/TopBurner/trangia.jpg
Just add a tinfoil windshield. Beautifully simple and simply beautiful.
Simple solution. Get rid of the burner, get rid of the meths and use Esbit fuel tablets instead.
Works a treat..... ;)
buffalobill
09-10-2006, 16:45
These mini alcohol stoves need to have a certain thermal mass to work efficiently in all weather conditions. The very thin stoves and stoves made of titanium and steel etc, simply dont have that thermal mass. They will work, but you have to get the fuel inside them boiling first, this makes them very fickle to use.
I think that is the key point here and why mine took a fair bit of priming before working efficiently.
I think that is the key point here and why mine took a fair bit of priming before working efficiently.
I think all mini stoves suffer from this to some extent, but the triad is particularly awfull.
The civi model trangia by contrast, is particularlt good. It has the perfect thermal mass. It's made of brass, thin enough to heat up quickly, but thick enough to retain that heat and transfer it to the fuel inside.
Even the military trangia found inside swedish kits isnt as good, it's thicker and heavier than the civi model, which means it takes just that bit longer to heat up and prime.
You can go lighter and thinner or use something other than brass, but I think the tradeoff will always be in how easy it is to light, especially in bad weather and how quickly the stove gets up to working temperature.
The more I try alternative stoves, the more I think the civi model trangia has the issues absolutely nailed.
I think that is the key point here and why mine took a fair bit of priming before working efficiently.
Seeing as you've got one it might be worth putting some fibleglass/rockwool or similar inside the stove and seeing if that helps keep the alcohol temperature up.
Interesting stuff there chaps. Helps me understand the tradeoffs between the styles easier.
bikething
09-10-2006, 23:51
Seeing as you've got one it might be worth putting some fibleglass/rockwool or similar inside the stove and seeing if that helps keep the alcohol temperature up.
I've tried filling it with rolled up aluminium mesh, copper gauze, and wire wool..
The steel wire wool worked the best at retaining the heat, but i had to use so much to have any effect that it halved the fuel capacity... and it was a pain to put the lid on without getting a few strands stuck between the lid and base and jamming the lid, making it nearly impossible to get off again :(
Simple solution. Get rid of the burner, get rid of the meths and use Esbit fuel tablets instead.
Works a treat..... ;)
... to have the smell of rotten fish :eek: and pay a fortune :( . No thanks.
Trangia T25 (or T28 or Westwind or Clikstand - plus windshield )or Brasslite plus windshield or Kelly Kettle plus some DIY engineering and the cooking problems are solved :D
as for the Triad: on www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Cook%20Gear/Stoves/ youīll find some helpful ideas and a Mfg. comment
Just borrowed my mates stove, so I'll try and have a play over the next couple of days and will report on how I get on with it. One thing I did notice just now is that if you don't fit the lid square, some holes get partially obscured on the low side.
Thanks for all the info chaps!!
I am working on a mod at the moment! Top secret of course (Will post some pics when I am done)
out of interest My civvi trangia is still in my stove at present!
Just used my mates stove tonight. It seemed to work fine. I used it with my titanium alpkit mug (+lid). I didn't measure the amount of fuel but guess it was about 3/4 full of IDA. I splashed a bit about the bottom of the pot stand to serve as a primer and lit it. It took about 30s to boil the fuel in the stove and the "rose" to form. After that, I put on 500mls of water in the mug and it took about 9 mins to bring it to the boil. It burnt on for about 6 more minutes.
I think that apart from the priming, the main factor in the stove functioning well was the windshield. I used one I made using these instructions (http://www.backpacking.net/makegear/sgt-windscreen/index.html). It's a very good fit on the mug, about 1/4" space all around.
I don't think it would be able to boil 1 litre on one lot of fuel, but it faired well for the 0.5L.
Not sure if that's much help to you pignut really. :rolleyes: Only advice really is to try to boil a smaller amount and use a good windshield.
Just used my mates stove tonight. It seemed to work fine. I used it with my titanium alpkit mug (+lid). I didn't measure the amount of fuel but guess it was about 3/4 full of IDA. I splashed a bit about the bottom of the pot stand to serve as a primer and lit it. It took about 30s to boil the fuel in the stove and the "rose" to form. After that, I put on 500mls of water in the mug and it took about 9 mins to bring it to the boil. It burnt on for about 6 more minutes.
I think that apart from the priming, the main factor in the stove functioning well was the windshield. I used one I made using these instructions (http://www.backpacking.net/makegear/sgt-windscreen/index.html). It's a very good fit on the mug, about 1/4" space all around.
I don't think it would be able to boil 1 litre on one lot of fuel, but it faired well for the 0.5L.
Not sure if that's much help to you pignut really. :rolleyes: Only advice really is to try to boil a smaller amount and use a good windshield.
Does your wind shield have holes in the bottom? (As staited in the instructions?)
Yes. It looks very similar to the one in the photo below, except my current version is a tighter fit around the mug. I made the windshield as high as I could without it interfering with the handles.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/rcnk/cat_stove.jpg
Thanks for that!
Back to the drawing board!
Yes. It looks very similar to the one in the photo below, except my current version is a tighter fit around the mug. I made the windshield as high as I could without it interfering with the handles.
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c287/rcnk/cat_stove.jpg
a lot of radiating (heating the environment :D ) surface on your pot ...
Just have a look at http://traildesigns.com/images/caldera.jpg
from http://traildesigns.com They also offer a lot of other alc stove related stuff.
IMHO it is very similiar in how itīs working to the Optimus range of alc.stoves (No.s 77, 81, 88, 90, 91 and No.85 Loke as well as many others incl. one made by the Meta Co. for Meta fuel bars). I als see some similiarity to the chimney kettles (Eydon, Kelly, Thermette).
