Quote:
The reality is though that the Soto burner, while it does have an advantage, only has an advantage over a fairly narrow temperature range.


I can't see any advantage at all over any other gas cartridge stove using the same fuel mix cartridge with regard to usable temperature range. The only difference is that the area of the orifice which the fuel gases are seeing is larger for the Soto, which simply means that more of the fuel such as the propane and isobutane with their lower boiling points is being used. The rate of these gas vapours (propane and isobutane) are being consumed is much much greater as very little butane is being consumed due to the very small temperate difference of around 1C. i.e. very little butane is being vapourised. This can be seen in the video with the Soto's greater initial heat output.

All this means is that, at these temperatures around 0C the Soto will go out leaving around 60% of the fuel (mostly butane) left in the canister about 10-15 minutes into the burn.

In fact the Soto could lead folks into a false sense of security thinking they have an hours worth of fuel left at these cold temperatures when in fact they might just have 10-15 minutes burn time.

It might be more prudent to capture the lower heat output of the ordinary stove more efficiently with its much longer lower output i.e. use a heat exchanger pot such as the Etapower pots.

What the video needs to do is run the burn to the end, when both cartridges stop producing a flame, then weigh the cartridges to see which stove burned the most fuel. It probably wouldn't be the Soto.



Edited by Am_Fear_Liath_Mor (06/22/11 10:47 PM)