Lightweight bushwalking stove — Optimus Crux Lite

[FatCanyoner]

G'day all,
This review is also online with pics at http://fatcanyoners.org/bush-guide/optimus-crux-lite/, but I thought it might be of interest to folks here as well.

When I first started bushwalking I was pretty old fashioned with my gear and techniques. I basically used my old Army stuff for everything from clothing and footwear to packs and shelter. The only stove I’d ever used in that role was an old fashioned hexamine stove. For those who’ve never used one, they are basically a small metal stove that runs on little blocks of solid fuel. They are cheep, relatively light, and pretty well unbreakable, which is probably why the military love them.
For most walks I stuck to simple food that didn’t require cooking. If it was a longer trip I’d do uncooked lunches then if I wanted a warm meal, I’d cook it on the fire. I didn’t really feel the need for a stove, and it fitted with my dislike of fancy technology in the bush.
Then came some wet, miserable walks, where fire lighting was very hard and a hot meal a real luxury, and I started to see why a stove would be useful.
My first gas stove was the Kovea X1 Solo. It seemed pretty light at the time, was robust, and had a self ignition. For about four or five years it served me well. As I became a more active canyoner, the ability to have a hot lunch in a cold canyon (without lighting a fire, which can be very damaging to these sensitive environments) made it an even more integral part of my kit, even on day trips.
Unfortunately, years of heavy use has taken its toll. The self ignition died first, after a couple years. The stove still works, but has bits pealing off and is clearly less effective in poorer conditions than it once was. Much of this is my own fault, with the stove regularly getting wet and being mistreated, so I don’t blame the manufacturer at all. The core elements — the burner, pot holding arms etc — all continue to work.
I decided that ahead of a big week-long canyoning trip in a remote area I should invest in a new stove, not wanting this old one to give up the ghost completely on me.
I figured you never really know what will work best until you try something, so didn’t shop around too much, and instead looked for something that would work for me. Basically, all I wanted was something very light, with limited moving parts that could break, and with versatile pot holding arms that can be used with odd shaped cookware.
The last point is based on the fact that I still use my old Australian Army steel kidney cup to cook. The reason I’ve kept using this, even in spite of its weight, is that they are absolutely unbreakable, have a folding handle, are easy to clean, and best of all can be used on either a stove or the fire.
I also wanted to avoid one with a self-ignition given these invariable break, add extra weight, and every bushwalker should have matches on them in case they need to light a fire for warmth.
Most people I know seem to use the MSR Pocket Rocket, which seems a good stove, but its arms do not work well with my pot, and make the risk of food toppling off very high.
I ended up picking up the Optimus Crux Lite. Amazingly it was almost half the price of the MSR, a good 10 grams lighter, and seemed to have an even larger jet for when you decide to boil with a larger pot.
According to the manufacturer it is just 72 grams and can boil 1L of water in as little as 3 minutes. Given my old stove weighed in at 124g new, and was getting pretty sluggish, this seemed a huge improvement.

Field testing:

During the seven day walk, I cooked every lunch on the Optimus, and dinner and cups of tea on one wet night. Some of the meals I cooked required extensive simmering — up to 15 minutes — so I expected the fuel use to be substantial. Amazingly I used not much more than half a 227g canister of gas by the end of the week. I was blown away by how reasonable this was, given the intense flame this stove emits when turned up on high.
The big issue I have had in the past when borrowing other people’s stoves is with simmering. It seems any stove can blast out the gas, but when you need a precise, low flame, many either cannot go low enough without extinguishing, or lack the fine control needed to get the heat just right. Once I got use to the Optimus I found this to be pretty good.
The only weaknesses that struck me were that when you first light the flame, you need to turn it up slightly or it can go out. Perhaps that is because I try to light it on a very low setting. Also, the wire handle for adjusting the fuel is a little fiddly when trying to be extremely precise. Again this issue diminished the more I got use to the stove. By the end of the trip neither issue was causing me problems.

Testing at home:

Reaching a rolling boil of 500ml of water in my steel kidney cup (time, and gas used)
- Optimus Crux Lite — 2:29 | burning 10g of fuel
- Kovea X1 Solo — 3:25 | burning 14g of fuel

Weight (on fancy electronic scales):
- Optimus Crux Lite — 73g (82g in storage stuff bag)
- Kovea X1 Solo — 124g (153g in plastic case)

Conclusion:

Overall I’m very happy with my purchase. It’s a small, light stove that seems to be very effective. It holds odd shaped cookware well, and is surprising stable for such a small stove. It performs well both when boiling water, or when cooking with a more gentle flame.
Long term my only concern is with the strength of the joints on the three arms. They feel sturdy, and have given me no troubles, but given they are the only moving parts I assume they are the weakest point. If that does occur, I’ll provide an update.

[Ent]

Hi

I have the folding Crux and agree that the Crux has a good burner for cooking rather than cremating but do find it is remarkably easy to accidentally flip one of the arms back on itself and then have the pot tip. As the stove has got older this is less likely as the arms are rather "brunt" so do not move as easily.

Cheers

[FatCanyoner]

Ent, I do like the idea of the folding Crux. It is a little heavier, but stashing your stove in the base of the gas cylinder seems like a great idea.
Can I just ask how you accidentally flip one of the arms back while the pot is on? Do you mean you flip the arms when getting a pot on / off, so that you then end up with a less stable stove? I've found the arms on mine fairly stiff from the start. I'm not sure if that is a deliberate response to this problem.

