I received, sometime last week, an update on the Biolite Stove to let me know that the production model is finalised and will ship early 2012.
It has gained some weight (now about 2 lbs) but it also now has a USB charging port.
Similar in stored size to a 1L Nalgene.
It produces 1-2watts of energy so I understand (sort of...) that it will charge most of the gadgets people may want to take on an extended trip.
Anyway, if you are interested in a relatively compact "smokeless" wood burning stove and use gadgets , take a look :
http://www.biolitestove.com/BioLite.html
BTW, I think that $129 is very reasonable...
Franco

Aside from being too heavy and too expensive, it looks just dandy. I assume it is capable of boiling water..

I would wonder if for the same weight, you would do better with a solar panel and a real stove. Soem of the Goal Zero models look intriguing for solar recharging, but I have "zero" experience with them.

"I assume it is capable of boiling water.."

This video of one of the prototypes in action , may give a better idea of how it works :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmHCIBvI6vE

Anything that needs me putting my hand into my pocket is expensive but looking at commercially available somewhat similar stoves (without the charger bit) like the Bushbuddy or the FourDog Bushcooker , it looks pretty good to me.
If you add the weight and cost of a solar panel and bits you need to connect it to your device , then both weight and price may not be too bad.
Mostly I was thinking about areas where wood is plentiful but the sun is scarce...
Like a lot of this type of gear, it is a niche product so no good at all for most but potentially great for some.
Franco

Am I mistaken, or does the fire actually generate the juice to power the fan and charge your batteries?

Hi Bill
you are not mistaken. I think it uses the Seebeck effect to generate power from heat :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect
A more comparable product is the Zip stove , but you need batteries for that one.
Franco

Well, that's pretty damn cool, and even if it's not ready for "Lightweight" solo backpacking, it is a reasonable option for group backpack trips now, and incredibly promising for where it might lead.

I'd like to see this same "Seebeck effect" applied to a device I could use with a campfire. I think that may have as much, possibly more, potential (at least for total unit sales).

Thanks for sharing this Franco!

While I agree that this is not a product that will attract many lightweight or ultralight backpackers, I found it to be amazing and it looks to be very well-designed. If the power unit is rugged enough for its intended use then I take my hat off to the designer.

I think it could offer a viable option for small groups on extended unsupported trips, or simply where wood is plentiful. It wouldn't be difficult to figure where break-even occurs compared to traditional stove+fuel options. Heck, I'd love one for car camping, just because.

Where it has vast implications is the developing world, where fuel gathering is a significant everyday task, deforestation is a grave problem, and smoke-related health problems shorten lifespans significantly. An efficient self-powered fan-driven cookstove is orders of magnitude more efficient than an open cookfire, which would address all three problems.

It will be interesting to see how this gadget plays out when it encounters the real world. We backpack in interesting times. We are beginning to use more and more electronics and hence need to recharge and power them, even in the wilderness where wieght and bulk is a consideration. What will be the winning technology? My guess is that solar will be the big winner, but we shall see......

Welcome back to the age of steam! I'd suggest a campfire or camp stove will generate enough steam to power all sorts of "pocket" engines and generators. Some of the hobby steam turbine generators I've seen weight only 3-4 ounces. YouTube has hundreds of ideas for this kind of thing and might be fun in the field.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD2ERF2s8hE
http://www.ministeam.com/acatalog/Steam_Engine_Accessories.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENsnutreEjQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPX2grfJwsg

I reserved one (and so has a mate of mine) mostly to support the development of the bigger version , the one designed for the third world countries.

The village where my parents grew up (in the Italian alps) still had many houses with open fires when I was in my teens (I cooked on them...) and folk that used them all their life did suffer from the effect of smoke.
I saw the same thing in Nepal a few years ago .
A stove that can charge multiple devices at the same time as heating and cooking will make a big difference to the life of folk in remote areas .
Just having a light on will help...

Back to the small version.
Obviously a wood burning stove is only practical where you can burn wood and it is plentiful, however a solar panel is also only practical where the sun is shining and for many hours a day.
Often the two do not coincide. So I see the BioLite and solar panels complementing each other rather than competing.

