Everspace 2

Everspace 2

I liked the first Everspace. I would go as far as to say that it could be closest to modern Elite. This is because I think Elite ought to be seen as a fun 3D action RPG game and not a serious space simulator.

The sequel, Everspace 2, has a more open universe than the linear, path selection system in the original. At least relatively. I'll be very clear, you won't be able to fly seamlessly through space, orbits and planetary atmospheres and admire a clockwork universe from different angles like in Elite: Dangerous or even Frontier. Neither are you going to be building installations like in No Man's Sky. And it might just be all for the better.

To put it in classic RPG terms, the hyperspace would be the World Map, but with optional rather than mandatory encounters. The player can travel between different locations in the hyperspace, either by navigating the semi-2D "plane" or by leaving it to the autopilot.

Locations such as planetary orbits or surface sites are more like towns or dungeons, with dangerous opponents, shops and loot. You can only properly exit such a location via a hyperspace jump.

Zooming in on the system maps.

There's also a very linear story, and you won't get to define your character. You still play the clone persona from the first game, Adam Roslin (groan), but this premise is not used for infinite lives. So the play has ceased to be a "rogue-like in space".

It's not necessary to follow the story all the time, you can go exploring the ubiquitous asteroid fields and wrecks, pick up alternate missions or jobs, buy and sell cargo, shoot outlaws and so on. As the universe opens up little by little, you can visit more locations of your choice. 

At the beginning I tried to avoid any additional missions, as I pursued the main storyline aggressively. Later, this begins to backfire as the player and equipment level is not equal to the tasks set in the missions.

Similarly, I've become so bored with crafting in games I avoided this side for the longest time. Fortunately, there's no need for a boring grind, as it's possible to take up on the various earlier missions at a later stage. Truth be told quite a lot of extra missions need to be taken up to stay ahead of the curve. The crafting is not a huge chore really. 

Just like everything, planet surfaces are limited area locations.

Only about after 8 hours I started to feel confident I would go through with the main quest. And this was mostly because I already had familiarity with the Everspace ship controls. You can/need glide, yaw, pitch, roll, elevate, descend, boost, cruise... swap between two primary and two secondary weapon systems.

And it took even more time before I understood I can craft the components needed for updating the Perks, and that I can also modify and improve the weapons and ship sub-systems. So I don't have to wait for a suitably leveled item to arrive randomly.

I had become accustomed in using the two warfare systems, EMP and Boost, to help fight my battles, so I forgot there's half a dozen other such systems. Granted, most of them are not as generally useful.

The EMP shuts down most of the enemy ships in near range for a little while, whereas Boost allows the player to escape the skirmish to the other side of the playfield. In some situations the enemies can be "jousted" one by one using this technique repeatedly, a way to kill foes above your paygrade. 

One of the tinkering screens.

And I'd completely ignored the ULT panic weapon system which activates from the "g" key.

It's possible that as now more battles are story-embedded set pieces, they aren't always as fun as in Everspace 1. It does become better as the ship becomes more capable and there are more things to experiment in in combat. The clever action RPG curve ensures the ship becomes gradually more and more "playable", and this is what keeps the player hooked.

So, ultimately, Everspace 2 is a better game than the original in all respects. The more open universe is a good idea and a great improvement over the first game. The size and scale has been well considered, as all locations have a name and some personality. A game like this doesn't need millions of procedurally generated star systems.

The hyperspace journey offers opt-ins for unknown events, distress calls and so on. Turn off the autopilot, choose the location and turn the autopilot on again. This could be seen as a tiny nod to the alternate routes in Everspace 1, and makes those boring hyperspace journeys more exciting.

An alternate ship type, out of many. I stuck with the default.

The more open universe is not all perfection.

In a strange way, the original 8-bit Elite universe worked precisely because the star systems were almost featureless. It didn't really matter where your ship was. You'd just keep hyperspacing to the next promising system, or jump between two profitable systems. Everspace 1 approximated this experience.

Now you need to hop back and forth as the missions require it. Jump to the system with the Gate, make the journey through the Gate, jump to the mission system(s)... add to this a mission structure where you set out to do a thing, it requires another thing or a favour, and then it all cascades back and in the worst case you need to do all the jump backwards to get your reward.

