Wood Pellet Conversion for Wall Tent Stove????

[Travis Hobbs]

I was just noticing Cylinder Stoves out of Utah is offering a pellet conversion for a wall tent wood stove?

Pellet Burner Kit

The pellet burner attachment allows you to burn wood pellets as well as regular firewood. The benefits of burning pellets include; instant fuel, clean burning, virtually no smoke, no gathering firewood or cutting wood, a constant fuel supply, and consi

www.cylinderstoves.com

Anyone ever tried one????
Man that would kick ass if it works cause as it stands in 10 days I feel like I burn 4 chord of wood and a bunch of coal between my cook tent and sleep tent.

I can buy a pallet of wood pellets for nothing, manufactured just down the road at local saw mill.

I placed a call to cylinder stoves. They are claiming extremely long burn times depending on which feed setting you adjust to, easy all night operation. Said they work extremely well and easy to operate, and you can still burn wood if you choose...... However they are out over a month

I placed an order. Hopefully I get it for November hunting seasons!

 

[elkhunteralta]

Great idea but a bit pricy to add on, any idea how it feeds it into the stove? gravity feed on a slide i am guessing but if it lasted a night it would be great on the late season hunts..

 

[Travis Hobbs]

It is a bit pricey, i feel like I’m gambling as I have never heard about something like this....if I didn’t spend a month or so in my tent a year, I don’t know if I could justify it for a few daysBut.... it might be worth it if it works as stated.

I hope someone with personal experience will chime in, but as I understand it, gravity dribbles pellets into a small fire box inside the stove.

I can’t wait to get my hands on it and see how/if it works.

 

[D_shear]

We ran one we got from wall tent shop last year. They work ok but we could not get it to feed consistently to burn all night. We have a 16x14 and with temps in the low 20s to teens it was hot inside the tent. To get a consistent feed we had to leave the slide open enough that a hopper full would last about 4-6 hrs. We burned about 2 bags each night and would close the slide and shut it down each morning before we left.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

That’s awesome to hear man! I wondered if it was going to be big enough to heat my 12x14 in single digits! Could you manage the temp to a comfortable range for long periods of time? My biggest hope was consistent heat throughout the night.

Also, I have a few buddy’s with wood pellet stoves in their house, they told me brand and quality of pellet makes all the difference for them in their home units, do you remember which brand you tried by chance?

 

[D_shear]

I don’t remember the brand of pellets and for this application I don’t think it would matter. The hardest part is getting the pellets to feed consistently so maybe a brand of pellets that are a little smaller would work better. Trying to damper the feed down to get a temp that wasn’t hot was tough because it’s just a gravity feed sometimes the pellets will stick in the throat if you try to close it off too much. We even tried the rock trick on top of the pellets in the hopper it did help. I think they work ok it’s not so good where I would never burn wood again but it is nice to not have to cut and split wood.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

Appreciate it man, thanks!

 

[NDGuy]

Appreciate it man, thanks!

Any update on this thread?

 

[Travis Hobbs]

Yes!!! I meant to post about it!

The pellet stove conversion is a
game changer. I am so damn happy with it I really can’t believe these haven’t taken off and in every wall tent. But- it did have a learning curve and I made a few mistakes and learned a few things.

I’m headed to Colorado for another 7-10 days or so in the wall tent and I will try to do a better job of gathering some pictures of it in action and the parts that need attention.

For now, I’ll try to explain.

I ordered it, and was told I would not receive it for at least 30 days. Much to my surprise I had it in 10! That was awesome! I ordered the entire kit and a replacement stove (I needed an additional stove for an extra tent)

It took a bit of time to get assembly figured out in the dark at camp, but I got it put together and had it ready fairly quickly. It’s unbelievably simple once you grasp the concept. It can easily be added to any stove with a cutting wheel and drill.

The first thing I read (I usually never read anything ) was they recommended trying multiple different pellet brands. This turned out to be very important and saved the day. On my way to camp, I grabbed some pellets from the local sawmill, RED E FUEL brand pellets, and from my local ACE Hardware, LIGNETICS brand pellets. At the time, I thought that seemed dumb, how different can they be.

The stove was ready and I filled up the hopper with the Red-E brand pellet and started it. Man was I pissed, What a damn disappointment. It really struggled to keep going, would ignite, then die. I kept making adjustments. I would get it going, then it would die. After a few hours, I gave up, shut off the pellet feeder and loaded the stove with wood and went to bed thinking I had wasted 300 bucks.