Franco
BTW, here is another version of a fan forced portable wood burning stove :
http://www.solhuma.com/products.php?idCatPri=2&lang=en&idCatLevel=16&idPro=9
($129 here in Melbourne)

At least where you are dealing with fixed installations, a wind turbine could work nicely. I first used solar in the Channel Islands (USA) where we either had sunshine or wind. The small turbines developed for yachts worked very nicely.

I can see the future. Every summit and windy pass will have a solar panel and wind turbine, complete with the proper outlets for every cell phone, flashlight, and PLB....

I'm going to keep an eye on this - we are going off grid and I can see using the bigger version. I wonder if they could make something like this to go on a woodstove?

Heather
I really don't know much at all about it , but you could start here :
http://www.tellurex.com/products/power.php
and or search under Seebeck or Peltier power generators.
From what I see the output is limited to low wattage suitable only for some minimal lighting or charging portable devices .
Franco

Heather, this is really old tech. You can buy thermoelectric chips and build your own. http://www.tegpower.com/pro3.htm
Add a .30 cent voltage regulator and you're done. This would recharge your smartphone but you'll be tending your fire for many hours. The third world implications with this thing don't make sense to me. I know missionaries that build serious power-plants, fueled by biogas, that charge big batteries for villages. They don't need itty bitty chargers for smartphones, and they don't fuel their stoves all day.

I've messed with Seebeck and Peltier devices in the past and found them inefficient....but fun. This is why I posted earlier about steam power (what your house runs on now!) For about $10 you can build a simple/tiny steam turbine that will run on barely boiling water and put out a bit more power than a thermoelectric chip. To get 15v out of that chip above, you'd need to have it cook at 500F degrees. Boiling water is 212F, so less heat/fire is required for the same output, for steam. I'm way over-simplifying here but this is why power-plants still use steam and not thermocouples.

Any of these things will require hours of fire to do anything useful....think how long it takes to charge devices when you plug them into your wall. Now, convert that to logs/campgas/esbit tabs, etc.

Discarding the notion of using them to charge other gizmos, an affordable, enclosed, fan-powered wood (or other solid fuel) -burning stove is vastly more efficient and protective of health than an open hearth. More, here.

Global cookstove initiative

A local organization, Solar Cookers International, has been taking the concept a step further with fuel-free cooking.

Solar Cookers International

I love this stuff.

Cheers,

Thank you for an informative reply. Looking at the thing casually, it didn't seem to generate that much electricity. So I could envision feeding a wood fire - just to generate electricity? Somehow I think solar will eventually be a better technique...

What I like about this design is not its potential to charge a portable device from a USB port. That seems to me more like a marketing gimmick (can you tell I don't own a GPS?). I'm more impressed by the clever use of feedback, where the heat of the fire powers the fan that makes the fire burn much hotter.

To echo Aimless' answer, it's to drive an integrated fan that increases stove efficiency--both the amount of heat generated and a more complete combustion. So, a hotter, cleaner stove than a passive design offers for folks off the grid. Think turbo!

I'm no EE so don't know whether the design could be advanced to the point where you can shunt off excess electricity to charge a storage battery. Conceptually, I could envision it but it would be a side benefit, not the system's main intent.

Cheers,

Rick

"The third world implications with this thing don't make sense to me'
The project started with the intention to make an affordable smokeless and efficient stove that can burn organic matter for third world countries, not a way to produce electricity.
"smokeless" is the key word.
If you ever visit areas where open fires are used inside the home you will see the effect that smoke has on people.
The "producing electricity" bit is a bonus not the primary reason for it.
In fact the more common version of the stove will be the one without the power out. That is because it will be cheaper and probably will last longer.
The camp stove (again....) is a by-product of that project...
Type "biolite stove" into Google images to see some of the prototypes made.
Franco

Remember that for Heather, solar power is not an option in Alaska winters! Summer, of course, is a different story.

Right, Franco, I follow that....and there are a gazillion more ways to achieve that end then to harness a little chip and fan, and to bigger effect. I'm on the board of an Ethiopian mission that drills clean water wells and provides biogas tech to people who normally burn cow poop for fuel and drink from chocolate milk colored water sources...their whole lives. We teach people how to make clean gas...cleaner than wood or manure....fires for cooking and heating, from waste.
I once watched a kid weld a pipe using a wood fire boosted with the air from a car tire innertube. They know about forges. They don't know about the convenience of turning a knob and getting fire and heat.