But Everspace 2 has a few tricks up its sleeve, and just about when you start to get really pissed by all the jumping around, shortcuts arrive.

A cockpit view is possible, but not very practical.

I considered delaying this blog post until I've completed the game, but after 45+ hours I have to say it is still some ways off. The first game took 60 hours from me after all. I'll just add to this post if something important happens.

The working of Proton/Steam on Linux can be taken nearly granted these days, so there's little point in describing whether the game works in the environment or not. At least I never experienced a crash or any dodgy behaviour, with sessions ranging from 30 minutes to about 2 hours.

Everspace 2 gives the option to use either Directx 11 or 12, I'm not sure but 12 might have been a little more laggy for the mouse input. The good old 1660Ti performed well enough in 1920x1200x60hz.

Everspace 2 on RTX 4060

However, I switched over to an RTX 4060 GPU. I had some positive experiences with Control so I wondered whether Everspace 2 could look any different?

The short answer is no. Of course the action became generally smoother, because it's a faster card.

I also felt there was no problem with DirectX 12, so I switched over there. This opened the Lumen illumination option. Lumen probably reverted to software, causing the game to drop framerate. It did change lighting just enough to be able to say it does something, but not enough to justify finding out whether it could be made to work faster.

Whether the DLSS 4.02. upscaler/frame generation does anything, is also difficult to say, at least it looked to remove vsync where it previously worked. 

Locations like these tend to hit the framerate.

FSR 3.1.3 just appeared to slow down.

XeSS 1.3.1 interestingly enough was smooth, and with balance on "performance" it introduced some visual artefacts, more apparent in motion. It is some kind of upscaling, but anything that's static or predictable appears in the native resolution without any artefacts, so I'm not exactly sure what the heuristics are. To me it looks better than using a directly scaled lower resolution.

Any frame generation is unlikely to help much as the display is limited to 60hz.

HDMI2AV, AV2HDMI

One of these cheap MINI boxes promise to convert a HDMI signal to a good ol' Composite Video, and the other box promises to do it the other way. I'll mostly discuss the HDMI2AV box, which gives Composite out.

I put the HDMI2AV to work with the Commodore 1084S. The picture failed miserably, and it looked as if nothing could be done. I was not in the mood to begin troubleshooting it, so I let it be for a while.

Simple perspective correction makes the monitor look more bubbly than it is

Marq got a working one (in Finnish) so we tried the supposedly faulty box on his setup. To my surprise it performed well, so the blame might be put at the connector, or the RCA cable could be flimsy. Although the good cable did produce a faulty image too, when prodded enough.

Again, trying the converter with the trusty old Commodore 1084S, I got a picture. After fiddling around with the Linux Mint extended display, trying out various Youtube videos and the ZX Spectrum emulator from Torinak, I wanted to try other hardware.

I just had to go through the various HDMI-equipped retro gear, starting with the Mini Amiga from Retro Games. It works nicely, and here I can also switch between 50hz and 60hz on the go. After choosing 50hz I could see no problems with scrolling and movement, it's all very smooth.

Retro Games Amiga Mini. The moiré-type pattern is from photography.

The lagginess of the Mini is tricky to prove as the bundled controller is not all that great. I doubt the video box adds any lag really. With games like Stunt Car Racer the lag can't even be perceived.

The Mini has various display settings that affect the image. When running my own disk images from the memory stick, I often had a small image in wrong ratio at the center of the screen. The three display zoom options didn't do much, this is something that needs to be set from the game-specific menu. The non-intuitive thing to do is to set the vertical crop from 200 to zero. This way the screen image can also take more space horizontally, just as the built-in games do.

The generated composite image obviously isn't comparable to a real Amiga RGB, it's more like the composite out from the TV modulator back in the day.

ZX Spectrum Next

ZX Spectrum Next did rather well at first sight, but the frequency apparently doesn't quite match. There are a bunch of TV modes to choose from, but none of them solved the tiny but perceptible, regular "nudge" in the frame rate.

