Portable Gas Cookers and Cartriges

[MSF]

That would make Darwin's job much easier too

[KiwiNTPajero]

Have read this thread with interest., and similar on other forums.
Although the NSW Fair Trading have banned the cookers from sale (as opposed to an actual recall !) and people are reporting their removal from sale in that state, I was in my local Bunnings today (in WA) and they have now been removed from their shelves too. So big empty space with an "apology" from management for any inconvenience - but loads of gas bottles still stacked right next to the space (and all at special price).
The original incident report would be good reading, an interesting comment from the announcement on the NSW Fair Trading site included a reference to the victims "cooking for over an hour " and then BANG ! Wonder what was cooking and what it was being cooked in ?
Cheers
Peter

look at the video.There appears to be a big panel right across the top of the cooker with a pot on top of that.So the reflectorised panel is reflecting most of the heat of the burner back down onto the cooker and gas bottle!So they have done a mythbusters exercise to deliberatley overheat the gas cannister

[1533rl]

portable gas cooker

Sorry Kiwi I was referring to the incident in NSW that resulted in the state ban. The newspaper article about the guy in caravan that died. Interestingly on uTube there is a video from the QLD authorities dated January that highlights the "dangers". Very prophetic.
I was in local Big W store today and no stoves for sale but heaps of gas for sale _ pack of 12 for $14. Much cheaper than they used to be, and yes all CRV cans. I did notice that the brand as pictured was a NZ one ! Are the cookers still on sale in NZ ? Might be an opportuntiy for a new cross Tasman arrangement.
Cheers
Peter

[KiwiNTPajero]

Sorry Kiwi I was referring to the incident in NSW that resulted in the state ban. The newspaper article about the guy in caravan that died. Interestingly on uTube there is a video from the QLD authorities dated January that highlights the "dangers". Very prophetic.
I was in local Big W store today and no stoves for sale but heaps of gas for sale _ pack of 12 for $14. Much cheaper than they used to be, and yes all CRV cans. I did notice that the brand as pictured was a NZ one ! Are the cookers still on sale in NZ ? Might be an opportuntiy for a new cross Tasman arrangement.
Cheers
Peter

they are still on sale here.I would be surprised if there were cookers or cartridges produced here.!

[Pickle]

I have seen idiots use them where the frypan (or in one case a HUUGE saucepan that they were using to heat about 10 litres of water for washing up) overhangs the full unit (not just the stove element, ie, incl. the canister section) - That is when it becomes dangerous as the heat is directed closer to the canister...

So a bit of further testing on this to see just how much overhanging saucepans can heat those cans.
Will post soon.

[Jeffwatkins]

so a bit of further testing on this to see just how much overhanging saucepans can heat those cans.
Will post soon.

boom

[Onslow]

So a bit of further testing on this to see just how much overhanging saucepans can heat those cans.
Will post soon.

There are similar incidents with the lightweight outdoor stoves that the backpackers and climbers etc use. They are affected by the wind, so people put a lightweight foil shield around them to assist in keeping the heat generating up to the pot. The instructions caution against doing this of course, but there will always be someone who tries it anyway. The heat is then radiated off the bottom of the pot and back down to the gas cannister with catastrophic consequence.

[Dicko1]

I just checked my Gasmate cans from Bunnings. They say on the packaging that they meet the EN741 standard. There is nothing written on the cans or a blue rim circle.

Wonder what is going on there.

[Pickle]

I just checked my Gasmate cans from Bunnings. They say on the packaging that they meet the EN741 standard. There is nothing written on the cans or a blue rim circle.

Wonder what is going on there.

You will find they are the ones the go boom, they can be used but keep in mind they explode not vent like the CRV cans.
dave

[Pickle]

So camping out the last week at Cliffhanger and using one of these portable cookers (I have 4) got me thinking when someone mentioned them being banned from sale. Not that I didn't know they had been taken off the shelf I pointed out to the guy they are safe if you know what your doing with them. But that also got me thinking about how to keep the temps down on the butane can when running whilst using a large frying pan.
So first up was to get an idea of how much a large fying pan will heat the gas canister compared to a pot.


Here we can see the water boiling in the pot and the temp hovering around 24c.



Here we have a large frying pan with boiling water at 36.5c and getting hotter.

So the theory was to insulate the heat of the frying pan from the gas canister. What product to use ....why don't we try some insulation tape?



So that's just one layer of insulation tape. I put the frying pan again and let it boil. What I did notice is the temp did go up but took a bit more time.
I put another layer of tape on and this time timed how long before it hit 40c.



A time of 2.49 to hit 40c . So lets try three layers!



This time 4.21 to hit 40c. So lets try one more layer!



This time 4.25 not making much difference but I did keep the timer going and the fying pan boiling just to see how hot we got.



Interesting was it only got another 2c after another 4 minutes. It hovered around that temp until I pulled the pin on it after ten minutes.
Conclusion is the insulation tape certainly does help but is not the definitive answer fo these units being dangerous. You have to come to your own conclusions regarding use of these and the danger they can be.
Other thing to note was I tested this in a black cooker, black retains heat so you can buy chrome cookers as well but the black cooker was the victim this time around.


The product I used.

[Dicko1]

So how do you think it would go if instead of the tape you used a piece of 4mm aluminium plate?

[grhyso]

is there space to put the insulation tape under the flap pickle? I was just thinking that more air gap might help as the insulation tape might be conducting the heat as it gets closer to the pot?

Funny you did this test, I have always used mine with a quite large saucepan for cooking steak, sausages, breaky etc and so I took some pictures of the size and air gap comparing my saucepan and the grilling accessory lots of companies sell for these. Interestingly my saucepan didn't over hang the side as much as the accessory but had a slightly smaller air gap. I will set it up again this week and actually measure the gaps. It would be interesting to see the temperature differences in the can compartment between the two.

[grhyso]

So how do you think it would go if instead of the tape you used a piece of 4mm aluminium plate?

I'd think the 4mm ali would just conduct more heat, it may take a longer to get up to temp but it'd get hotter I'd think. Ali also has low latent heat properties (trying to remember this from high school physics over 10 years ago), so it will gain heat very quickly.

[Pickle]

So how do you think it would go if instead of the tape you used a piece of 4mm aluminium plate?

Don't think aluminium would work Dicko, really need something with heat retention properties. Plus the fact it might be awkward fitting.
Dave

[Pickle]

is there space to put the insulation tape under the flap pickle? I was just thinking that more air gap might help as the insulation tape might be conducting the heat as it gets closer to the pot?

.

There is space and I did use some insulation inside. It really didn't make that much difference so concluded the insulation needed to be between the bottom of the frying pan and the flap for the canister.
Dave