Dryer
No offence but all you have offered are "ideas" but not a working product.
Matter of fact I don't have a working product either but I do think that within six months there will be one that you can buy and use.
(if the Bio guys deliver...)
Steam engines and wind power sounds all good but where is a product that someone without knowledge,tools and a lot of time can buy ?
This sentence epitomises what I am trying to say :
"Heather, this is really old tech. You can buy thermoelectric chips and build your own. http://www.tegpower.com/pro3.htm
Add a .30 cent voltage regulator and you're done."
Either you are oversimplifying to the extreme or you are just kidding .
The reason I am saying that is if Heather me or you buy that thermoelectric chip and that 30c voltage regulator we would have again an idea not a product. Those two bits alone are not going to do anything at all.
But I do not have a horse in this race anyway, however it isn't as simple or as cheap as you say...
Franco

Oh, no offence meant or taken, Franco, but I've built and use simple generators of various kinds, for many years. Not ideas, but working tools. The "ideas" have already been invented for this kind of thing. How practical they are is another question. One of my passions is amateur radio (ham radio operator)from the back country and alternate power sources are part of the game. That chip I referenced simply needs to be placed on the side of a pot of boiling water, and presto...you have voltage, but not much current. Enough to drive a small fan and stoke your fire. Stick that chip to the side of a Sierra stove and you ditch the battery. I noted the Biolite folks aren't publishing their power producing specifications, that I could find, but I know something about thermoelectric and the chip I referenced is likely the one they use, or similar. However, I hope their stove is a great success and I bet you see it evolve if it takes off. It's a good turn-key product...when it becomes a product, for "those that don't have the knowledge or tools." My nature is to build my own, and have. DIY is an industry unto itself, Franco.
One of the sections of this forum is "make your own gear", which I personally do more than buy "products". I have a couple of plans in that section that people have built and have spread around the internet. I'm not interested in offering products for sale, but know many people who share a passion for 'make your own gear'. Since by brain has been chewing on this "camp power" idea, I'm now thinking up a tiny but efficient (and lightweight) generator, from off-the-shelf parts, that can be coupled to a small collapsible wind mill, or steam turbine...but you won't see a "product" offered.
In fact, I doubt I'd hike with such a mess unless radio operation is the goal.
Solar, thermoelectric, wind, steam, static (what's that? ), are all possibilities....how practical, is the question. I'll say this...I'm not wild about burning campgas or firewood (illegal in most parks) to charge my iphone or radio batts. Clean burning fire methods have been around for centuries...nothing new there.

"That chip I referenced simply needs to be placed on the side of a pot of boiling water, and presto...you have voltage, but not much current"
No it does not , not for more than a few minutes.
You need to keep the other side of the chip cool, and that is the tricky part.
It can be achieved with water cooling or as in the case of the Bio with a fan, however if you had looked at the link to the prototypes you would have seen that many prototypes (read :loads of time and money...) have been built. You don't keep trying if you have a working one .

For the benefit of others, again I will point out that if you try it to do something like that yourself it isn't anywhere as easy or cheap as some try to tell you it is.
Franco

I did.

Yeah, actually, it can. It helps to cool the heat sink side (wind, ambient air, water, ice)to get full efficiency but with any temp differential, it will still generate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhynSkFlJOs&feature=related

Scroll down, look at the pot of water with 4 chips:
http://www.tegpower.com/index.html
No cooling.
Like I said, I've done this, and have a chip or two around here somewhere. The Biolite guys are neatly packaging it and I applaud their work. For me, and many DIY'ers, it's not hard or expensive to do, and it's not fair to discourage others to try. Let's move on.

Somehow, I don't get the feeling that Biolite is going to revolutionize backpack cookery. I do hope their efforts in third world applications do bear fruit.

Not that long ago I tried to get one of the regulars here to understand why his wood burning stove /chimney solution is ideal for him but not for most as he was making it out to be.
That is, every time someone asked for what stove to use he would rave about his.
Funny thing is that I do have my own wood burning stove with chimney, yet I never used them because they are not practical for what I do and where I hike.
Now it is me in a way going the other way but I made it very clear at the start that it is for a very small minority or at least I thought that "Like a lot of this type of gear, it is a niche product so no good at all for most but potentially great for some." (my second post) would make my thoughts on that clear.
Do keep in mind that when I look at a product I like to figure out where it may and may not work .
Apart from water I don't know of anything that is needed or best for everybody in every situation.
Franco

Even water stirs up a lot of controversy when it comes to treating it!