With old Spectrum games this rarely matters but the newer Next software might suffer. Then again they were made for modern displays in mind. Also, the Next has real RGB and VGA outputs, so this experiment is somewhat pointless. I just need the correct cable.

Retro Games' The Spectrum only has a HDMI out, and luckily it did better in the frame stability department. The screen size, aspect ratio and scaling are a little off. Using the display adjust knobs from behind the 1084S monitor, I could get the aspect ratio closer to reality. The borders won't extend far enough. Again, depending on the game this doesn't matter too much, as the borders are often black anyway. This was a very good result.

Retro Games The Spectrum

This was the first time I needed the additional 5V power to the HDMI2AV. This is most likely because I had to use a different USB power supply, one that did not give enough juice to the HDMI, and not because of some design choice intrinsic to The Spectrum.

The HDMI-only The C64 also performed fine, although I didn't test it all that much. Scrolling looked smooth in Uridium and the like. The C64 does have some lag, but again with the bad joystick it's sometimes difficult to say.

I didn't have my memory stick at hand, so I couldn't run some of my testing favorites. The C64 palette is somewhat muted so on overall the image didn't "live" as much as with the Speccy colours.

The C64 carousel screen

Just to note, the Neo6502 board from Olimex (which I have never really discussed in my blog) did not produce an image through the HDMI2AV box.

All in all, the HDMI2AV is good for experimenting with that good old CRT feeling. If I want to nitpick, there's a persistent diagonal pattern that goes through the image. Depending on the material and colours used this can be more or less distracting. The slight "lacing" effect can also be a little off-putting. 

To be honest the composite video quality back in the day wasn't always great, it's just that the image was crap in a slightly different way. Although the box is likely most versatile when connected to a PC and the various emulators, I was perhaps most impressed with the Amiga Mini and The Spectrum, where I feel some value is added.

As for the AV2HDMI box, I've barely tried it. It would really deserve its own blog post, but I don't now have many experiments at hand.

It looks as the box can produce an adequate picture on a modern display. I didn't see missing frames or atrocious lag, but as the 60hz is the only frame rate available, it's not going to be smooth with most retro gear anyway.

There didn't seem to be a big difference between the 720p and 1080p options, if anything the 720 looked to be enough and with less resolution artefacts. Who knows, it might be faster to generate.

Jonsbo DS8 and Raspberry

Nano on Raspberry Pi

When I tried the Jonsbo DS8 8" display the first time, I only got it working on common desktop computers. The Retro Games C64, Amiga and Spectrum did not display, and neither did ZX Spectrum Next.

I was quite sure it would connect to a Raspberry Pi, and true enough, it didn't really require all that much tinkering to get a visible result.

I have a minimal Raspi SD card that only boots the terminal. This worked quite fine after setting up the screen resolution in the config.txt.

Most of my Raspberrys are tied up to some project or the other, and this one had USBs and Ethernet connectors removed (don't ask). The only keyboard I could use with it is a stripped Deltaco that connects to the said USB with jump wires.

The config.txt at the root of the Raspberry install needed editing.

These looked like the key parameters to getting the Jonsbo to show on a Raspberry Pi (3B+ in this case).

hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_timings=800 0 80 16 32 1280 0 16 4 12 0 0 0 60 0 61440000 0

display_rotate=3

hdmi_group 2 is 480p 60hz with DMT timings (Display Monitor Timings), and hdmi_mode 87 prefers the resolution we've set, so it is kind of custom mode and the 480p probably doesn't matter.

I can't vouch for all parameters on the hdmi_timings, most of them are likely remnants from a past setup, and hopefully don't have a huge significance.

Resolution is obviously in the 800 and 1280 values, and the display frequency is the 60. The last value is the aspect ratio, best left zero. The pixel (61440000) is a value from width*height*frequency, so 800x1280x60.

