I was just looking at these and the split pea lighters look like they'd make a great addition to a keychain. I'm wondering, how much fuel does one of those hold & how long would it burn for?


We aren't safe any longer . This guy sells CountyComm gear and will ship to Canada.

The answer to both questions is "not much". It's certainly enough to light several fires in good conditions, but I wouldn't rely upon it to dry out my tinder before lighting it or as any sort of long-term light source on its own.

My most recent tool maintenance exercise found that my peanut and split pea lighters had not lost a measurable amount of fuel in three months. Just make sure that you check the o-rings and replace them at appropriate intervals.

Is the peanut much better as far as fuel capacity & overall capability goes? I guess looking at the specs, both seem like they may actually be reasonable additions to a keyring. Is your peanut a part of your regular EDC?

Also, its good to hear there don't seem to be any evaporation issues.

Evaporation has been very slow with mine. I did have one o-ring go bad and that one was bone dry. A new o-ring and a refill and all was well.

The peanut carries something like three times the fuel. I have a split-pea in my commuter kit and a peanut in my BOB. I don't EDC a lighter on my person.

peanut test over at EDCF showed it worked after 59 weeks:

Non-Butane Lighter Review - Long-term Backup Viability

I have cheapo peanut lighters from Dealextreme.com. They're sitting on a shelf and have held fuel for about 2 years and still going. I only light them about once every 6 months for kicks. I have to say that all this talk about fuel eventually running out of a peanut lighter, I have yet to experience it. I don't deny that it will happen. It just hasn't happened yet for my peanut lighters.

Let me check again right now... Yep, they still light up. In fact, they're still saturated with the fuel I put in there.

For that test in the link above, note the guy was lighting up his lighters EVERY week. So, the fuel ran out of the peanut lighters after 59 weeks probably because he was using them, not because they were leaking. Also, we can't say if his O-ring was in shape. 59 weeks is great, but again mine still light up after 2 years of rarely lighting up my peanut lighters.

Bottom line, a peanut lighter can serve as a damn reliable backup firestarter, especially if you hardly ever use it.

I would think the absence of a wind screen like on a ZIPPO it could still be used as an improvised Sparklite if the fuel was dry...,.


BOATMAN
John

This is a great article.. I've tried a couple of different lighters now.. I have a zippo, but the fuel evaporates in about 1 - 2 weeks... I spend more time filling it that actually using it.

I bought a Coleman butane lighter. Unless the lighter is "warmed up", it won't stay lit. Very annoying.

I see a peanut lighter in my future...

I got similar peanut lighters from some online store and off eBay recently. They are made better than the plain one above because of a couple improvements. First of all the bottom of the lighter is flat, so it can stand upright freely, working as a hands free candle. The second feature - the last couple of threads for the cap are conical so you can not overtighten the gasket, damaging it or pushing it out of the dedicated groove, what may cause leackage or evaporation. However I'm still using a long piece of duct tape over the gasket as on my older lighters - I love dual purpose kits.