nCamp Stove – Kickstarter
A 15oz Backpackers Dream: the nCamp Stove is a compact wood-burning stove that lets you to leave canned fuel at home!
The nCamp Stove is a new creation from Dan Cuffaro who’s an industrial designer and educator he’s created the nCamp stove because he identified these issues problems relating to food preparation camping equipment, which the nCamp Stove solves:
- The risk of running out of fuel or weight/bulk associated with canned fuel stoves – the fuel for this stove is readily available in forests –sticks, twigs and other combustible material.
- Current wood burning stoves are bulky because of the nature of a combustion chamber – this stove is compact and easy to store because it has a collapsible combustion chamber.
- Packaging/trash associated with canned fuel – the fuel for this stove is available in nature and there is no packaging-related waste.
- Canned fuel stoves use fuel that is derived from fossils – the fuel for this stove is renewable.
- Lack of a cooking surface to set utensils – this stove has a cooking surface.
Dan says that he focused on using wood from the forest as fuel. Wood is typically a readily available source of combustible material and existing wood-burning camp stoves are bulky because of the nature of a combustion chamber. I examined methods for reducing this bulk, and experimented with a collapsible chamber.
I developed a series of prototypes; The first example for students was a miniature prototype with a collapsing chamber represented by a plastic camping cup. Next, I began to experiment with foam core models to evaluate size and proportion. Eventually, I developed works-like and looks-like models.
With the help of my friend and colleague Haishan Deng, the project moved from concept to pre-production prototypes.
The final patent pending design for the nCamp Stove burns sticks and twigs and can also use liquid or solid fuel, such as diethylene glycol or fuel cubes.
It is compact —about the size of a medium-size paperback book. The work surface allows one to rest cooking utensils or cookware. It is made of aluminum and stainless steel and is durable, stable and lightweight.
Ashes can be clean out by inverting and shaking when cool. The storage bag keeps residue contained until it is time to thoroughly clean.
Specifications:
Width – 9 inches (22.86 cm)
Depth – 6.5 inches (16.5 cm)
Height (closed) – 1.5 inches (3.8 cm)
Height (open) – 6.3 inches (16 cm)
Weight – 15 ounces (.42 kg)
Dan points out that this is a concept that he’s trying to get off the ground via Kickstarter, if you like the look of the nCamp Stove it might be worth a closer look