Wow, that's cool. It shows it better in this photo that they do different cones for all sorts of cups/pots and how the cups are supported by their lips. A very good idea.
http://traildesigns.com/images/Cone_heads_crop.jpg
There doesn't look to be much ventilation around the bottom. They must work though - anyone got one?
No but they are way cool!
They can't be that hard to make....
MMMmmmmmmmmmm
Yet another job to distract me from finnishing the bathroom!
no, itīs not that hard to make one. In fact it should be pretty easy. Only thing you need to know what youīre doing
It takes way more to do the calculation (and a lot of testing) on how much combustion air is needed and to design the intake & exhaust ports.
Probably thatīs why they provide a burner to the windshield (as stated in the faq section) and offer to build windshields on request.
Alc. doesnīt have that much BTUs so I guess itīs a good idea to see the stove as a unit of burner, pot and windshield. www.thermojetstove.com offers an other system and also has a lot of infos
A close look at Trangias T27 with 0.6l kettle may give some more ideas
Traildesigns
16-10-2006, 22:15
no, itīs not that hard to make one. In fact it should be pretty easy. Only thing you need to know what youīre doing
It takes way more to do the calculation (and a lot of testing) on how much combustion air is needed and to design the intake & exhaust ports.
Probably thatīs why they provide a burner to the windshield (as stated in the faq section) and offer to build windshields on request.
Hi!
My name is Rand and I'm one of the 3 guys that started Trail Designs and developed the Caldera System. By way of introduction, I live in Yosemite National Park and have been backpacking around here for the past decade or so. In doing so, my partners and I have been designing, tweaking, testing and perfecting a variety of things to reduce the weight on our backs. A little over a year ago, we made the decision to product-ize a few and make them available to others interested in the ultralight arena.
Specifically to the Caldera System....feel free to try it as a DIY project. The Caldera System and the Vari-Vent windscreens are patent pending mostly to protect against commercial infringement. We feel that we can make this gear at a low enough cost, and high enough quality that folks will ultimately find it easier to just buy from us....but as I said....feel free to take a crack at it! Nevertheless, I should expand on Cyclist's comments above. Cutting a truncated cone accurately so that it is exactly the right size to hold up your pot by its lip can be more than you might want to tackle as a DIY. In addition, suspending a pot of boiling water like that is probably something you shouldn't take lightly. Next, the stove/venting issue is not straightforward either. The environment inside the cone is hotter than most alcohol stoves are accustomed to. As a result, they tend to get into a feedback loop and boil/burn off their alcohol fairly rapidly which makes it hotter which makes them burn faster, which makes it hotter, etc. In the end, you will find that you get pretty lousy efficiency with the vast majority of alc. stoves out there if you run them inside our cone. Consequently, we spent a couple years developing the stove that we provide with the cone. It is tuned to work in that environment, and together, the cone and stove deliver excellent fuel efficiency and can reduce the amount of alc. you carry often times by 50%. Another issue that you should be aware of is the closure mechanism. It is not obvious by these pictures, but the cone will open up along the seam right below the handle cutout so that it can be packed flat, or wrapped even tighter to fit in or around other gear. Getting that to work consistently while holding tolerance on the upper end of the cone where the lip sits is a trick as well. Early prototypes that we tested in the field were rivited into shape. A solid solution, but not great for packability.
Anyway....I'm happy to see the interest and conversation around our gear. Keep it up and please send along any ideas for improvement!
Rand :)
Excellent. Thanks for that and welcome to the forums. Do you have any idea how much postage to the UK would be?
improvents that might work are (huge)maybe
- other materials (which of course need hundreds of tests ...),
- preheating combustion air
- additional extreme cold weather accessiories
- a system that will work with existing burners (again a lot more calculations and tests ...)
IMHO after "some experience" with butane-propane-/gas-/canister-/fan-powered-wood-/beverage can-/Esbit-/Trangia-/etc- stoves & Kelly Kettle I doubt that thereīll be an easy way to accomplish improvements to the Caldera system: for sure modifications will make it heavier and/or more fragile and/or much more expensive
Traildesigns
17-10-2006, 21:26
Excellent. Thanks for that and welcome to the forums. Do you have any idea how much postage to the UK would be?
Usually, it costs us $12.50 to mail to the UK....so given the packaging, effort, etc....we have been charging $15 (US) for S&H.
Rand :)
Traildesigns
17-10-2006, 21:33
improvents that might work are (huge)maybe
- other materials (which of course need hundreds of tests ...),
- preheating combustion air
- additional extreme cold weather accessiories
- a system that will work with existing burners (again a lot more calculations and tests ...)
We have pretty much ruled out existing burners. Given the variables we have to deal with just to accomodate the different pots, adding the hundreds of variables required to deal with different burners as well (venting, offsets, etc) takes this little effort WAY outside anything we can tackle. Other materials on the other hand does hold promise and we're prototyping a few things in this space. Not sure what kind of cold weather accessories you have in mind.
IMHO after "some experience" with butane-propane-/gas-/canister-/fan-powered-wood-/beverage can-/Esbit-/Trangia-/etc- stoves & Kelly Kettle I doubt that thereīll be an easy way to accomplish improvements to the Caldera system: for sure modifications will make it heavier and/or more fragile and/or much more expensive
Yep....we have really worked through a lot of variables to come up with this system.....have a few more in mind for products in the future.....so stay tuned!
Rand :)
cold weather gear:
just put a running alc. stove on a big ice block (one gallone pot filled with water) and watch the burner. Now imagine snow and wind ...
my own stove experiments included building a mini wind tunnel with additional "rain maker" - very interesting what happens ......
Back to the main thread: I guess the Caldera (maybe a little bit modified) is a very useful attachment to both Vargo Triad stove types