The hdmi_timings parameters list:

hdmi_timings=<h_active_pixels> <h_sync_polarity> <h_front_porch> <h_sync_pulse> <h_back_porch> <v_active_lines> <v_sync_polarity> <v_front_porch> <v_sync_pulse> <v_back_porch> <v_sync_offset_a> <v_sync_offset_b> <pixel_rep> <frame_rate> <interlaced> <pixel_freq> <aspect_ratio>

There's also a max_framebuffer_height parameter, it might not need to be set, but just to be sure I set it to 1280.

BMC64 on Raspberry Pi 3B+

With the above I could also get a BMC64 "baremetal" C64 emulator to run (a blogpost here), although the display might not be ideal for that. But it goes to show the display_rotate config is not problematic for such software.

Choosing different machines from the Machines list (defined in machines.txt) may change the parameters so the display is no longer visible. I had yet no luck in adding the relevant parameters under the listed machine.

Photography reveals the tear while running vtester.prg

Not saying the Pi image is yet perfect, there was a persistent tear going near-vertically to the right of the middle of the screen. I haven't seen it on when using the display on a PC/Mac, so it might be a matter of getting rest of those hdmi_timings values correct, or the Raspi doesn't do compositing. For now I don't have the patience to find out.

A strange flickering incident

I used my C64 Videotest software for looking at screen scaling and frame rate. One of the tests alters the background color between black and white for one frame each, repeatedly. This can show unevenness in the frame rate. 

It was on for a while, and after exit, to my surprise the screen kept showing a sort of flicker. Not only that, but this flickering was contained to the area where the vtest.prg had operated.

I left the BMC install aside, and went back to the Linux install on a separate SD Card. The flickering persisted. What had happened? Had the display really broken?

Turning it on and off, or even removing cables for an hour, did not heal it.

I did notice that using it as a secondary display on a desktop computer, I could see no flickering. This was already promising.

Then I went and fiddled with the config.txt in the terminal install, as it was easier to change the parameteres in nano and reboot. The pixel frequency value in hdmi_timings was 40000000, which looked arbitrary. I then looked for the formula mentioned further above, and used 61440000 instead. The flickering disappeared, or became nearly non-existent.

Just to be sure I changed the value back to 40000000, and yes, the flickering was back.

I let the display lay powered off overnight, cables removed. The next day the flickering had nearly gone even if I tried the wrong pixel frequency setting. I guess it was an analogue problem.

So, although I can safely use the display for my computer and probably for Raspberry too, the fact remains that something changed. I doubt a display should freak out from simply flickering colours. One vague idea might be that as the config values were wrong to begin with, these helped make the display somehow more susceptible to problems. 

Control Ultimate Edition

The images are scaled from 1920 wide to 1600

I originally played Control through on the Geforce streaming service a few years back (2022 apparently), having the product on Epic account. Later I bought the Control Ultimate Edition on Steam so I could play it more easily on Linux through the Proton compatibility layer.

That streaming service did introduce some lag, which in hindsight was quite a bad thing, given the hectic combat and the necessity to "play piano" while fiddling around with the mouse. So, I had been looking at an opportunity to enter the world of Control again.

You are Jesse Faden, who has just entered the building called the Oldest House in New York, occupied by an institution called the FBC. Soon you learn Jessie is looking for her brother who disappeared a long ago, and that the building is under a lockdown due to a parasitic paranormal infestation. And there's some kind of entity in Jessie's head telling what to do, reminiscent of Chocky from that 1984 TV show. Off you go. 

Descending

Completion took about 8 to 9 hours, in part because I had some idea where not to waste time. For example, I felt no need to actually read or listen to the multitudes of media scattered around the Oldest House. Just collecting them would be enough. During the first play I thought they might yield necessary clues, but they are mostly just world building.

First time around I also wasted time wandering around in the office environments, trying to find locations and openings. Maybe I also thought this was a good way to grind. Now I just used the Fast Travel whenever possible. The iconic office environments had a far smaller role than I remembered as the story proceeded in a faster pace. To improve the character it's much more effective to complete the minor, optional missions.

I also decided not to spread the ability points evenly, but to concentrate on health, energy and launch, prioritising launch damage. (Launch is the "force" style ability for throwing items and pieces of rock at the enemy). I ignored melee completely. I also chose not to develop all weapons, but only upgrade Grip, then develop and upgrade the Pierce weapon as I recalled it as kind of "sniper rifle" in this game. In addition, a 40% energy recovery mod fairly early on made things easier. 