Haven't changed my opinion that such a gizmo could make sense for group backpacking and for car camping of any sort. As to third-world potential, we're really talking about taking people one simple, effective step forward from very literally prehistoric cooking methods. Do this for a hundred million families and you make a truly global impact, in a virtual instant. Unpossible? It took Apple from November 2001 to April 2007 to sell the first hundred million ipods.

Cheers,

When travelling around Nepal one of my mates commented that he could not understand why there were so many small motorbikes around when he would not consider buying anything smaller than a 250cc.
At the same time he was aware that our porters were very happy to get a job at $2 US a day... (10 of us employed 23 locals for the 3 weeks)
And that is the problem that so many "easy" projects are just not affordable in many countries.
Here is another article that gives a bit more of an insight on what is all about :
http://www.core77.com/blog/sustainable_design/the_biolite_stove_19707.asp
Can't find it now but the founder also did mention something about the relationship between numbers and costs , basically the more you make the less the cost per unit.
The aim was for $20 per unit , that is for the "home" type.
Franco

I think that like a lot of technologies, the difference in making a homemade experiment to demonstrate the technology and and creating a usable product with it is born from the work to optimize efficiency.

While the output of the chip may not necessarily be greatly enhanced through optimization, it could very well be that just a "Little more power" could be enough to do what it needs to do, in this case drive a fan.

20 years ago, we may not have had a fan that could be powered with one of these chips, but today, with just a bit of optimizing, combine that same chip with a more efficient fan and "Walla" you've got something that is suddenly possible that was not before.

That's what I see that's new here.

The goal of this product is to make something to cook food, not generate electricity. It would seem to me that they've succeeded in generating more than the fan uses so they decided to make that available for other uses. That's a good idea.

For discussions sake, let's say we change our goal to design a product that is intended to generate electricity from a wood fire, we might find that we can charge our cell phone and GPS while we sit around a small campfire for a couple hours. We might accomplish that right now with nothing but off the shelf parts. A gadget like that could be pretty handy.

Still not impressed?

Okay, Imagine a device similar to that shown that can charge all your stuff, your phone, camera, gps, flashlights, a tiny tent fan, etc. etc, in ten minutes. If the efficiencies in a batteries ability to take a charge are greatly increased then we might see that, and there is good reason to believe that will happen pretty soon.

That might not benefit backpackers in the Sierras much because you'd burn the forest down, but it would be pretty darn cool here in the Ozarks. Big time cool, and people would buy that gadget.

I love innovation. I love seeing old ideas improved and combined into new ones. Every time I do it gets my own gears turning. So many wonderful things have yet to be made, and I've already been witness to so many amazing new inventions in my life.

I have nothing but praise and encouragement for those guys. They are extending the trail one step further for us all to gaze from, and if you look hard you can begin to see the shape of new things that might be out there.

I have to agree with dryer that this is not the best way to achieve a smokeless cook stove, or to generate micro-electricity. Rocket stoves make more sense. For electrical generation also, a rocket stove would allow more electricity to go to something more useful than powering a fan. I do think there can be sympatico between the third world and backpackers, but I think we have more to learn from them. At its best, this is honest research with good intentions, and it could lead to something even though the power and efficiency and enery return on energy invested are not promising. At its worst, this is yet another example of how not to 'help' people in the third world, like sending old sneaker and shirts by air freight and undermining local economies. Just my opinion.

I like the micro-steam engine idea. You can get comparable efficiencies very crudely, like 1-10%, and get the recharge done faster with more power and less weight. 15-25% efficiencies are achievable with more sophisticated micro-steam engines, especially where cold water or snow is available. Solar makes sense for micro-power, especially in hot sunny climates. Manual power also makes sense, perhaps the most sense, for quick recharge of small batteries. The thermal efficiencies are better also, and the opportunities for combined heat and power in cold climates. Using arms only you should be able to recharge 4 AAs by 25% in 15 minutes without steaming up your tent too much. Hold some device between your toes, and crank away.

