One of my pet peeves about camping equipment is the refusal of various manufacturers to standardise connections. For example, I recently bought a Primus Omni-Fuel backpacking stove. With a Primus aluminium bottle (purchased separately), I can burn white gas, unleaded auto gas, kerosene, diesel and possibly even alcohol. I can also connect it to a Primus propane/butane canister.

But the Primus P/B canisters have a different connector from the Coleman propane canisters, used with Coleman stoves, lanterns, catalytic heaters, etc. I understand the economic reasons for this - presumably, Primus wants me to buy their propane canisters and not somebody else's.

But of course, I can see the day when I stop into some remote, small-town Canadian Tire store and all they have is the Coleman style of propane canisters.

It doesn't seem that it would be all that difficult to make a connector that would allow me to connect a Coleman canister to my Primus stove. In fact, a search on the net revealed that you can buy converters to allow you to hook up either a Coleman or a Primus stove to a refillable propane tank (the kind you use on propane barbequeues, for example).

Any advice on how (or whether?) I should do this?

Aardwolf
Is the canister a propane tank say 5 pound type or is the canister a small one like a disposable canister?. If it is the propane tanks used in gas barbeques do you plan on carrying it in a backpack?. For me no way my peak1 stove and 2 sigg bottles do me fine.

Lee

That's a very neat stove you got!

Your stove doesn't burn propane - it uses butane, iso-butane, or blended butane canisters. Butane liquifies at a much lower pressure than propane - making an unregulated propane connection to a stove expecting butane is at the very least going to "pressure test" your stove <grin>.

The only "cannister" fuel that Coleman sells is for the fairly new "Expedition" line of stoves - and they do indeed use a propriatory cannister (with a propriatory fuel blend - it has a higher percentage of propane dissolved in the butane than run of the mill cannister fuels IIRC).

Coleman does brand name disposable 1 lbs. propane tanks - like for lanterns and a couple of inexpensive stoves. And as you note, there are "converters" for white gas stoves like Coleman green boxes - they are a generator replacement (I keep one in each green box coleman stove along with a bulk-to-disposable hose so I can use white gas, bulk LPG, or disposable propane). They have a metering orifice blah blah blah - and the "converter" is not mechanically connected to the burner assembly, so it's impossible to build up any pressure. (I could show you this in 10 seconds but it's difficult to explain briefly in writing).

A competent tinkerer could make up a perfectly safe propane adapter for you - but because of how your stove connects to the fuel reservoir, the tinkerer would have to include a pressure regulator between the propane reservoir and the stove.

Your stove uses all the commonly available cannisters of butane-based fuels, so you should be in pretty good shape except: At low elevations in cold weather, butane simply will not vaporize - actually, somewhere around freezing. That's why down south in the US, bulk LPG may have a lot of butane in it, whereas up where you live and north, it's mostly or entirely propane (and even then it takes a tank heater to vaporize enough LPG to supply a house from the bulk tank). Butane stoves work great at high altitude, though. And you have the white gas option for Canadian winters, so you're pretty well set with a single sotve, I'd say. How do you like the stove so far?

HTH,

Tom

I was looking at the disposable canisters for backpacking (I'm not considering sticking a 5-pound refillable canister in my backpack <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> )

It was just that the disposable canisters from Coleman (used in Coleman camp stoves, lanterns, etc.) are more readily available and significantly cheaper than the Primus disposable canisters. But it appears there are more serious issues than just a different connector.

I intend primarily to use it with white gas (which is at least as available as disposable canisters) and in an emergency I would use unleaded gasoline (or even aviation gasoline). I bought a small Primus canister which I can toss in as an emergency supply, but they're quite a bit more expensive than the white gas.

Tom;

Thanks for the feedback. I haven't had the chance to "field test" the stove yet, but I really am looking forward to it.

I'd just as soon not "pressure test" my new stove, so thanks for the warning. I think I'll stick to white gas although it's always nice to have the other options.

I moved the thread and will keep it sticky for a few days.This is relevant to both urban and wilderness preparations. During the Northridge quake my Coleman campstove did yoeman duty for the entire nieghborhood. had my fuel supply ran out, options were the woodpile. Not a problem, with the nieghborhood represented by people who weathered the depression, WW2 concentration camps and teaching on a North Dakota Indian reservation.

Okay, another question. I was looking at canisters in the local Mountain Equipment Co-op, and it looked to me like the MSR isobutane/propane canisters had the identical connector to the Primus butane/propane canisters.

Assuming this is correct, is it safe to use the MSR canisters with the Primus stove? Both Primus and MSR state that you should ONLY use their canisters on their stoves.

I can think of several situations where this information might prove valuable. For one, suppose I bought a MSR stove as a lightweight backup - it would be nice not to have to buy two sets of canisters. For another, what if one type is sold out but the other is available?

I'll stick with the Primus canisters for now - just curious to know if I COULD use a different brand in an emergency.

MSR fuel may be blended/proportioned for better cold weather performance, but for all practical purposes the fuel contents are similar enough that the stove shouldn't give a fig. These look just exactly like the world-standard butane canisters that have been around for a long time. If the connection works right without leaking (and I strongly suspect it will), it should work fine. Will cost you one can of MSR fuel to be certain... BTW - IMHO, the iso-butane based fuels (like MSR) DO work better in cold weather.

HTH,

Tom

I have several Isobutane powered gadgets made by MSR, Primus, Snow Peak and Brunton. All of the them have a standard cartridge interface (I think it's called a Lindar valve).

I've probably used all of the available gas cartridges in all of the devices at one time or another. In my opinion there isn't any real difference between any of them wrt performance. You might notice that each vendor says to only use their fuel on their appliances, but each vendor is also clear to say that you can use their fuel canisters on anybody's appliance.....get it?

btw, coleman also makes a Lindar valved butane cartridge for their exponent line--the powermax is butane, but different style.

Thanks, Tom and Elnath. That's pretty much what I figured, but I thought I'd better check to make sure before blowing up my brand new backpacking stove <img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />