Primus Omnilite Titanium vs Omnifuel multifuel stove review

[Teepee]

When I saw the new Primus Omnilite Titanium multifuel stove on sale at LD Mountain Centre for £122 delivered, I badly weakened and pressed 'Buy'.

The standard Omnifuel is the same price from lots of vendors and I've seen them sell on Ebay secondhand for nearly that price. A bargain I thought, the RRP is £175 and I can't find them anywhere else for less than £150 odd.

As quite a few of us on here are into stoves and may also be thinking of getting decent multifuel, doing a review of the brand spanking, shiny shiny Titanium burner seemed the thing to do.

My Omnifuel history;
After reading many reviews and taking advice on which stove to take on the BCUK Arctic course in March 2012, the standard Omnifuel seemed the best of the bunch overall. The ability to simmer well was the clincher, so I bought one off Ebay second hand in great condition.

I've been using it since last August and took it to the arctic in March, using it in a Trangia 27 set with a homemade stainless adaptor. I'm very happy with it but the weight and bulk of the thing are prohibitive to me using it outside of the winter and in the boat, which made the lightweight ti version seem attractive.

Anyway, enough of the waffle, heres the new bling Omnilite Ti;



Inside the box; Burner Unit, pump, 350ml bottle, aluminium foil windshield, 0.32mm white gas and 0.25mm diesel jets, carry bag, multitool, silicon grease.

Everything is the same, except for the redesigned burner, slightly different pump and different carry bag.


Omnilite Ti burner.


Folded flat, LMF spork for scale. It packs much smaller than the Omnifuel



Side by side with the (used) Omnifuel.

The biggest difference is with the size of the outer aspirating cup.


30% lighter.
A similar weight to many remote gas feed burners, but can also burn many other fuels.


Omnifuel weight.


The new pump(red), old pump (black)


The only difference is the slightly smaller valve cap assembly and new brass fuel pickup.




They are both the same weight and seem identical. Proper metal pumps.


Tiny 350ml fuel bottle.


350ml Bottle

1L Primus bottle

Old battered Sigg 1L bottle, only 20g more than the new 350ml bottle.


Different spider assembly makes it less bulky when packed. One arm is neatly captivated by the fuel line junction. The Omnifuel has 3 pivoting legs, the Omni lite only needs 2 legs to move.


The Omnilite Ti running on full blast. 0.32 mm jet with Aspen 4 alkylate petrol. Note the off centre burner cup.
The flame smells slightly cleaner, and is more blue (probably becuase there is no food spilt in the burner cup to alter the colour )
It burns cleanly and consistently, just as good as the Omnifuel and simmers well. Full marks here.


The Omnifuel at full tilt. 0.37mm jet with Aspen 4.
The flame appears slighlty bigger.

The differences;

According to Primus, the new Omnilite is more efficient than the Omnifuel. It is less powerful (400watts less) at 2600 watts. This is still plenty and won't cause any issues for me IMO.
The jets that supply the fuel to the burner cup are smaller, maybe accounting for some of its greater efficiency.
The roarer plate is slightly redesigned, being smaller and with a cup. It seems to preheat more quicly.
It appears that air can enter the inner cup more easily, having re-designed holes.

As I noted above, the burner cup is off centre. This won't affect the stove much, if anything at all. At this price though and with Primus's reputation, I expect it to be reasonably straight. The box hasn't had an impact and it seems to have left the factory like this. I'll speak to Primus and see what they say.

Is it worth the extra money?
Time will tell. I suspect that its not if its going to be used in a Trangia set. On its own, then I think that the much smaller pack size, weight and efficiency will definitley make it worth the extra over the standard stove. It feels solid, relies on much the same parts as the old one and so I have trust in it.



Its time to properly use it now and I'll report back when its done a winters cooking and done a couple of longer summer trips.





Mmmmnnn.....Titanium

[johnboy]

Interesting....

If I read the primus website correctly even though it's got less maximum output it boils water faster than the omnifuel....

[Imagedude]

Interesting....

If I read the primus website correctly even though it's got less maximum output it boils water faster than the omnifuel....

The Ti was tested with Etapower pots.

[johnboy]

The Ti was tested with Etapower pots.

Ah ha.... The sooner someone develops a standard for stove boil and efficiency testing the better....

