Problem with Kovea Stove

[norts]

Just finished a walk , we used two stoves, Kovea supa lite( just purchased it) and Kovea titanium. We were using the supalite on a primus 230g butane canister, used it once then it stopped working. Put the titanium on the the same canister and it worked. The put the supalite on a gasmate( one of the old green ones) canister and it worked no problems.

Now I am worried if I take the supalite on a walk and with a primus canister ( I have a few in my shed) I could be in the trouble.

I think the problem is the bulk part( squarer area, brass on the the standard titanium) of the supalite doesnt allow the the stove to be screwed down as tight as the tianium does.
I think that if i take it back I will be told I wasnt using a Kovea canister, also I dont want to be restricted to only kovea canisters.
Anyone else had an issue/ been able to solve it?

Roger

Ps had a good walk into Pelion and up Ossa.
Roger

[Franco]

I have seen (but not experienced) compatibility issues like that discussed before.
Tony Beasley (a member here) would be able to shed some light on this.
I don't recall brand or model...
Franco

[Tony]

I have seen (but not experienced) compatibility issues like that discussed before.
Tony Beasley (a member here) would be able to shed some light on this.
I don't recall brand or model...
Franco

I have read that some people have had issues with some stoves on some brands of canisters but I have never had an problem with any stove on any canister, though I do mostly use Kovea or JetBoil (same manufacturer) canisters, I will get a Primus canister and see if I have the same problem.

Tony

[Son of a Beach]

Only anecdotal, but hopefully encouraging: I've used my Kovea Supalite without any problems on about 10 different brands of canisters (including about 5 half-used ones that were given to me by mainlanders finishing the OT, who couldn't take them home on their planes). However, none of them were primus.

So although I can't comment on compatibility with primus, I can reassure you that you certainly won't be limited to Kovea canisters.

[Franco]

Not what I was looking for but found this comment from Hikin Jim (!) at BPL :
I experienced something similar to what Tony is talking about. I was using an Optimus Crux with a Snow Peak canister. The stove cut off on its own after burning for a minute or two. I couldn't get it to re-light. Finally, checked to see if I had properly screwed the stove into the canister. I found that I could tighten it just a hair more. When I re-tried it, it worked fine and has ever since

and that Tony is the above Tony...

Franco

[hikin_jim]

Why, thank you, Franco.

To the Original Poster, you might have some kind of a bad canister or a stove with some odd problem. I've usually been able to overcome problems by application of a bit of "male force" (really tightening the canister in other words). Careful to not damage the stove of course.

You should be able to use any stove that accepts a standard 7/16 UNEF thread with any brand of canister. (Obviously Powermax/Max, Camping Gaz, etc. do not apply).

HJ

[norts]

Thank you for your replies. I think it was just a bad canister, but the normal titanium kovea stove still fitted and worked it was only the supa lite that wouldnt work . I think the tolerances on the supa lite maybe a bit finer for depressing the valve in the cylinder and if the offending canister was a bit dodgy then i have a problem.
I have tried the supalite on all my other canister that I have, and it worked on all them.

Roger

[Tony]

I just tried my Supalite on a 450g Primus canister and it worked fine, the top of the Primus canister looks the same as the 450g Kovea canisters.

Tony

[sthughes]

Yeah my Supalight works fine on Primus 450g canisters as well.

[Ent]

Hi

Almost by fate when I read this thread next walk to WFV one of the people in the hut had an issue with a MSR cylinder. I tried their cylinder on my folding Crux with no issue but then the person with the stove noted that I had tightened it more than they had. Swapped back to their stove and all went well. Might be some stoves have a finer tolerances and or cylinders.

Did see in MD a customer return a stove (Optimus folding Crux) that did not work. Assumed it was a blocked jet. Lost two of the small gas lamps with own refillable cylinder to a bad batch of gas that clogged the jets in them. That was Kovea gas.

Cheers

[South_Aussie_Hiker]

I've had this problem before, but don't think it's related to the gas cans (which all meet the same engineering standard). My problem (and maybe yours norts) may have been operator error.

I screwed a Kovea supalite onto a half used kovea cannister, no luck. Put on a brand new cannister, worked fine. Swapped back to the original - didn't work again! I had a really close look and discovered that although it felt "tight" when I screwed it on, there was a gap between the little metal block on the stove and the gas cannister rim. Had another go at winding it on to the cannister, and heard the "SSSS" sound as the check valve was disengaged - and then it worked fine.

The threaded connection definitely wasn't cross threaded. The only thing I could put it down to was that perhaps in my pack something had slightly damaged the cannister thread and it felt tight when it wasn't, or else there was dirt/grit on the cannister thread. Or perhaps the Kovea supalite stove thread has the ability to feel tight when it's not. I was simply amazed that it had been a threading problem, because it had felt so normal - slowly getting tighter rather than notchy and sticky. I would never have known if I hadn't looked real carefully.

I now always tighten them by hand, then check visually if the stove is sitting flush with the cannister rim.

[hikin_jim]

It might be better to just screw on the stove by feel first and see if you get gas flow rather than always verifying that the stove is fully screwed on. If you're getting gas flow, it's good enough.

The reason I say that is that the threads on a canister are "not fully formed." If you look at the edges of the canister's thread, they're rounded rather that sharp.


Since the edges are rounded, the only part of your stove's threads that engage is the very tip. Too much pressure, and you will wear out your stove's thread. For most of us, this isn't a problem, but for long distance walkers or for those who use their stove quite a bit, that wear eventually renders the stove useless.

So, use the minimum amount of force when screwing on a stove. Tighten when needed but not otherwise.

HJ

[Strider]

Good advice Jim