[ninjapuppet]

the crux is my favourite canister stove.

I bought one from anaconda for $120 and noticed the arms were very easy to flip like Brett reckons but over time it bacame harder and harder as Brett said. so hard that as i folded the arms out, the screw in the centre broke off! I lost it in the field, but thinking its a generic screw, i got another to replace it but found out the screw would no longer screw in properly so i glued it with a heat resistent epoxy. then it started giving off a funky smell.

Still works fine, but I didnt trust my fix job 100% so i didnt hesitate to buy another - but from the US this time, for only $30.
Ive noticed a mate's crux light had the same problem too, so just a word of warning:

over time when the arms get more rusty and harder to open, make sure you stabilise the arm when opening it out. if you just open it out and let it lever on the centre screw, that screw might pop out.

As I said its my favourite stove but asked hikinjim who's also got the same stove plus more stove experience than myself why he doesnt rate it the best. he reckons the new msr micro stove is more stable and gives off less CO2. something to think about there.

[hikin_jim]

If I may chime in a bit, I like the Crux. It's got a nice, wide burner head, and it's quite compact.

I've found the same problem as previously described in this thread, that it's very easy to get the pot supports to flip into folded up position. It's quite annoying at times, although it's easy enough to flip them back. If they're hot, I just use my knife. But as I say, that's an annoyance. The stove is a good one.

With the Crux, the problem is not CO2 but rather CO. Roger Caffin did some tests which were published on BackpackingLight.com some time ago where he found that the Crux had high carbon monoxide emissions. Carbon monoxide is quite deadly. However, if one is cooking outdoors, it is of little consequence. If one were cooking in a small, enclosed space with poor ventilation, then the danger is quite real.

I did do some pot stability testing. My tests were fairly limited. I compared 5 stoves (Snow Peak GigaPower, MSR MicroRocket, Soto MicroRegulator, Optimus Crux, and MSR PocketRocket) using a 1 liter Snow Peak Titanium pot. I found that the Crux wasn't quite as good as the MicroRocket, PocketRocket, and GigaPower in terms of pot stability. I felt that the GigaPower was exceptional.

Overall, the GigaPower is probably the best in class, and (at least here in the US) at $40 is a very good value. I think the new MicroRocket is good stove. It's a bit shorter when folded up than the GigaPower and a bit lighter, but the MicroRocket is $60. Of my collection, those are the first two I reach for when I want a small top-mount canister stove. The Crux still gets used some though. There's nothing at all wrong with a Crux; it's just that I've got more stoves than sense and I'm quite spoiled you know.

HJ

[Orion]

Overall, the GigaPower is probably the best in class...

That's interesting. I bought one about 12 years ago and have been happy enough with it. I mean, it's just a valve and burner with some foldable pot supports. Although the piezo on mine died quite a while ago the stove itself will probably outlive me. I've seen a number of stoves come out since then that are a little lighter and more compact. But for a top mount system the stove itself is the lightest, smallest item. Shaving a few grams there has never seemed all that big of a deal to me.

I figured by now there would be a stove that was improved enough to tempt me to spend some money but this seems to not be the case. As near as I can tell the GigaPower has not been redesigned in all of these years (although I believe the piezo has changed).

[Ent]

Ent, I do like the idea of the folding Crux. It is a little heavier, but stashing your stove in the base of the gas cylinder seems like a great idea.
Can I just ask how you accidentally flip one of the arms back while the pot is on? Do you mean you flip the arms when getting a pot on / off, so that you then end up with a less stable stove? I've found the arms on mine fairly stiff from the start. I'm not sure if that is a deliberate response to this problem.

Some how I managed to master this art when lifting and positioning the pot. I am rather stuffed how I achieved this feat as when I look for it, it does not happen but when I assume that I am mad it happens. As mentioned that are rather more corrode so quite stiff so not done it recently.

The only current issue I have with the folding Crux is its "rock". Sort have got use to it but can panic a few onlookers. Still nice stove and for warmer weather a lovely little burner for producing so top class food.

Cheers

[hikin_jim]

Ent, I do like the idea of the folding Crux. It is a little heavier, but stashing your stove in the base of the gas cylinder seems like a great idea.
Can I just ask how you accidentally flip one of the arms back while the pot is on? Do you mean you flip the arms when getting a pot on / off, so that you then end up with a less stable stove? I've found the arms on mine fairly stiff from the start. I'm not sure if that is a deliberate response to this problem.

Some how I managed to master this art when lifting and positioning the pot. I am rather stuffed how I achieved this feat as when I look for it, it does not happen but when I assume that I am mad it happens. As mentioned that are rather more corrode so quite stiff so not done it recently.

The only current issue I have with the folding Crux is its "rock". Sort have got use to it but can panic a few onlookers. Still nice stove and for warmer weather a lovely little burner for producing so top class food.

Cheers

The really nice thing about the Crux is that for its weight/size class, it's got a very nicely distributed flame. Whereas many stoves in the Crux's class are all but Bunsen burners, the Crux can actually do some real cooking. Add to that the fact that it can be stored under the canister, and you really do have a nice stove.

HJ