The ability planning screen

I had also forgotten a lot, such as the Seize ability, which I acquired only after completion. Some of the boss battles that I expected to be tough from previous experience, were sometimes surprisingly easy.

Control builds up nicely in complexity, in the beginning you barely need to do much else except move, jump, sprint and fire the weapon. Each of the objects of power add a gameplay mechanic and usually a key that activates the mechanic. After acquiring you are whisked to the astral plane to solve a mini-mission requiring that mechanic. Basically this is a tutorial masquerading as main content. Clever.

Early on the Launch ability is added and generally the combat requires the player to juggle between the weapon and the launch, using one when the other is regenerating. Add to this the Dodge ability, and there's already quite a few keys to operate. Personally, I couldn't play this on a controller because mouse aiming feels better for me.

More secrets uncovered

There's a bunch of David Lynch/Stanley Kubrick/Stephen King sensibilities dropped here and there, and to an extent this recipe is a little off-putting at first because much of it is so familiar already to me. Perhaps it's a part of the shared cultural education of a generation of Finns from a particular background. Add to this the Martti Suosalo character whose Finnicisms either make a Finn yip in delight, or cringe.

I tend to appreciate Control more for its ludology than narrative content, but I have to admit even the story setting is quite ambitious and restrained compared to the usual action adventure BS we see even in huge games. Contrary to many games, Control saves some of its best bits towards the end. (Looking at you The Ashtray Maze) I also have to like the idea that typical game mechanics and idiosyncrasies have an in-world reason because of the the paranormal setting.

If I still find energy to play Control, I'll be looking at the rest of the missions and the DLCs, AWE and Foundation.

The trusty old 1660TI GPU did well in 60hz at 1920x1200 resolution. It's not silky smooth in all occasions but quite enough for me and more impressive than that Geforce streaming solution. It was now far clearer to spot that the various overlaid "psychedelic" effects and other content were lower resolution videos and not rendered with the engine.

Jonsbo DS8 impressions

I got a tip about this mini 8 inch display, it was cheap enough (50€-ish) to just try if I could find uses for it.

On arrival it looked quite good. Sure, the "stand" is just two hexagonal risers that connect poorly to the holes, but otherwise the physical appearance is good.

The display is intended to live together with a specific kind of PC case, the idea is to show system monitoring and temperature levels in a grand way. This also means it has no rounded corners or other faux ergonomic details, and I really like that.

Well, it's better than having not thought this at all

There's some space behind the panel, and it might fit a small Pi or something, but the cable connectors are there anyway and the cables will take most of that space.

Connection with the miniHDMI to HDMI posed no problem and the device showed as a second display on Linux Mint with no problems. The same goes with the Apple Mac from 2019. And the Windows HP Prodesk.

The viewing angles are good, surely it is best viewed from straight on but there's no nasty colour distortion when viewed from an angle.

The backside, the connectors are at the middle.

The 1280x800 resolution is actually 800x1280 according to xrandr, no surprise as the desktop was in vertical orientation when initially connected. There are no other resolutions available. 800 is already a lot more than 720, so many app windows fit quite fine.

Using ddcutil shows "Invalid display" and "DDC communication failed", so there's no hope in getting more information through that route. It does say it's manufactured in 2022, week 43 (if this data is true, that is).

Only three buttons for brightness and shutting the backlight, there's no menu.

The refresh rate is 60hz, and as the display likely does not adapt to 50hz I have little hope of using it in any proper retro/emulation context.

But there's a bunch of gear that could work with 60hz. How about them?

Retro Games' The Spectrum: Black screen. I did a factory reset on The Spectrum and tried again, no effect. Did a factory reset, explicitly chose 60hz, after which I reconnected to the 8 inch display. I can only refer to Nope N. Nopester, it did not work.

Likewise with Retro Games' Amiga Mini, no luck. There's a pattern here so I'm not going to dig up The C64 just to see it not working on this display.