A big area for improvement in lightweight mobile micro-power might be driving all your electronic devices from a single power pack, and recharging the power pack directly. Obviously not watches and stuff like that, but the ones that use more power like cameras, communications, headlamps, and computers. You would also have something more easily matched to the users needs. The could go to larger batteries for more capacity, or faster recharge times, or better charge/discharge efficiencies, or to smaller batteries to save weight.

I don't think recharging batteries from batteried through usb ports is the way to go, which is what alot of people are doing now. There has to be a crazy amount of conversion losses, and weight redundancy.

I also think that 'ideas' are far more helpful than gimmicky and trendy consumer products, assuming we really want to help people. DIY and smaller scale industries are more sustainable also, because it is more local, and more diverse, and tends to distribute wealth more evenly, throughout society and around the globe. I'm putting this out there as a philosophical argument more than a political one. Economics and Engineering for the simpler lifestyles won't as likely make you rich, but it does tend to be alot more interesting, in my opinion.

I agree about ideas and DIY. Having first hand experience with third world missions, "teach a man to fish" makes more sense than giving him one. 23 years ago one of our group taught 4 people how to make a loom and spin/weave wool on a large scale. Today that little village is a carpet and rug center with automated equipment.
Our well drilling efforts have proven similar. The experiment happened in one small village that had no clean water it's entire history. 1.5" threaded steel pipe was available, as was rope. A simple valved bit was made from an 8" piece of pipe, some car leaf spring (cut with a hack saw!)for the cutter head, a bolt, all welded with oxy-acetylene. A tripod was made from wood poles. Using the "cable drop" method, 5 guys punched through to clean water after half a day of drilling.
$200 buys the materials and we know of 200+ such wells having been drilled since.
http://www.heartforethiopia.org/development.html

These people know how to make smokeless fires. The "chiminea" is an example (i have one).
JAK, Rocket Stoves are an excellent example of simple tech and those can be found all over third world countries....even made from mud brick! Bio-gas generators are starting to pop up too, powering serious electrical generators, not cell phone chargers. Lately, someone figured out how to fill a plastic pop bottle with water, stick it in a hole in the roof, and light the home interior, for free, as long as there ambient light outside.

I saw that. It was in So America, right? I've been thinking about installing some of those in my pole barn/office.

Seeing that led me to play with filling a 2 liter bottle with water and replacing the cap with an LED flashlight, and that actually makes a very beautiful sort of lamp, especially when you use bottles that have well defined ribs in them, like some juice bottles. I suspect that a bottle could be designed that would act like a lens (Fresnel perhaps?) to improve the way light is cast.

I'm thinking that I might make a sort of "Street Lamp" with maybe 3 or 4 of these bottles hanging from arms attached to a pole that has a solar panel and battery on top of it, or just get some of those cheap solar yard lights and use them, and placing a few of them along my driveway.

A friend of mine installed two in his shed. They work quite well! Cut an undersized hole and jam 'em in.

After a day or two, would not the water in the bottle be purified, a la SODIS?

Hmmm...don't know. I've seen some odd lifeforms swimming around in water that has sat a few days.

Wouldn't those critters just be extra protein?

[Dusts off ye olde threade.]

Preliminary efficient cookstove results are positive. I couldn't tell from this article what stove they tested.

Cookstove article

Cheers,

Back to the BioLite camp stove...

I've also reserved one, and expect that the weight trade off between this stove and any other with fuel should work itself out, particularly on longer trips.

So the BL is ~2lbs, how much does your stove plus fuel weigh? With the BL I plan to pick up fuel at each site, which means I'm not carrying it.

Mike

If you really want to save weight, do like I did for the first eight or so years of my outdoor career- just build wood fires, carrying only matches - no stove at all. It worked well enough, and I never went hungry. But more and more, the convenience factor of various stoves made carrying the weight worth while. Length of the trip is critical in determining what mode will yield the lightest weight.

BL is ~2lbs, how much does your stove plus fuel weigh?

My stove and windscreen, plus approx. 14 days worth of fuel weigh about 1 lb. 2 oz. This doesn't mean you would be wrong to prefer the BioLite stove, only that my setup works very well for me and is about a pound lighter, because I never hike more than two consecutive weeks without resupply and threfore never need to carry more fuel than that.

