New camping stove.. Primus Omnifuel
July 19, 2008hey, continuing the theme of “I can’t wait for another adventure” I’ve got a new camping stove to show you. OK, not very exciting but I’ve been sick this week and unable to ride/race so I’ve had to find some sort of inspiration…. My previous expedition stove was an MSR Dragonfly multi-fuel stove – it burned pretty much any liquid fuel and did it well though I only ever ran it on white gas, unleaded petrol and on one occasion paraffin). It served me very well for 12 years until I sold it in Ecuador back in January. It wasn’t perfect – the pump design was compromised by a weak point (but fixed in later models) and at one point the burner became detached from the spindle/fuel pipe but MSR fitted a new one for free within a couple of days (after 8 years of use which says a lot for their customer service!). This week I replaced it with a Primus Omnifuel.. the successor to the Himalaya Multifuel.. this thing really does burn anything – liquid fuel as well as gas cartridges which is pretty handy. It comes with 3 different jets and a tool to swap them around depending on fuel type. I’ve only given it a test firing so far on white gas but I’m really impressed… dead easy to light and appears to be very powerful. I’ve no idea what the official heat output figures are, don’t really care – it looks ‘right’ The build quality is nice, it feels a much less fragile design than the Dragonfly and the best bit is that the pump is metal rather than plastic so should be nice and reliable on a long journey….. also handy is that the fuel bottle fitting is common with MSR bottles as I have a couple of those in different sizes kicking around here already.
I’ll report back as soon as it gets some solid outdoor use but based on the reviews I’ve seen I doubt I’ll be disappointed. Worth considering if you are in the market for a stove for overseas adventures… Here’s a pic of mine…
which is a bit of a shit pic so here’s a ‘library’ photo as well… ;o)
Mine came from Outback Trading in Helston (top folk.. heck, they’re friends of mine so free plug is very much in order ;o) and came with fuel bottle, tools, solid feeling storage bags and a windshield.
Hi Mike,
it’s Hat again,we also have the Primus Omnifuel, and a short while into the trip it has broken,not so much that it doesn’t work, but the burner unit has come away from the leg unit. NOt sure how to describe it any better. We can’t seem to fit it back together, it appears to have only been lightly ’soldered’ together. As I said, it all still works, but we have to prop up the fuel line with a rock to get the burner unit level when cooking, and take it right apart between uses to prevent the delicate cotton pad from getting damaged during rough bike riding as it gets rattled between the burner unit and leg stand. Any ideas for how to fix it would be much appreciated. (apologies for my lack of technical vocabulary when talking stoves).
don’t bother fixing this mate.. mine just broke on a trip to Wales so i emailed the people at primus in sweden (info@primus.se) and a bloke called Urban kihlstrom@primus told me that this is a design or manufacturing flaw and has posted me a replacement burner free of charge from Sweden.. so check it out (i bought minr in the US last year).. other wise since it is made of brass you will need a tig welder who will use a brass solder..
mig
Hi, oh buggerance that’s bit of a, errm, bugger. I am looking at mine to see how it attaches…. there looks to be a studunder the bottom of the burner that it attaches too. Possibly a blob of high temperature epoxy glue from a hardware store might do it, the burner has to have minimal attachment to the shell to keep the heat conductivity away from the burner low I think. For now what you could try is to get some thin steel wire (paper clip thickness) and make 3 temporary ’stanchions’.. wrap a length of wire around the ‘open arches’ at the bottom of the burner and out through the slots on the bottom of the surrounding shell, twist tigght. do that in three spots around the circumference and that migh hold it solidly in place. Also if no done so already email the manufacturers/seller with a photo and arrange shipment of a warranty replacement to some point ahead on your journey…?
good luck…!
Burner attaches to base with a big brass screw. It is neither glued nor soldered.
If you lost the screw, it is available as a part of Omnifuel maintenance kit, available at REI for $25.
Cheers!