Canister Stove Maintenance

[Brien]

After reading this thread I'm going to start carrying an extra o-ring.

[robow8]

After reading this thread I'm going to start carrying an extra o-ring.

I have a MSR Micro Rocket. After I bought it I tried to find maintenance info online without much success. So I emailed MSR and asked them and asked them about spare o rings, as that looked like the only thing that could fail. They sent me some extras and a small tube of mineral oil to lubricate the o ring.

Thanks for the info everyone!

[hikin_jim]

The symptoms were a little weird. With a newer canister it would work flawlessly. But once the canister got down to about 1/4 full the stove would simply stop working at all. It was either 100% or zero. I tried cleaning it and got nowhere. I figured there was something deep inside the valve that got gummed up with that fine dirt somehow.

A little weird? That's downright odd. I assume you ruled out canister cooling from within and the subsequent pressure drop (I mean you know too much about this subject to get tripped on that).

I'm at a loss to think of circumstances to explain the 1/4 tank issue. Cooling could cause that, particularly with 100% butane which is what puncture type canisters were back in the day, but warm up the stove a bit, and it should roar again with the same canister.

If you used CV206 cartridges, there could be some problem with the "valve" if you had later model canisters. The valve was a little plastic flap that would (hopefully) spring back into place if the canister were removed from the stove. Not sure I'd want to try that.

HJ

[longri]

A little weird? That's downright odd. I assume you ruled out canister cooling from within and the subsequent pressure drop (I mean you know too much about this subject to get tripped on that).

I'm at a loss to think of circumstances to explain the 1/4 tank issue. Cooling could cause that, particularly with 100% butane which is what puncture type canisters were back in the day, but warm up the stove a bit, and it should roar again with the same canister.

If you used CV206 cartridges, there could be some problem with the "valve" if you had later model canisters. The valve was a little plastic flap that would (hopefully) spring back into place if the canister were removed from the stove. Not sure I'd want to try that.

What happened to this forum since the last time I visited??

Jim, I have no idea what exactly was going on inside the thing but I'm pretty sure it was strictly a question of the pressure, a cut-off level where it acted like the valve was closed. The stove used the bayonet propane/butane Campingaz canisters, not the old puncture type.