Primus Omnilite Ti, Eta pot, MSR dragonfly, trangia X2 boil times

[candmanu]

Just recently bought the Primus omnilite Ti stove, and I'm in the process of testing. Thought I'd give you some of the results so far.

I've been using MSR's Dragonfly for the past years and was VERY happy with it, but I thought I'd give innovation and Titanium a chance.

First of all the New stove is small, neat, and seems very stable. burns clear and blue flamed.
It weighed in at 220g (Dragonfly 334), The Omnilite Ti does have good simmer control - however it doesn't seem better than the old dragonfly.

I first tested the omniliteTi inside using no windshield and the jet for canister gas (0.36) boil time for 1 liter tap water to reach rolling boil was 7 minutes 45 sec. There was quite a gap to Primus's claimed 2:40 + 40 sec priming, so I wrote Primus to hear under with conditions they performed there boil tests.
The reply was that they performed the tests in a lab water temp from 20-95C at room temperature using canister gas and most importantly an ETA pot 1,7 liter so they suggested that the lack of an ETA pot was the reason for the outcome. Very skilled sales person I must say, now I had to try it out with an ETA pot. So of to the local store I went and got myself the 1,2 liter ETA power pot with heat exchanger.

BTW it doesn't quite make sense. They claim 2:40 + 40 sec priming. Why the 40 sec priming if they are using canister gas ???

Now bak to the test.
With Cannister gas I got 4:50 minutes and using withe Gas I got 4 minutes.
Much better than the first test but far from the claimed 2:40. So I've done many different test with the ETA pot and with a regular Trangia Aluminum pot. I've Also tester the Omnilite Ti with different Jets to detect the difference jet size makes. GUYS I can tell you right off the bat : Size DOES matter )
I even bought the maintenance kit for an omnifuel since the Jets holes are larger. However the 0.45 and 0.37 jet make the omnilite burn uncontrollably with 50 cm flames.

Here are some of my results from yesterday.
all tests with White Gas, air temp :0 Celcius, 1 liter water starting at 10 celsius
MSR dragonfly ETA pot 1.2 : 2 min 50 sec.
MSR dragonfly tragia pot : 3 min 50 sec.

Primus omnilite 0.32 jet ETA pot 1.2 : 4 min
Primus Omnilite 0.36 jet USING white gas and ETA pot 1.2 :2 min 30 sec (that's fast)

Trangia X2 (by primus) 0.32 jet, Eta pot 1.2 in the trangia setup : 4 min.

MSR micro rocket with iso pro gas : 3min 20 sec
MSR reactor system including the msr reactor pt. with iso pro gas : 3:10 sec

a Kelly kettle running on good quality firewood will boil 1,5 litres of water in 5 min 30 seconds. just for comparison.

So the new and nice Primus Omnilite is definitely a good stove but as I see it it doesn't outperform my old trusty dragonfly if you stay within specs. Using white gas in the 0.36 jet is a bit out of specs and the combustion didn't go all clean and blue but had very yellow flame tips. When burning with the 0.32 flames were entirely blue.

I did not weigh the fuel amount spent in the tests, but I'm planning on redoing the test with fuel consumption later.

About boil times. Boil times aren't everything. I do like to compare them to automobile 0-100 KMPH acceleration. there are many factors in deciding whats a good car for you and your family and not only it's ability to accelerate. However if manufacturers claim for example 2:40 boil time (160 sec)it should be within reach, and a boil time of 4 minutes 50 sec (465 sec) is too far off, plain and simple 190% off. Also if this information can't be trusted how about the burn time for a certain amount of fuel - say the mileage. For planning long trips in the winter calculation of fuel amounts can be very important. Imagine buying a new car that the manufacturer claims can go 0-100 KMPH in 10 sec and 14 km on one liter of gas. If you get that car to go 0-100 in 30 sec or only 5 km/liter. Would that be fair.

I still love my new stove for other reasons than boil time, and 4 min boil time is still great. I will strongly recommend the stove. I do not regret the purchase for a second - one can never have too many stoves.

However to all the manufacturers. :

CLEAN UP YOUR ADVERTIZING. AGREE ON BOIL TIME MEASUREMENTS TEST PROCEDURES AND MILEAGE TEST PROCEDURES.

 

[Toddy]

Well said and welcome to the forum

cheers,
Toddy

 

[petrochemicals]

hellooo.

So with the eta pot it hit the target ?

Also, the difference, as some info for you, on the omni type stoves , the nossle size is if the stove can actually heat enough fuel to vapourisation point to maintain a clean burn, unlike asperaited stoves that have a set air to fuel ratio by the holes in the burner head by the nossle, that have to have so much air to carbon atoms, hence wisperlites nossle changes. If you wait until the summer you should get a clean burn using parraffin through the butane nossle, and if you over pressure the fuel bottle you can get over twice the stated energy output. But be careful using wrong size nossles as if you fail to heat the fuel you will get a fireball, and it does help if you have a pan on it to reflect heat back onto the stove. The design of the omni though should mean it gets enough oxygen

 

[rik_uk3]

You should get @3 minutes with an ETA pot, are you pumping the stove enough, pump lots you won't damage anything.

 

[Andy BB]

Interesting - thanks for that. Quick question - you said you used the 1.2ltr Eta Pot in the Trangia setup - how well did it fit? And would it take the 1.7ltr Eta pot, do you think?

 

[petrochemicals]

I've got it Catmandu, the stove manufacturers have a very hot lab at 30¤c , half way up everest, at 6000m , so they have a 50¤ range in their water .

P.s. I think as well with the omni stoves, the hotter you get the brass, the quicker the fuel use, either through the fuel orifice enlarging or the fuel becoming more highly pressured or more easily pressured.

The priming with butane gas question, its the same with people who do concurrent tests I think, they mean making the burner, pot stands, ground, windshield, and possibly even pot to a hot temprature. An omni weighs 280g with windshield, and if you think that most of it reaches many hundreds of degrees, a cold stove and pan with an eighth of the heat capacity of water but at 5 times the temprature, its like boiling an extra 250ml each time. I have reached 13g per litre with white gas on an omni using a normal pan, but this was with a red hot running set up in the middle of summer. You can turn a blast furnace off, but still boil yourself a drop of water ! People who say they boil this much for that much don't take into account that they had already heated 200g of metal to somewhere near 400¤c.

 

[petrochemicals]

I've just had a work out of the metal, I reccon that with a jetboil with pan adds a quater to the gas usage to each boil, even without the inefficiency, so if there water is thought to be 25¤ at the start, the metal takes it straight back to 0. So the bare minimum a jetboil can do at 100% efficiency is 8.5g per boil again, UNLESS the stove is already hot.

By the way, I'm sort of a stove nut , believe it or not, I am ! We stove spanners do take offence .

A large nossle on the omni also when putting diesil through the butane jet releases more energy than putting butane through it, so coupled together with the over pressurisation and overheating i'm sure you can reach double the rated output. But then again diesil has a higher vapourisation temp,so keep a pan on it otherwise quite an alarming fireball.