Yes, I'm sure that there's a lot of wasted heat. That's why I made Weaverbird's cooker by mounting a Maxie burner under a saute pan with a large hole in its bottom.

I've ordered a non-return valve and an inline ball valve that I'll put as close to the burner as possible, to stop the surging and to give better control over the fuel flow. 

And I suspect that this burner might work as well with a gravity feed tank (rather than the low pressure tank) as does the Maxie, so that's another experiment to try.

I wrote:

Arne wrote:

Chinese alcohol burner

David Ty. points us to a Chinese (low-)pressurised alcohol stove. This made me curious.

After having played around with the (single) burner’s data, and with my calculator, it appears to be quite good, and faster than my, now slightly de-tuned Origo’s numbers (5:44min to boil 0.5 litre of water)

However, I think the maker’s claim that it boils 1.6l in 5 minutes, with a fuel consumption of only 200ml/h is a bit over the top. That would call for burner-kettle efficiency of 79%.
I look forward to read David’s report when he has tested that thing, both at highest and lowest power setting.

Arne

I now have an estimated delivery date of 29th August, so I'd better order some bioethanol.

I ordered the cooker on 15th August, and the package arrived today, 23rd - not bad for delivery time, then. The quality of construction seems to be extremely good.

I lost no time in putting in 1 litre of 96.6% bioethanol and making a quick cup of tea. Lighting is much the same as with the Maxie burner: let some fuel flow into the burner, turn off, light it, and then wait until the priming fuel is almost gone before turning on again.

And I mean quick: a 16cm stainless steel pan, about the smallest diameter that will fit on this 3-head burner, containing 0.5litres of water at room temperature, came to a rapid boil in 2:50 minutes at full power.  The flame was bit yellow at full power with no pan on, but clean when the pan went on. However, when I tried to turn down to a simmer, the flame went very yellow. I wonder if I should add some water to the fuel.

Controllability is quite good, but there is some surging; I think this is because the tube from tank to burner is 1 metre long. A shorter tube, or perhaps a needle valve in line and close to the burner should improve this. In fact, I think this tank is large enough to supply two burners, and a T-junction and then two needle valves might be a way to arrange this. The pan supports are very strongly made from CNC cut stainless steel, and they could easily be screwed down onto a counter top. A circular fiddle rail of metal strip (diameter from 16cm up to 24cm) could be bolted to them, and then you have a workable boat cooker. I'm quite impressed.

My lightweight camping pan, at 11.5cm diameter, is too small for the pan supports, and the 1-head burner might be a better option for a small single hander's boat with small diameter cookware. This 3-head burner should work well with 20cm - 22cm pans, though.

Update: it took 50gms of ethanol to boil 1 litre of water in 6 minutes, in the same pan.

My 20cm stainless steel pressure cooker, containing 1 litre of water, took about 10minutes to come to pressure, but I couldn't get the flame to turn down low enough to just maintain pressure without going yellow. More research needed there.

Update 2: On my induction hob, on the 1000W setting, a litre of water in the same pan took a little over 7 minutes to boil. So I think that this burner at full power is putting out somewhere around 1200W. 

It's probably only a question of time. Until then, if I can help you and other members out, I'd be happy to buy Oriondo/Origo parts locally and send them in the mail. I happen to live 300m from a ship chandler.

Apparently somebody makes a copy of Origo called Oriondo now. The official website also sells spare parts, and it does mention that its tank is compatible with the old Origo 1500-3000 and 6000 models. The price is about the same as the Dometic tank.

The website is only in Swedish though, and they don't seem to ship abroad. Maybe there are (or will be) resellers in other countries?

Website in Swedish

Website translated to English (Google Translate)

Asmat wrote:

I've noticed there's a Kenyon 2 burner alcohol cooker, fitted with gimbals and fiddles, described as for parts or not working, on ebay UK. These have a pumped fuel tank, so might be interesting for those with a sense of adventure. The reviews I found on American forums are not very encouraging.

I'd have been more than happy to use them: most of the issues that people had with this sort of cooker was exactly the same as people have with paraffin, essentially a lack of patience and a reluctance to learn how to use them properly.  I bought one for SibLim when I was building, but unfortunately could find no source of spare parts, so it would only have been a temporary arrangement.