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Product Description
Featured in Backpacker Magazine, Gear Junkie, and Survivalist, the Solo Stove Lite runs directly off biomass for a cleaner, more efficient burn. Using a unique gasification and secondary combustion process, it requires less fuel and produces less smoke than petroleum-based alternatives Read More
Don't buy it! It's A blatant ripoff of Fritz's Bushbuddy stove which has been around for a number of years. Fritz is a small cottage manufacturer and can't afford to pay for patent protection from large manufacturers. Fritz's stove is half the weight and has a more robust build. Check out numerous comparison vids on You Tube.
Mitchell11I would love to support Bushbuddy but as someone else pointed out the stove is $100. If I am going to pay that much I would need to see the patent you mentioned. Please provide the number. As fas as I am aware wood gasification has been around since the 17th century. Germany used it in cars for WWII.
It's easy. Buy the Solo alcohol stove that fits inside the wood stove (or can be used alone) and burn alcohol when its wet or raining. It's a little extra weight (3.5 oz) but well worth it.
as been told, it doesn't fit all conditions and sometimes gas or alcohol stoves r better. did not liked it on over 5 days hard hikes. used it during a few 3-5 days more calm hikes, one of them with a group of 8 and this was one of our 3 cooking devices. my country is having high summer temps, mid to high humidity conditions, and even in desert conditions i found lots of dead dry wood bits around. it's cons fit most wood stoves but for my opinion it's kind of a mid- way product. for my opinion, bushbuddy is a better alternative for a long hike. and this pot is heavy. i use a titanium one.
*pros: very good wind protection with the built -in "crown" \ pot holder: high heat output: wood burned well - only ashes remains in the bottom: very low risk for fire starting around in dry forest or bush around + very strong wind - no burning bits flaying around (with some common sense- do not make a campfire inside...). boiled water quite well, yet more then 10 min. can fit a 18" pan or pot - we used up to 26", yet in this size, will take its time heating it. stove parts does not rust or corrosive after 2 years of occasional use. and, your burning twigs are all around so no fuel carrying.
*cons: in a light hiking point of view, for 255 grams u can get a bushbuudy, a light gas stove+ 7-12 days gas can, or alcohol stove + it's one-week-fuel. as many other wood stoves, it needs small up to little finger thickness twigs, all broke into about the same length. using fire does make both cooking pot and stove crown \ body black from soot or ash, so u want a good cover to carry them. that means more weight, hence for a really long hike u need something more massive then a big zip-lock. fire is hard to control in heat output manner, so if u make something more complex then boiling water or soup - say rice or so - it might burn up. and u need to stay on it all the time keep on feeding stove with twigs and small stuff, all u should ready in advance next to it. so lots of messing around with the device, no put-and-forget, not very nice when your cold and tired. u also have to start the fire inside every time, which is a bit of a mess hence its deep and a bit narrow, so prepare your firstarters kit (when wet, i used cotton bolls with lip wax : and bike tube chips) and be well with fire starting skill. so more mess, more weight, more Hussel.
all by all - not bad, not great. bushbuddy is better but cost about 3 times more, so do your consideration.
Funny, because I feel like I've seen similar designs that pre-dated the Bushbuddy... I know that I've seen stove designs pre-dating the Bushbuddy that included multiple burning stages; so do you think Fritz ought to pay out to those folks? I doubt Fritz came up with the idea of a multi-stage wood-burning stove, and if you're trying to design a wood-burner it makes sense that a good design would hone in on similar design elements. At some point IP rights expire, and it's time to let more people have access to an idea - and not treat ideas like property to owned by one person alone.
I'm sure Fritz is great, and I hope he's done well (financially) on his design, but I don't think he deserves to own everything somewhat similar forever - especially at the premium price and limited distribution he's been able to put forth.
(edit: oh, and let's not forget that the Bushbuddy is a bit lighter and more expensive. Anyone seeking to shave ounces can still go buy it - and it may be a slightly better product - so maybe anyone who's concerned about this bad blood between companies should put their money where their mouth is. That would be A LOT more productive than complaining about another great product - the solo stove - which is being offered at a lower price, better distribution, and albeit it a similar design. This isn't intended to sound harsh - Please read it with a positive tone as intended! Happy trails!)
Eric.n.whalenAFAIK, Fritz doesn't make the Bush Buddy, or at least didn't for a long while, but instead has some sort of agreement with Steve at Nomadic Stove Company to make and sell them. I tried for more than a year to work directly with Nomadic, but they never had stock and pricing was an issue. I just did a quick search and it looks like Bushbuddy is making the stoves again now? @KNRDIII@tzurlis@Icarusdiedquick
"To lighten your load and reduce your environmental impact, it’s time to make the switch from a petroleum-based stove to a model that runs directly off of biomass. "
Really? I hope no one believes that. A gas can sufficient for a week's worth of individual cooking weighs less than a pound. Cooking with wood can also be very destructive to campsites, especially in popular areas.
