This post is about getting useful tent stove light from a hot burning tent stove. Can it provide useful light to illuminate a tent while primarily providing heat keeping winter bodies warm and cooking and snow melting?
While well-directed LED lighting will always win out as the most efficient lighting for ultralight tent camping, supplementary lighting from the tent stove would still be charming for those that appreciate natural things.
Maybe the charm or utility of the tent stove light does not move you. However, if it works, it will provide a rare window into the heart of the intense combustion process within an inverted J-burner quasi gasifier stove. It will provide a rare opportunity for inquisitive minds to easily observe, understand and manage this wonderful and efficient combustion process.
A little ode for those who love and appreciate the wonderful gift of fire;
Is it a tiny gas stove or just a fire?
Does wood burn in temperatures higher?
No, it’s not the wood if it’s understood,
It’s the gas that burns in a quasi gasifier.
Introduction
I have posted on an experimental ceramic stick burner. The device was an experimental bench device that was in no way suitable for ultralight backpacking. However, the design and factors explored in the test were in my mind clearly investigating issues that could inform good ultralight wood burner designs.
One experiment examined the provision of light from a wood fire. While the experiment could provide a gas lantern quality incandescent light, it was pointing toward the ground and was not a practical backpack worthy device.
“Breaking the fused quartz lamp glass was a constant worry even on a test bench at home.”
Glass metal incompatibility during heat cycling.
The breakages were not as maybe expected caused by shock contacts with other objects or dropping onto concrete or rocks. The breakages were caused by the immense crushing forces caused by differential expansion and contraction of the surrounding stainless steel or titanium burner components as they heated and allowed the glass to ‘reposition’ and then cool and contract to crush the glass.
This is because these two wonderful metals for ultralight stove making perversely have coefficients of thermal expansion that are as about as bad as it gets.
Me
At the same time, the fused quartz glass is THE most fire compatible glass made by man (or nature). It conversely and perversely has virtually no thermal expansion at all. “This is why it can be heated to red hot and dropped into a bucket of cold water with no harm done.”
[Add photo of a shoebox of broken glasses that have been ‘crushed to death’ by a pathetically thin welded bands of stainless steel or titanium foil. “If nothing else it is testimony to the tensile strength of the foil and the shear strength of the welds”]
Carbon deposits on lighting glass.
On many of my other stoves, carbon deposits on the inside of the light glass was a constant problem. It would slowly build up and block the light. It was difficult to get the glass up to a high enough temperature to burn the carbon off.
My recently developed KISS Stove with an inverted J-burner gets very hot.“It is my hottest stove in a very long family line of very hot stove.” I have noticed that bright light leaks out through even a tiny hole in the fire dome.
Also, the same stove, gets so hot that carbon does not deposit on the fire dome surface. So, maybe this new stove is hot enough to keep a glass ‘window’ free of carbon?
A renewed hope for tent stove light
The above observations inspired me to investigate a some options to get ‘light from fire’ once more.
Fine holes?
Could an array of fine holes in the fire dome allow a useful tent stove light emission without admitting too much extra air? Maybe the array could be in the shape of the Milkyway or your name?
An array of larger holes sealed with translucent silicate?
Could the holes be bigger and be ‘sealed’ with translucent sodium silicate?
No, this did not work, as the clear silicate glass went opaque when at the stove operating temperature.
‘Portholes’ covered with a glass sheet?
Could a porthole cut in the fire dome wall be covered with thin glass and held in place with flexible sodium silicate refractory polymer?
I cut 20mm dia ‘porthole’ in the fire dome wall. Then I ‘glued’ thin square glass plate in place within the fire dome using my DIY flexible refractory adhesive- Render A.
A clip on window
I have already managed to break one window by being an impatient klutz with the curing of the silicate. Consequently, a I thought that a clip-on window may be worth trying. It would be a bit less elegant but will lessen the frustration of breakages as the replacement after breakage would be easy.
The window worked for some time and did not get blackened with carbon deposits. However, it eventually cracked. I collage of video recordings before it broke are shown below. I think if this type of window is to be used it would need to be made of fused quartz glass (which is not easy to obtain).
[Add video of window light]
Tim