22th of August 2025: Olimex Neo6502 board: black screen.

31st of August 2025: ZX Spectrum Next: black screen (both 50 and 60hz modes)

I can run an emulator on the second screen...

The Raspberry Pi 400 has a micro-HDMI connector, and I don't have the adapters to connect it to this display, which has mini-HDMI.

A conventional Raspberry Pi did not produce an image straightaway. There's so many ways to configure a Raspberry, so I don't think this is the definitive outcome. A topic for the future. 

(Edit 19th of August 2025: I got the Pi to show a screen easily, but due to circumstances I can't yet test anything interesting.)

Last and the least, Samsung Dex. I stick the USB-C to HDMI adapter in, the phone says Dex is enabled, but nothing is shown on the display. All right.

So, it appears that without deeper tinkering I've only been able to connect the Jonsbo DS8 to a normal desktop computer. I didn't expect this display to be highly versatile, but I have to say it's a little disappointing.

Still, it may prove to be useful as a 2nd display, or as a temporary display for the loose computers I have around.

...or Steam games at 1280x800, 60hz

Vammala Party 2025

The compos are on

The traditional summer event, Vammala Party, took place in Ikaalinen in mid-July. Part demoparty, part gaming event, all chaos.

The heatwave was unforgiving. Visiting Budapest earlier in the summer in 35+ degrees heat had hardened me somewhat, but the nights were still relentless.

This was the first time ever I had a full-size colour CRT at a party, but after going through the essentials (Rambo, Blue Max, Saboteur, Buggy Boy, Stunt Car Racer, Snoopy) it didn't serve much of a purpose, except perhaps adding one more SID wail to the party soundscape. Without a card reader I couldn't even transfer programs from the Linux to the C64.

The obligatory "fire up Rambo" session

A variety of activities can be crammed into an extended weekend. I actually have to think a little of where and how I spend time. As I can't currently concentrate much on coding or playing games at home, I wanted to make sure there's enough such entertainment at the party place.

Also, I've not been able to do much creative coding lately. I heard a rumor the democompo had less entries. As the opportunity now presented itself, I took it. I created a filler entry from nearly nothing using Processing/Java.

For audio, I used Suno-generated AI songs. For this reason I used a pseudonym "Dr. Errorz", surely no-one will ever associate it with me. I cut audio from two separate AI outputs, so some human sensibility was used. It didn't take many hours to do. It didn't finish last, which was positive.

A frame from Mega_Amiga_Boing_Filler

Making the minimal demo wasn't particularly stressing, as I had set the bar extremely low for code quality. Instead, trying to get audio to work and generating the video output turned out to be a chore, as the Movie Maker in Processing 4 didn't work.

The solution involved ffmpeg from the command line and Kdenlive. Instead of delving deeper into ffmpeg, I used Kdenlive for combining the video and audio, because I already knew it would work. Time optimization. Even then, using Kdenlive on a low resolution screen was a little confusing, as the UI didn't fit properly.

MSX Juhannus, for MSX. 256x192

For the graphics compo I had already an MSX bitmap, but I continued working on it on-site. A landscape is a rarity for me, but there's a reason for the choice. It's sort of a commissioned work. But the production it belonged to, did not materialize at this party. We'll see.

I made a PETSCII on location, as is almost the tradition.

I'd say neither gfx were my best work, but they did land me the 2nd and 3rd place in a competition that had perhaps more serious entries than I can ever remember.

Overall there was quite good attendance and good entries for all compos. Is Vammala Party becoming a more serious demoscene event?

Stunt Car PETSCII

I made a hasty entry into the Tuplain (audio-video combination) compo, and surprisingly it got the 2nd place. Both times this has happened, I lost to Marq. Curse you Red Baron!

The camping stove hobby was also present at the party. Well, it's another hardware to play with. At times it felt silly to boil water at the yard as a kitchen was available, but this way I got some peace and variety to the activities.

I used the combination of the Outzone burner and the Trangia coffee pot, although there were other pots too.

Morning coffee

From the fleamarket table I did buy a couple of things, a SiDi FPGA multicore and a real crappy joystick. Oh and Deactivators for ZX Spectrum. I'll get back to these later.