Wood-burning camp stoves are appropriate in some cases, but the reasoning presented here is bad.
wyagerwyager - these types of stoves aren't destructive and use very little wood. They are designed to burn small twigs (about the size of your finger), pine cones and other detritus that can easily be picked up along your hike, without having to cut large logs. With this stove, you are not digging a large fire ring, building a campfire and then having to try to replace that which was moved. Their footprint is very small (about the size of a quart of paint) and, because of the way that it burns, the wood that is used is reduced to very fine ash, which is easily disposed of, once it has cooled. If you have any concern at all regarding the impact on the camp site, you need only place the stove on a flat stone (or you can carry a tile or square of metal - even a piece of aluminum foil will work), and the physical impact on the site will be reduced to about zero. Do a Google search on "TLUD stove" and/or "Woodgas stove" to learn more about how these stoves work. They are a lot more LNT than your post is implying.
PeterWheelerThe bottom of my solo stove lite remains more or less cool in use, the sides get hot so getting a hand under is another story but you are not going to damage anything underneath. I love mine. Wish they would organise a drop for the suluk titanium version...
If u need a fast and light fire starter that work in high humity or wet conditions, cut a bike rubber tube into chips about 1 cm. Width. And 3-4 cm. Long. They burn well and high. And very lightweght.
I'm sure it is just as toxic as many of the other petrol based options. I personally am disgusted by the residue after using hexamine, but since Tzurlis was talking about he starts a fire, and not what he cooks over, maybe you could give him or her a break?
These are on sale on the Solo Stove site for $70, buy one get one free right now, if you got a buddy that wants one it's quite a bit cheaper than here. Also kind of a bummer massdrop can't do better than $50 when the manufacturer is essentially selling them for $35
Just as an aside, it would be nice if the 2 minute promotional video actually showed the product for more than 10 seconds...
I own about 10 woodburning stoves, the Solo stoves are pretty good but not my favourite.
Pros: Easy to setup and use, stacks nicely, solid design
Cons: Smallish burn chamber, must (in practise) remove pot to add fuel, medium difficult to light, medium wind resistant, medium weight
dchu101It depends, there are many great options out there. The Solo is not bad, though!
My favourite "pack flat" stove is probably the CORE 4 or CORE Recon from mysurvivalpack. The cylindrical stoves....probably the Toaks.
Just my $0.05 of course.
stainless steel for a "solo" stove??? lol wow . if it ain't Ti it don't fly. how a SS stove and pot gets picked from any pole for backpacking and the like is beyond me. you want a backpacking pot this size? skip this ss crap and do yourself a favor and search MLD 850ml Titanium Pot, the pot is 40 bones, then pick one of a gazillion backpacking stoves, be dirt cheap alcohol or as this says a "bio mass" stove. and realize you feed this when burning in that gap that is opened while cooking, and GOOD bio mass stove feeds from the bottom, with this the tiny tiny twigs you burn HOPEFULLY sit on that wide gaped grate they are designed to rest on with out falling to the bottom. oh and you best gather a shit ton of tiny twigs your gonna be feeding this thing like a ravenous beast.
watch the video on the solo stove site, what a joke.
do your research there are better options for a bio mass stove, I already told you likely the best pot in this size range 600 to 1000 ml , so go find yourself a GOOD stove and RUN from this drop fast as you can. you'll thank me for this info :) thanks and good day, Happy Trails.
dinna89I'd like to see you guys rampaging about the FULL SIZE tents that keep getting posted on here! Or the giant 60L backpacks! This weighs less than a half pound, you get fuel when you get to the campsite, so TOTAL weight of stove/fuel is a half pound.
An alcohol stove (which is the most common UL stove) uses alcohol... you have to bring that with you. A week of alcohol weighs more than a half a pound, and then you have to camp out with an empty bottle too.
I do agree this is a little overpriced, it would be a good price if it were made of titanium (and the pot it comes with is a little shoddy). One problem with using titanium is that in order for a woodgas stove to work properly it needs to heat the air going through the wall. Titanium has horrible heat transfer properties, that's why cooks prefer copper and then SS pans.
I did some follow up after seeing so many comments that didn't add up to Fritz Handel/Bushbuddy. He gave an interview to Hiking in Finland. https://hikinginfinland.com/2009/11/interview-fritz-handel-from-bushbuddy.html
Mr. Handel NEVER held the patent on a double wall design And wood gasification was always public. In fact the patent to the double wall design was held by John Hall a prof at Portland State Un. Futher Mr. Handel didn't even initially own the name Bushbuddy, again Pr. Hall did. The fact is Pr. Hall let his patent go public domain, and anyone can make these types of stove.
Not sure why people keep spreading misinformation about this. Mr. Handel seems very content having more work and income, and at least during the interview was worried about hiring someone to help. He didn't seem to have a problem with others producing these types of stoves (at least Four Dogs). So if you feel guilty about buying the Solo, don't.
ChicagoWayMy understanding is he left the Bushbuddy design open source and didn't care if other people made it, and he's got more work already than he can handle. My only problem with Solo Stove is their early marketing included search keywords like "bushbuddy" and "bush buddy" etc and that's just rude, directly stealing net traffic from the guy that let you use his design. I own both and honestly they work identically. It really just comes down to, the Bushbuddy is like 30% lighter but more expensive so, do you want to pay more or carry more?