Posted on 11/05/2012 5:04:58 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Whether you’re a prepper or an outdoor enthusiast who likes to get away from the modern world for days at a time, you know that there are still a pesky few electronic devices that you would like to keep charged even when a power source is miles away.
There are several options like solar panels and hand cranks for providing off-grid power; but often — for preppers and backpackers alike — space is a major concern when already packing a heft of gear.
A new camp stove design by a company called BioLite, however, can help you keep your pack light and still let you charge your cellphones and other small electronics by converting the cooking heat to electricity.
The $130 unit uses a small fan to keep a wood fire going in the compact 8.25-by-5-inch wide camp stove. The stove then steals energy away from the burning wood and converts it to power compatible with a USB plug with the help of a tiny thermoelectric generator. Though some reviews of the product complain that the small size of the stove requires constant addition of biomass to fuel the fire, the company claims the powerful unit can boil a pot of water in just less than five minutes.
PING!
Maybe we can do the same thing with cars and trains. Planes even!
They are great ,, I made one in boy scouts around 1970... a coffee can , a soup can , a wire hanger (for a handle) and a pair of tin snips ..
It is not even necessary to have a stove at all.
All you need to do is dig a small trench in the ground. About 18” long and maybe 8” deep and 6” wide. Put a steel grate over it and use pieces of wood to build a fire in the pit.
After it burns down a bit just do your cooking on the grate. If you have a pan, it is not necessary to burn the wood down too much.
If you are cooking directly on the grate, let the fire burn down to coals before putting the grate down.
I have done this while camping in the woods and it works about as well as anything.
Cooking over coals works best with cast iron cookware.
I sometimes fry eggs for breakfast by placing a cast iron fry pan right on the coals of my BBQ.
(Of course, cast iron would not be the best to carry for anyone backpacking)
I used to cook c-rats and mre’s on my jeep exhaust manifold. That’s pretty close to this.
Cool. Where do you plug in the USB?
I take the foil from a pack of gum and make a solar stove using the rays of the sun to heat my food. Cheap, light and easy to carry out. On cloudy days, I drive over to the Kentucky Fried Chicken and get a bucket of extra crispy. I can usually find at least one cloud in the sky.
Good chuckle!
Dig 4 trenches... N,S, E and W that way no matter which way the wind is blowing you are covered... oh and have a Rock to cover your trench and a couple more to hold your pot (to make it like a rocket stove)
Seriously we did this in Boy Scouts... it was an Indian thing we learned (not a Rocket Stove, but close) pretty basic prairie camping and very efficient... (we didn’t have access to the buffalo droppings for fuel, cowpies and grass is all we had to work with)
TT
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