[kiltedpict]

Thanks for the review! I sooooo wish I had the spare cash for one of those... Although I'm quite impressed with the copy I have from China, and at £36 delivered, I can have a few of them even for the bargain price of £122.... Still, Optimus,.... Titanium...... [drools]

ATB

KP

[Teepee]

Interesting....

If I read the primus website correctly even though it's got less maximum output it boils water faster than the omnifuel....

The Ti was tested with Etapower pots.

Not the fairest test is it?

Also, didn't Graham Townsend on TGO get different results with gas and petrol on the Omnilite with the ETA pots? One of the fuels made no difference between the HE pot and a Ti pot.

Thanks for the review! I sooooo wish I had the spare cash for one of those... Although I'm quite impressed with the copy I have from China, and at £36 delivered, I can have a few of them even for the bargain price of £122.... Still, Optimus,.... Titanium...... [drools]

ATB

KP

Pleasure KP.

Those chinese stoves really seem to be performing! It can't be long before a Ti version of that comes out.

[Shewie]

Mmmm nice, I won't be buying one though, no not me

What's with the diddy bottle then, is it all about the weight saving or are they getting the same burn time as a bigger bottle?

[Teepee]

Mmmm nice, I won't be buying one though, no not me

What's with the diddy bottle then, is it all about the weight saving or are they getting the same burn time as a bigger bottle?

Weight saving I think, although it hasn't saved much. Plus the hook of having an included bottle with the top stove. It supposed to be 30% more efficient on fuel than the old one-we'll see.

[johnboy]

It supposed to be 30% more efficient on fuel than the old one-we'll see.

I'd be interested to see how they have calculated that... Plus they mean effective not efficient...

I'm assuming it uses the same jet for both LPG and 'petrol' as the old Himalaya and Omnifuels??

[ged]

Thanks very much for that review, very useful. The Omnilite does look quite a bit more compact than the Omnifuel, I'd say it looks comparable to the Optimus Nova (which doesn't burn gas of course).

Is the one litre Primus fuel bottle intended for use under pressure to feed the stove?

[ged]

... The sooner someone develops a standard for stove boil and efficiency testing the better....

There always seems to be a lot of boil time competition with stoves, but my feeling is that it's misplaced attention.

For my money, the abilities to simmer at low heat, to burn a variety of fuels, and to work in any weather conditions are far more important than shaving off a few seconds from the time to boil some almost arbitrarily chosen quantity of water. Most of the water I boil is boiled using foraged fuel in a Ghillie kettle anyway, my stove does make the odd brew but mostly it does the cooking.

Granted efficiency is important but if you have a blue flame you have about as efficient a burn as you're going to get and it's up to you what you do with the energy. A windshield and a heat-exchanger pot can give you something approaching a 50% improvement in utilization of energy.

[Teepee]

I'd be interested to see how they have calculated that... Plus they mean effective not efficient...

I'm assuming it uses the same jet for both LPG and 'petrol' as the old Himalaya and Omnifuels??

The gas jet is the largest at 0.37mm (the Omnifuel is 0.45mm), petrol jet smaller at 0.32mm (omnifuel is 0.37mm). The diesel /kero jet is 0.25mm, the Omnifuel is 0.28mm.

In the Omni, I used the gas jet for petrol. It did nothing for fuel consumption, but had loads more power and simmered better. In the Trangia set, the flames were much higher-I'm surprised it didn't melt it

The old Omnifuel (primus's figures) ran for 70 mins on 260g fuel, the Omnilite runs for 100. With the reduction in power though, that makes it less than 30% (my guesstimate) better, closer to 20%.

It needs a boil test to find out, I'll try and do one later and shoehorn it into the review.

[Teepee]

Thanks very much for that review, very useful. The Omnilite does look quite a bit more compact than the Omnifuel, I'd say it looks comparable to the Optimus Nova (which doesn't burn gas of course).

Is the one litre Primus fuel bottle intended for use under pressure to feed the stove?

Pleasure Ged

The 1l Primus bottle is printed as a fuel bottle, I'd assumed it was good as it came with the stove originally. Worth checking-I don't like petrol bombs.

There always seems to be a lot of boil time competition with stoves, but my feeling is that it's misplaced attention.

For my money, the abilities to simmer at low heat, to burn a variety of fuels, and to work in any weather conditions are far more important than shaving off a few seconds from the time to boil some almost arbitrarily chosen quantity of water. Most of the water I boil is boiled using foraged fuel in a Ghillie kettle anyway, my stove does make the odd brew but mostly it does the cooking.