Vammala Party 2025 at Demozoo

Trangia, Primus and other explorations

A potpourri of camp stove-related things.

Trangia Coffee Pot 27

I felt a sudden urge to have the Trangia coffee pot for the 27 set. For completeness sake.

It's really tiny, for 0.6 liters. It's quick and simple to make water for a cup of coffee. I guess I'm disappointed with the Stormberg kettle set I mentioned earlier. It's too big for my purposes.

Playing with Furno stove and Trangia kettle

Although the pot fits snugly inside the Trangia kit, you can't really carry much inside it, and this also means the Trangia handle. A small camping gas cartridge goes through the opening, but the lid won't fit. 

The Trangia alcohol stove would fit in, but as the pot is best reserved for boiling water, I wouldn't risk dirtying the insides of the pot, as it takes more work to clean than the ordinary pots.

But I don't actually need to take the coffee pot with the Trangia full set. It could do well alone with bag-foods and then for some coffee/tea/cocoa afterwards. No need for Trangia handle either.

I did try some instant coffee, but it would also need milk powder. Vile stuff.

The lid is loose enough to drop off, which was easy to fix by bending the edges a little.

Trangia Duossal 27

One time I boiled eggs with the aluminum pot, which resulted in an annoying colorisation in the metal. Although unrelated, it reminded me of potential dangers of having the aluminum seep into the food.

Early 2025

As camping gear is not used very often, the ingested amounts would be meaningless. But as the Trangia has become my go-to pot for any burner, I wanted to make sure.

With the Duossal pots, the outer layer is aluminum, while the inner layer is steel. The outer shell ensures the heat gets distributed well, while steel... it's not aluminum.

It's more sturdy, heavier than an aluminum pot (145g vs 80g) and just as easy to cook with. No food has got stuck so far.

Duossal 27, pictured with the Primus Mimer mod

Primus Mimer mod

This is a wind screen modification for the Mimer stove. I've been thinking and discussing this move for a while, and it was high time to do at least something about it.

I rolled out some metal mounting tape (hole tape). Then I used a hacksaw to make four notches so it would stick better to the Mimer wings. Other than that, there's nothing that keeps it in place.

Had I been more lucky, tightening the bolt could have helped tighten the ring too, but the holes did not align that way.

I considered attaching the protection to the inner orbit, which would have been smaller and looked neater. But it would be quite close to the burner and I don't want to obstruct the flame itself. The Mimer flame should stay wide.

The circumference is rather large

Trying it out, I could hear additional sounds from the metal expanding and contracting, which isn't super pleasing but shouldn't indicate disaster.

As the Mimer should work well enough during summer, there's probably not much to say about the mod. Time will tell if it will work as a wind screen at all.

Fuel transfer device

A fuel flipper. This device goes between two gas cartridges. A temperature difference ensures the gas flows from the top cartridge (hot, donor) to the bottom cartridge (cold, receiver).

Why? It's suggested the remains of near-empty canisters could be combined. But I'd argue against this use, unless they are exactly the same gas. I had a combination of 3 different blends (Tarmo, Primus, Biltema), which worked well enough but was a little unpleasant with some unevenness.

It's not a complex thing

The better idea is to buy larger canisters and fill small ones multiple times.

I put the receiving cartridge in a freezer for a few minutes, while the donor gets a suntan on the balcony. This really shouldn't take long. Without the temperature difference, nothing useful will happen.

Then, connect cartridges, open valve and listen for the sound. After the loudest hiss has died out, it's better to close the valve and measure the weight of the cartridges.

Simulation

Yes, it's a good idea to weigh the cartridges when full, empty, and in-between, to be constantly aware of the amount of gas. I've moved roughly 40-50g of gas in one go. Overfilling is probably not a good idea.

And of course, you're not supposed to refill the cartridges, you're not supposed to put them under direct sunlight, and so on. 

I'd not re-use the cartridges indefinitely. Practically, after the large donor canister is empty, there's no point in refilling that one. It might be a good time to recycle the tiny canister too.