That's basically how I'm looking at it.

For 14oz, I'm not worrying about weather, temperature, or whether I'll run out of fuel. If I want to leave it running for marshmallows (kids), it's not a problem. Want an extra cup of coffee? Done. Water filter clogged? Boil it clean.

BTW, this is a stove for four, which might impact your fuel consumption estimate.

I have added this to my birthday list
http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/powerpot-generates-electricity-your-campfire.html

That's pretty cool.

I can see where you might burn the cord if you had it on a campfire, and I'm not sure if you could plug in a dead phone and get a call out, but if you can, that's pretty cool.

I am pretty sure it would take a bit of time to charge a phone from dead, and using that much stove fuel wouldn't be very efficient, but it might help in a pinch.

I like it!

Thanks for sharing...

It's also a bit heavy. If I were a rich man I would buy one just to test and report back.

have one of the powerPot on order too, just to see how it works.
So far what I have in mind is that the Bio Lite could be good for extended unsupported trips (of course where you can legally burn wood..) and maybe for a group outing of a few days where one will take the extra load to be able to charge batteries on demand.
Maybe because of the supposed low smoke levels it could be used inside a large tipi as well. Again for cooking and charging and something to do on a long winter night...
Charging time should be the same as from the USB port on a computer.
Particularly useful for gear like the Apple gadgets that have built in batteries only (NO , I do not use gadgets but I am able to think about others too...)

The Power Pot is for stove users and yes I would expect that fuel efficiency will go down but there is a possibility that it will work with just the heat of a candle to charge the Li Ion battery that can then charge via USB port your gadgets.
Again not something that I will use in the bush but still I will see if there is a practical application or not...

Omn another forum someone asked about a comparison with solar panels, my comment was that "it's just like day and night "
Franco

Well I am sure looking forward to your review of the powerpot, I think that's a pretty "hot" concept!

You, sir, are shame-free.

I haven't been knighted as yet, have no shame but loads of toys.
I have my own branch of Toys-R-Me
Franco

I have this stove ordered. Can't wait to get it and test it out. Hope it lives up to my expectations.

I've been playing with the Boilerwerks stove (from Kickstarter). Interesting little stove, it doesn't have the charging capability - but solar works well for that, and you can keep the solar running all day. for a stove, I really only want to burn when I'm boiling my water.

http://youtu.be/kt0x1GeI-Mg

My solar panels failed to charge that day.
Same thing for the next few days,
The manufacturers are at a loss to explain why.
Franco

The BioLite was delivered to a Californian address early last week and it has just arrived at my place in Melbourne this morning.
First it is heavish at 2.2 lbs but (unexpectedly) it has a LiIon batt built in and that is what will make the USB charging work...
Rated USB output is 2W at 5V continuous ,4w @5v peak.
It is very well made , feels strong and rated to hold 8 lbs.
This afternoon I will shoot a short video on this doing the first burn...
BTW it is about 4" in diameter so just a bit wider than a 1L Nalgene.
My YouTube channel is 'francodarioli"
Franco
Quick update
As a stove it is brilliant.
The first burn took about 15 minutes to boil 1 liter of water however I was fiddling about and let the flame die in between having the starting kindling and then feeding thicker stuff.
(you will see that in the video clip)
I did another couple of burns later and realised how important it is to keep feeding the stove if you don't want any smoke about.
This is the nice bit, once you get a good flame the smoke is almost not there...
On my fourth burn I put the pot on after having fed some bigger bits (about 2 minutes into the burn..) and got a roaring boil (1 L ) at around 9min.
BTW the wood I was using was bits that I collected from the nearby park and not particularly dry nor necessarily good for fire...

Now the not so good bit
I tried a couple of USB LED lights I have , the Bio Lite could not power them up. Then I remembered that my Garmin 60 CSX can be USB powered but that did not work either .
I do not have any other USB powered devices that I can try so not sure as yet what is going on here but it is possible that the BioLite was not hot enough for that even though it did have the "green:" light (USB power OK) on.
I will try again...

Can you measure the output?

I've never looked into the wiring of USB cables, but those connectors are so small that a standard multimeter wouldn't probably do you much good.