Granted efficiency is important but if you have a blue flame you have about as efficient a burn as you're going to get and it's up to you what you do with the energy. A windshield and a heat-exchanger pot can give you something approaching a 50% improvement in utilization of energy.

Agreed. Running at full chat wastes no end of energy. All the advice I've seen says to run at 3/4 power anyway. My own experience is that turning it up from 3/4 to full doesn't reduce the boiling times by a quarter, nothing near it.

[Shewie]

There always seems to be a lot of boil time competition with stoves, but my feeling is that it's misplaced attention.

For my money, the abilities to simmer at low heat, to burn a variety of fuels, and to work in any weather conditions are far more important than shaving off a few seconds from the time to boil some almost arbitrarily chosen quantity of water. Most of the water I boil is boiled using foraged fuel in a Ghillie kettle anyway, my stove does make the odd brew but mostly it does the cooking.

Granted efficiency is important but if you have a blue flame you have about as efficient a burn as you're going to get and it's up to you what you do with the energy. A windshield and a heat-exchanger pot can give you something approaching a 50% improvement in utilization of energy.

When you're eating nothing else but dehydrated food I think the boil time and efficiency are the most important aspects ged, you only have to see what people are eating on hikes these days and you can understand why they make such a deal of it, especially over the pond.

Think of these stoves being used more by hikers than base campers

[Dean]

Nice review but a little out of my price range.

[ged]

When you're eating nothing else but dehydrated food I think the boil time and efficiency are the most important aspects ged, you only have to see what people are eating on hikes these days and you can understand why they make such a deal of it, especially over the pond.

Think of these stoves being used more by hikers than base campers

Hehe, here's a photo of the wife with a mug of dehydrated soup that I made for her on some peak in the Pyrenees.

http://www.jubileegroup.co.uk/JOS/mi...ous_rock_2.jpg

It was a 750 metre climb, and I had to carry that soup up there on my back. And the water, and the stove, and the cute little seats, which probably explains why, as I'm taking that photo, the wife is wearing my quilted shirt and the rest of my clothing seems to be lying around to dry.

So I understand the use of dehydrated foods, and I understand the need to carry as little weight as is reasonable, but I don't understand the need to rush back down the mountain again 4 minutes and 30 seconds after you get up there, I really don't...

[Tiley]

Thank you for an excellent review: detailed and objective! And just when I thought I didn't need another stove...

[johnboy]

There always seems to be a lot of boil time competition with stoves, but my feeling is that it's misplaced attention.

For my money, the abilities to simmer at low heat, to burn a variety of fuels, and to work in any weather conditions are far more important than shaving off a few seconds from the time to boil some almost arbitrarily chosen quantity of water. Most of the water I boil is boiled using foraged fuel in a Ghillie kettle anyway, my stove does make the odd brew but mostly it does the cooking.

Granted efficiency is important but if you have a blue flame you have about as efficient a burn as you're going to get and it's up to you what you do with the energy. A windshield and a heat-exchanger pot can give you something approaching a 50% improvement in utilization of energy.

No arguments from me on the fact that a stove should be judged by more than boil time.

The issue is boil time is the measure that garners a lot of attention and is seen by consumers as a measure of how ' good' a stove is. As there is no standardized test it's really impossible to tell what the figures actually represent.

If imagedude is correct and Primus have stacked the deck in favour of this new version of the omnifuel then I'm not too surprised manufacturers do all sorts of stuff to get folk to buy things. It seems a bit counter intuitive that a stove with less heat output will boil something faster unless your harnessing the heat more effectively or boiling less water or both...

Also to claim something is more 'efficient' than its predecessor when it seemingly has a lower maximum output is a bit of spin also...

The question is why would you downrate the stove like primus have done??

Either it to improve the fuel consumption for some marketing based reason or it's done for some mechanical reason.

[cbr6fs]

Absolutely fantastic review, thanks for taking the time and effort to do it.

Quick question please.
What is the stove like for simmering?

Also does the different fuels affect it's simmering capabilities?


I do agree with ged that finding a stove that boils water quickly seems to be fairly easy, it's more of a challenge to find one that can simmer with smaller pots.


Can i also ask, what pots do you use please?

[ex member pyrophil]

Thats a old omnifuel stove you got there, the newer one looks like this.

and came with the same red pump,

[Imagedude]

Any chance of a view from above of both stoves next to each other when running? It looks like they've improved the airflow through the ti but the reduced size will limit maximum output.

