Post by mikeinohio on Apr 18, 2018 15:49:35 GMT -8
Hi,
I've been lurking around here for awhile, my first post, be gentle!
After reading a lot here I hesitate to call what I've done a "Rocket Stove"... I figured this was the place to put the intro to my frank-en-vention...
I bought myself a "TMS Military Camp Stove" back in November and every since I've been playing around with it trying to get it to run pellets... Just because I can...
I was originally inspired to play around with burning pellets when I saw a "Flame Genie" for sale at my local camping store. It's a very portable pellet burning fire pit. I was put off by the cost and so I built one of my own out of parts I bought at Wal-Mart. Once I had that mostly working with decent results... I discovered a pellet burning patio heater and cook stove by WoodPellet Products... They have a beautiful product line, but it was pretty spendy for my play budget and, again I decided to build my own...
I originally purchased the TMS stove with an eye toward converting it into a "WoodPellet Product" type design... Many failures later and I started looking around at all the videos of people building their own rocket stove for heat and cooking. Which, naturally, also lead me to this board.
And then I was inspired by a thread by member Rectifier's "reverse engineering" thread on this board. That thread set me off on a months long "quest for fire" and the creation of my rocket(ish) gravity fed wood pellet burning camp stove. After many (many, many) burner design failures I finally got it to the point where I'm brave enough to share and get some feedback.
Basically, this is a stock "TMS Military Camp Stove" also sold under different names. Generally one can be had for well under $100(USD). I cut out the back air feed and replaced that with a feed tube and burner assembly using off the shelf hardware store iron pipe, and some expanded stainless steel for a burning basket. I used a sheet of steel to make a internal baffle/bell-ish chamber to extract as much heat as I could from the tiny beast.
I posted a brief (4 min) video that shows/describes (hopefully) a little better:
I'm interested in learning... And in ideas I may use to improve it's burning/heating... I'm not sure exactly what I've created, but, it's been a lot of fun so far... If you decide to look at the video this type of feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
To date I've burned 100's of pounds of pellets for as long as 6 hours at a time without any noticable "metal is doomed" setting in so far... That's probably because I use no insulation at all and I don't claim this to be a rocket stove by any means.
If I do have a pipe burn out it's easily replaced and the light weight and portability (for use camping) is worth having to replace parts for my application. At the top of the stove I can achieve sustained temps over 780-->up to 830ish Degrees (F). At the back of the stove the gases have to pass mostly back underneath the burn tube, past the internal baffle before exiting up the flu. The upper section of flue never gets too hot to touch (so far).
My main issues are:
It's a very small stove in the first place, that drove a very small burning chamber and it is sometimes finicky, although the latest burner set up is much better than the many, many failures that proceeded it...
It makes a rocket-y sound but sometimes I get a pulsing.
If I do nothing ash will eventually choke it. Some of that is the burner's holes are way too small, get clogged and eventually starts to choke out... I think I may also have to cut part of the bottom of the chamber out to allow heaver ash to drop through...
Anyway - ideas/feedback/input and questions are welcome. It's a hobby and keeps me off the streets!
I've been lurking around here for awhile, my first post, be gentle!
After reading a lot here I hesitate to call what I've done a "Rocket Stove"... I figured this was the place to put the intro to my frank-en-vention...I bought myself a "TMS Military Camp Stove" back in November and every since I've been playing around with it trying to get it to run pellets... Just because I can...
I was originally inspired to play around with burning pellets when I saw a "Flame Genie" for sale at my local camping store. It's a very portable pellet burning fire pit. I was put off by the cost and so I built one of my own out of parts I bought at Wal-Mart. Once I had that mostly working with decent results... I discovered a pellet burning patio heater and cook stove by WoodPellet Products... They have a beautiful product line, but it was pretty spendy for my play budget and, again I decided to build my own...
I originally purchased the TMS stove with an eye toward converting it into a "WoodPellet Product" type design... Many failures later and I started looking around at all the videos of people building their own rocket stove for heat and cooking. Which, naturally, also lead me to this board.
And then I was inspired by a thread by member Rectifier's "reverse engineering" thread on this board. That thread set me off on a months long "quest for fire" and the creation of my rocket(ish) gravity fed wood pellet burning camp stove. After many (many, many) burner design failures I finally got it to the point where I'm brave enough to share and get some feedback.
Basically, this is a stock "TMS Military Camp Stove" also sold under different names. Generally one can be had for well under $100(USD). I cut out the back air feed and replaced that with a feed tube and burner assembly using off the shelf hardware store iron pipe, and some expanded stainless steel for a burning basket. I used a sheet of steel to make a internal baffle/bell-ish chamber to extract as much heat as I could from the tiny beast.
I posted a brief (4 min) video that shows/describes (hopefully) a little better:
I'm interested in learning... And in ideas I may use to improve it's burning/heating... I'm not sure exactly what I've created, but, it's been a lot of fun so far... If you decide to look at the video this type of feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
To date I've burned 100's of pounds of pellets for as long as 6 hours at a time without any noticable "metal is doomed" setting in so far... That's probably because I use no insulation at all and I don't claim this to be a rocket stove by any means.
If I do have a pipe burn out it's easily replaced and the light weight and portability (for use camping) is worth having to replace parts for my application. At the top of the stove I can achieve sustained temps over 780-->up to 830ish Degrees (F). At the back of the stove the gases have to pass mostly back underneath the burn tube, past the internal baffle before exiting up the flu. The upper section of flue never gets too hot to touch (so far).
My main issues are:
It's a very small stove in the first place, that drove a very small burning chamber and it is sometimes finicky, although the latest burner set up is much better than the many, many failures that proceeded it...
It makes a rocket-y sound but sometimes I get a pulsing.
If I do nothing ash will eventually choke it. Some of that is the burner's holes are way too small, get clogged and eventually starts to choke out... I think I may also have to cut part of the bottom of the chamber out to allow heaver ash to drop through...
Anyway - ideas/feedback/input and questions are welcome. It's a hobby and keeps me off the streets!