The next night, I tried again as soon as I got back to camp, same redE pellets, it fired up, acted like it was going to burn, then died. In my attempt to make adjustments and wondering if my hopper was plugged I ended up dumping a full hopper of pellets on the ground. Best mistake I ever made. I cleaned everything up, noticed a lot of cresote and ash build up. It had barely ran. I wasn’t happy.

After a good cleaning I decided I’d try the LIGNETIC brand pellets. Holy shit what a difference. I had my 12x14 tent around 80 degrees in 30 minutes. The thing ran flawlessly, all night. I did have to battle air adjustments to figure out proper temp, but it was quite awesome to have 8+ hours of constant heat

I believe I now have 12 nights running all pellets. It’s AWESOME and I’m done cutting firewood for camp.

Couple things I have learned, as the night goes on, ash does build up. It needs cleaning every night or at least every other night. Very simple though takes minutes.

RedE fuel pellets suck. I ended up trying an additional 2 bags, they were better but stove would be out in 4-5 hours. Never could get them to burn all night, the ash and cresote was unreal.

I think a good hardwood pellet might even be better than the lignetic pellets, But they did great!

Wind does effects burn rate. It can really make it burn, increasing temp inside tent, or if it stops, makes it burn slower and slightly colder. In the particular drainage I was in, we would have a stiff breeze every night til around 11pm. This can all be addressed, and I feel like I got a good feel for the air/pellet control now.


I’ll try and remember to grab some pics and hopefully this rambling post makes sense. I am ordering another setup for my other stove.

It’s probably the best purchase for the wall tent I have made

 

[JoeDirt]

I camped next to a guy who had one this year. He loved it!

 

[D_shear]

Awesome! We will have to try lignetics in ours when we head to montana in a couple weeks. Getting it to burn all night was what we had hoped for maybe a better pellet will help!

 

[NDGuy]

It’s probably the best purchase for the wall tent I have made

How many lbs do you go through every night would you say?

 

[D_shear]

If I remember right it was like a bag and half to two bags a day. We would start it when we got back to camp and shut it off in the morning when we left.

 

[NDGuy]

If I remember right it was like a bag and half to two bags a day. We would start it when we got back to camp and shut it off in the morning when we left.

How many lbs though? I usually buy in 20lb bags for my Pitboss.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

How many lbs do you go through every night would you say?

I would usually arrive back at camp sometime around 7:30pm and immediately start it, I usually shut it off around 5am.

30 lbs a night is what I averaged or 3/4 of a bag. Typically I would get the stove ripping and warm the tent, then I would close feed down to keep tent around 60 degrees.

Towards end of hunt, temps were down in low teens. I was running it a little harder and was having to turn it back up around 1am.

One super windy, cold night I burned close to full bag.

The other thing I did notice and failed to mention. Make sure when you buy pellets they are kept inside or covered at place of purchase. I bought some after a snow storm, noticed bags were exposed, wet and pellets had soaked water (they were outside on a pallet) I’m guessing even a slight increase in moisture content can be devastating to the pellet burn quality.

The “bags” the pellets come in are super low quality. I think it would be a really good idea to have a tote, some buckets or a good way to keep pellets dry during transport and ensure they do not get wet while your hunting. In fact I think that would be the biggest down fall of the pellets.

Also, I found out Tractor Supply also carries Lignetic Brand Pellets (even a little cheaper)

The good news, and another thing I wanted to mention, the pellet adapter can be turned off in seconds and you can go back to burning wood like normal.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

Awesome! We will have to try lignetics in ours when we head to montana in a couple weeks. Getting it to burn all night was what we had hoped for maybe a better pellet will help!

Man it was shocking to see the difference. I would have never guessed it could make a difference like that.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

I camped next to a guy who had one this year. He loved it!

That’s awesome. I wish I would have found out about them sooner. They seem relatively unknown it amazes me! Had he been using it long?

 

[Bubblehide]

Riley of Riley stove company has had them for a few decades. I am guessing his patent ran out and now there is competition.

 

[Lwilliams]

I’ve been running one of these for 4 years now. The original design worked ok but as others have indicated there are issues adjusting the feed rate so as not to be to hot or to cold. I made a sealed stove and welded in a modified feed ramp into mine and now I can keep my 12x17 tent anywhere from 58-90 degrees depending on which daughter decides to move the slider. The keg is my pellet stove and is stainless steel.

 

[JoeDirt]

That’s awesome. I wish I would have found out about them sooner. They seem relatively unknown it amazes me! Had he been using it long?

Yeah he had 18 bags of pellets ran through it. Never cleaned it and there was hardly any ash. Its easy to remove and burn wood if needed (on his stove)

I never noticed any smoke coming from his chimney either.