I wonder if there is a cable that you can plug into a multimeter? Or maybe an app for a phone that will tell you what the power source is inputing.

It did power the fan though, right? I'd have thought it'd power a few LEDs then with no sweat, so something must be amiss somewhere.

I'm looking forward to your video Franco. I hope you find something to power up soon!

He can lop off the end of a spare USB cable (they multiply like rabbits around here), isolate and identify the pin-outs, and measure that way. My smaller muli-meter leads will fit a USB connector with no problem, so his should work if they are small. Measure both under load and un-loaded.

Things to check for on a system like that...1)check that the lithium ion battery has a full charge. That battery probably acts as a buffer to flatten out and regulate the voltage fluctuations of the peltier device due to heat variations.
2) make sure the voltage requirement of the device you are trying to power is below the stoves output capability. USB pin 1 (red wire) is +5 vdc. An iPhone battery is +3.7 vdc and wants to see that or more, regulated.

I was given a "Solar iPhone Charger" and gave up on the thing due to regulating issues. The phone charging scheme would shut itself down if the charge voltage was unstable. A buffer battery would have helped but it would have taken days to charge it with the dinky solar cell.

So, if your output is dropping below the device requirements or is unstable, and the device has a firmware controlled charging scheme, it might not charge. Top off that lithium ion batt to a full charge and see if that doesn't get her going.

hi
I forgot to put the link to the video. Here it is :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCsPFuKEl...mp;feature=plcp
I shot that about two hours after getting the box...
I did some more tests the day after, it burns well but little output.
There are several clips on YouTube showing that the unit works, so it is me or my stove.
Yesterday I charged the battery again so I might do some more tests today.
No I don't have a multimeter nor do I really know anything about electricity...
Franco

a working version :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cPkNjIy8kk&feature=related

From your video, the stove certainly looks well made and I'm impressed with it's clean burning.
Is there possibly a waiting time programmed in so the Peltier device has a chance to heat up and generate, so as not to deplete the battery with the fan before charging an outboard device? If the green diode is lit, it would seem to indicate "ready".
Volt/Ohm (multi-meter) meters are cheap now days and would help troubleshoot your stove (and many other things!).
For your test, your USB light should be enough.

If I were testing the stove, I'd get a fire going and keep it going strong for 20 min. If it's not charging by then, you probably have an electronics problem. Warranty?

Hi Dryer
The TEG (the batt/fan part) is now dead...
At the start it did all the right things.
As you might have noticed in the video it takes a little while for the green light (USB out ready) to come up but once up it did not work.
The next day I let it run for about 20 minutes after the green light came up before plugging a USB device in . (I had re-charged the battery via PC USB in the meantime)
Still nothing.
Two days later the fan stopped working and if I plug it in on the PC USB I get a green light no fan going.
So now I am waiting to hear from BioLite.
Kind of funny that having posted about this product in various forums I am the one to get a faulty one...
Franco

LOL Franco, I can dig deep into a pallet load of (pick a product) and I will pick the faulty one every time. My curse.

In all likelyhood, that thing has 1) peltier device 2) voltage regulator 3)a couple of diodes to prevent back feeding the peltier and 4) battery and fan. It would be my guess that you've lost the voltage regulator chip and nothing is making it to the USB. Not much can go wrong with a peltier block. I'm assuming the stove was wired correctly from the start. This is easy to test with a meter but in your case, Biolite should replace it. I still liked your reviews and am hoping to see this thing work as it should.

I don't know what kinds of stores you have there but a $10 multi-meter....which I'll happily walk you through its use....will tell you exactly what is coming out of that USB port. You'll use it later to test batteries and lightbulbs, etc....many uses.
Wal-Mart, Radio Shack, auto parts stores all have cheap meters.

quick update.
BioLite has been in touch with me and a replacement unit should me on it's way soon.
I am far too stupid to attempt to fix it myself but if I come across someone that understands stuff like this I might attempt to have the faulty one fixed.
in the meantime the PowerPot people have been making noises about delivering their creation soon.
I have now come to understand how the PowerPot works. It needs water to cool the non flame side of the power generating thingo.
So it would be suitable for boil only type meals but not cooking dryish meals.
Franco