Registered: 05/29/12
Posts: 1
Loc: Northern California
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.
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...
but those connectors are so small that a standard multimeter wouldn't probably do you much good.
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
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
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