Seriously, how hard can this be? It's denatured alcohol and a wick. I have fought and fought with this thing and I've about had it. After trimming the wick, spreading it out, changed the go juice and made sure the stupid vent is clear, it STILL works great for 30seconds and then turns into a dim candle. Anyone have any experience with one of these? http://www.chemistryland.com/CHM130FieldLab/Lab2/AlcoholLampInstructions.pdf https://www.amazon.com/GSC-Internat...&s=gateway&sprefix=wickless+al,aps,181&sr=8-2 The bozos on YT make em.... Looks like a beast.
What happens if you leave the lid on but a bit loose so there's no vacuum?. Does the copper tube have to go below the alcohol liquid level?. I made a normal one as a kid and I didn't make the tube go below the liquid level to avoid flashback: the loose wick fell into the jar and ignited the vapour, there was a loud bang and the lid flew past my nose to leave a dent in the ceiling. Fortunately it was a baby food jar with a press on lid so the pressure was released.
Why not just use a camping propane cylinder and plumbers torch? They last for 20+++ hours of constant use and do not burn your wax black. And are much hotter and easier to deal with. Nostalgia for the old days??
yes and no... I have a propane can with a hot head on it. It's too much for small detail work. btw, if you cant get yours to light as I saw in the video, back the gas wayyy down and it will go. Mine does that too.
test run tomorrow after the JB cures. Dont tell my mother in law this candle stunk like a cheap whore!
Hey mark, I think if the lid is loose, it would quit drawing alcohol maybe? I understand the height of the flame is related to the height of the liquid. I'll give it a whirl. Costs me nothing to try.
I made a conventional one recently that has the opposite problem: the copper wick tube conducts heat into the alcohol and warms it up and making the flame go higher. Cracking the lid seal stopped the pressure and fixed the problem. I soldered the copper tube to the lid as hot epoxy will go soft and maybe let go. The salsa jar lid thread is relatively weak and the surface area is large so if a flashback somehow occurred it should pop the lid.
It VERKS... then after 2-3 minutes, it goes turbine on me. Then gets unstable and flames out. Not sure why. Maybe my hole is too small. I think this works by heating the empty copper pipe and draws alcohol vapor from the wicks. That's how I got it started, by heating the top. No the wicks do not extend up into the circle.
There was a guy I ran across on a camping trip, and he had a coil of copper tubing (about 3/4" or maybe 1/2" OD) inside of a charcoal starter, with the charcoal burning. He had two sanitary type garden hoses run over to a Coleman water cooler, the one with the dispenser at the bottom. One pipe went into the top of the cooler, and the other came out the bottom. So without any check valves at all, the coil would get hot, surge the water up one hose and into the cooler about every 10 seconds. I guess the head pressure on the lower hose kept hot water from flowing that way. So my guess is that once things get hot, you have basically created a V1 type rocket engine, what did they call that thing, a pulsa-jet? Do you have one tube in the liquid and one above the surface? You may have to play around with the exact plumbing, but this is how a jet pocket stove works, so the concept is good. A jet stove does use a pressurized fuel tank though. Edit: I had a commercial backpacking stove that was very similar to this one. It worked well, and the fuel was stored inside of it, and sealed in with a screw-on cap. I ended up changing to propane for backpacking, but in cold weather, the MSR Whisperlite is unbeatable, but it does have moving parts that can wear out, and a nozzle that can clog. Now I use a PocketRocket exclusively. MSR also makes a Whisperlite dual fuel model that burns either liquid camp fuel or propane, and if I had to do over, I would buy one of those. .
I thought you were describing a whiskey still there for a moment... I have both pipes way down in the alcohol and both have a wick in them..
I noticed his copper pipes only extend about halfway in the jar. Mine go down to about 1/2" above the bottom. I also used 2 strands of cotton rope for the wick, the wicks I had were too big and couldn't be cut down. :-(
That sounds like the same issue I'm having with mine: the extra heat transferred by the copper into the jar generates extra pressure and forces more fuel out. If the copper tubes were shorter and out of the liquid then it can't force liquid alcohol up the tubes.
Sounds like you got it!, yeah a bigger hole should get the flame past the tubes, it probably still has decent usable heat as is. My instincts would be to use solder on the lid seals if you have it: epoxy turns to jelly when hot so it won't be all that strong.