[Teepee]

Thank you for an excellent review: detailed and objective! And just when I thought I didn't need another stove...

Thanks Tiley. Thats exactly what I thought about needing another, Titanium helped me justify it very quickly!

Absolutely fantastic review, thanks for taking the time and effort to do it.

Quick question please.
What is the stove like for simmering?

Also does the different fuels affect it's simmering capabilities?


I do agree with ged that finding a stove that boils water quickly seems to be fairly easy, it's more of a challenge to find one that can simmer with smaller pots.


Can i also ask, what pots do you use please?

Thanks CBR
IME, the Omnifuel was great for simmering, it will cook pasta and soup without burning. The Omnilite seems even better turner down low, the flame is tiny but still blue. How reliably it'll simmer with wind though will be found out. I'm more of a cooker than a boil in the bag man, and simmering is important to me too.
I've found that Aspen, coleman and gas simmer very well in the Omnifuel, unleaded less so because of the slow dirtying of the jets after a while. I can see no reason why the Omnilite won't be as good.

I use UL Trangia aluminium pots, normal ally to boil water and non stick for simmering and frying.

Thats a old omnifuel stove you got there, the newer one looks like this.

and came with the same red pump,

Thanks for that Phil. It looks like the bag is different(and pump), but I can't see any other differences.

Any chance of a view from above of both stoves next to each other when running? It looks like they've improved the airflow through the ti but the reduced size will limit maximum output.

Yes mate, I'll get them up soon as

[johnboy]

Thanks for that Phil. It looks like the bag is different(and pump), but I can't see any other differences

The outer cup / wind shield is different. The older Omnifuel inherited the parts from the Himalya MF.

[cbr6fs]

Thanks CBR
IME, the Omnifuel was great for simmering, it will cook pasta and soup without burning. The Omnilite seems even better turner down low, the flame is tiny but still blue. How reliably it'll simmer with wind though will be found out. I'm more of a cooker than a boil in the bag man, and simmering is important to me too.
I've found that Aspen, coleman and gas simmer very well in the Omnifuel, unleaded less so because of the slow dirtying of the jets after a while. I can see no reason why the Omnilite won't be as good.

I use UL Trangia aluminium pots, normal ally to boil water and non stick for simmering and frying.

Fantastic thanks.

I'm sorely tempted but i'm not sure i'll use anything but gas in it, so it seems like a bit of waste.
I'm hovering over the BIN button though

[Teepee]

Fantastic thanks.

I'm sorely tempted but i'm not sure i'll use anything but gas in it, so it seems like a bit of waste.
I'm hovering over the BIN button though

Thats the quandary with these exp stoves. Looking at the stats on Primus's webpage though, it appears its not too inefficient running on gas.
We'll see.


Thanks Johnboy, I'll hunt some pics down of the Himalaya.

[johnboy]

Thanks Johnboy, I'll hunt some pics down of the Himalaya.

Here you go....

No secondary valve to worry about

[Teepee]

Thanks JB!

The Omnifuel wasn't so new at the time either then, the outer cup, burner chamber and tripod look almost identical

The fuel pipe looks to be hard work to avoid kinking it.

[camshaft]

Was searching the net for some info on the himalaya primus and this popped up on google.

Just my .02
brand new omnifuel 355g



Brand new MSR whisperlite 241g


overview

[Andy BB]

Time for an annual update on this following your trips, methinks Teepee

[Teepee]

Time for an annual update on this following your trips, methinks Teepee

Good idea Andy

Update;
Both stoves are still with me. The Omnilite works identically to the Omnifuel I've found, but with less power.

I have found the Omnilite a little under gunned at times for melting snow compared to the original, especially at very low temps. For boiling liquid water though with containers up to 4l, it's almost equivalent. Using the heat exchanger pots would certainly be a good idea to get the Omnilite to equal the Omnifuel. I chose not too as the Primus heat exchanger pots won't like being hung over a fire.

The pot stand on the Omnilite struggles with big pots, it's a little too flimsy for them. For big pots and melting snow, the extra weight of the Omnifuel is worth it IMO. My stand actually buckled under the weight of 6l of water.

Since getting the Omnilite, its burnt 8l of white gas and 3l of gas and the jets haven't needed poking clean yet. No servicing has been needed at all.

Fuel usage is good-I'm getting around 5 hours run time on 890ml of white gas at high power.