This is another great set of tips from my online buddy, Bob. He is a genuinely self-sufficient soul, living off the grid somewhere on the North American continent.

This time around, Bob discusses the optimal backpacking setup.

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My standard list of backpacking gear has changed very little in the past twenty years.

I favor fairly heavy leather boots that just cover the ankles, with Vibram soles.

In fine weather I’ll generally wear shorts, a long sleeve shirt with two button-down pockets, the sleeves rolled up, and I’ll always have a bandana around my neck. A broad brimmed felt “cowboy” hat tops it all off.

Don’t forget a hat. On our last 50 mile hike my wife didn’t bring one, so she wound up stealing mine and I wore a bandana on my head the whole time. Even if I’m going without a shirt, I’ll keep the hat on to keep the sun out of my eyes or the rain off my face and so forth, and it keeps my brain from frying in the sun now that my hair is thinning…

A boonie hat is comfortable enough and I have used them over the years, but they don’t shed rain and the brim isn’t wide enough to shade the eyes. I simply despise ball caps.

Do not wear a pants belt. Now, normally I feel naked without one, but most of the load rides on the pack’s hip belt, so don’t put anything under it that will be ground into your waist all day long; like a nice, thick leather belt would.

In my pants pockets I’ll carry a small locking knife like the Gerber LST, and a Bic lighter. It is not uncommon for me to have another bandana in my back pocket.

In my shirt pockets I’ll carry a compass and maybe a much folded map, and a pocket pack of Kleenex for toiletry purposes.

The heavy gear starts with an old Karrimor 75 liter internal frame pack in dark green. For me, this is just the right size. Not to big (and I seldom stuff it tight) and not too small. This pack has a bottom compartment and zipper, but I cut out the divider long ago, and have never once used the lower zipper. To me, a pack should be just one big bag. It has two side pockets big enough to hold a quart water bottle and a few odds and ends besides. It has a big top pocket built into the top flap.

On the pack’s hip belt on the right side I’ll clip a stainless steel Sierra Cup, and on the left hip rides the holster for my Ruger Bisley .44 magnum.

This heavy 7-1/2 inch revolver rides pretty good in a modified Uncle Mike’s shoulder holster. The holster has only one strap, and it goes around my right shoulder. The back of the holster has a strap with a snap that connects to the back hip belt. I can adjust it to put the weight on my shoulder, on the hip, or to share the load, depending upon my mood. On side trips without the pack I can simply sling the holster over my shoulder.

I’ve carried all sorts of sidearms while backpacking over the years, carried in all sorts of ways. Everything from small .22 autos right up to my .44 magnum boat anchor. I experimented with various drop-leg holsters that carry the gun below the hip belt but gave up on ‘em. Shoulder holsters work well enough with small guns like .38 snub-nosed revolvers and .380 autos. A great many times they simply wind up as dead weight in the pack.

Now, I do hike where the big bears may roam so I mostly do take my .44 caliber Boat Anchor with me, but it’s really just for moral support. In all the miles I’ve tramped I have never needed a gun. Of course the one time I leave it home is the day I’ll need it…

A pistol is a big problem to a backpacker. Ordinarily, a backpacker would never in a million years carry two pounds of dead weight! And if having it might throw ya in jail to boot, ya better think long and hard about taking one. If open carry where you hike is illegal, move out west — just kidding, stick it in the top of your pack, just under the flap; it’s the best you can do.

Now we finally get to what’s in the bloody pack!

In the bottom gets stuffed my sleeping bag. All my life I’ve drooled over nice down bags. But things being what they are, it’s often as not a synthetic bag of one type or another that I stuff in there.

Don’t bother with compression stuff-sacks. The silly sacks alone can weight half a pound or more! Use a big oversized stuff-sack for your sleeping bag so that the thing will conform to the shape of the pack. This way, you can stuff it right in there and fill all the corners at the bottom of the pack that would otherwise go to waste; not to mention it’s much faster to do than trying to contort and compress a bulky bag into a small brick. It’s also better for the bag. Just make sure the stuff-sack is pretty waterproof, or line it with a plastic trash bag.

The bag will be the bulkiest thing you carry by far, and may well take up half the pack. That’s OK, don’t skimp on your bag. A fella can survive almost any kind of day, so long as he gets a good hot meal and a warm, dry, comfortable bed at the end of that miserable day. So don’t scrimp here. And, above all else, that sleeping bag must stay dry!

Then a small stuff-sack that contains my spare clothing goes in. What you’re carrying is just an extra pair of socks and some supplemental clothing.

Next goes whatever I am using for a shelter.

Then my kitchen bag goes in next, and the folded-up ground cloth on top.

My pack has a kind of open pocket sewn into the back inside, right below the top flap. Into this is usually slid my rain gear, where I can get to it easily.

That’s it!

Into the very top pocket in the flap goes a one-gallon-sized zippy-bag that contains my “office;” which contains all the little, miscellaneous gear.

The side pockets each contain a quart water bottle, and whatever snacks I’m nibbling on that day. On trips with longish dry spells, I’ll also stash a flattish G.I two quart plastic canteen under the top flap of my pack (minus the cloth canteen cover, of course).

Under the flap straps outside the pack is where my sleeping pad goes.

So, you see that the pack contains just a very few sub-units, kitchen bag, clothes bag, rolled or stuffed shelter or tent, and at the bottom the stuff-sack with the sleeping bag. It’s easy to pack and unpack, and it stays organized. All the individual stuff-sacks add protection — one may get wet, but never all. They also keep things cleaner, by containing the mess from sooty pots, and so forth.

I despise packs with thousands of pockets, flaps and zippers all over them. At first glance they may seem a boon to organization, but they are not. What they are is more costly, less robust, less water proof, heavier, and instead of a few tidy sub-units, you get gear strewn all about the place.

My kitchen sack is pretty simple:

• Old sleeping bag stuff-sack
• 2 qt. Aluminum cooking pail with lid
• WhisperLite stove and fuel bottle
• Spoon
• Bic lighter
• P-38 can opener
• Plastic mug
• Plastic bottle for sugar, and one for powdered milk (For my tea, of course. These bottles are empty honey containers. Remember, I also carry a Sierra Cup on my hip belt)
• 2 one-quart plastic water bottles (carried in outside pockets. May also carry G.I. two quart canteen under top flap of pack)

Right now I’m using a USGI “mountain cook kit”

I’ll usually take only the big pot, and an aluminum lid from an old Palco cooking pail that died years ago. If I’m melting snow for water, or think I might want a separate pot of tea, or I’m cooking fancy meals, I’ll bring both pots. They are quite light. What I almost never ever take is the heavy stainless steel lid/fry pan.

You don’t need blackened, Teflon coated, titanium plated stainless steel pots in odd shapes with clever folding legs, patented detachable handles, and built in temperature regulators that cost a week’s pay. Take a simple aluminum pail with a lid, and make sure it’s at least two quart size.

The bigger pot has a wide base that is very stable, and covers the whole stove to absorb the greatest amount of heat, rather than a tall narrow pot perched atop a tiny wiggly stove. Even if you only plan to boil two cups of water, take the big pot. The small amount of water in the bottom boils almost instantly. Not to mention the bigger pot makes a much better pail to lug water from a creek to douse a camp fire, and on more than one occasion I’ve made an impromptu pot of stew for all to enjoy with contents donated by several backpackers met in camp.

The lid is well worth it’s weight because a covered pot boils much faster, saving fuel. If you cook over a fire, the lid keeps flying ash and bugs out. Besides, it’s useful for scooping snow, setting your cup down on when your done cooking, playing Frisbee, and other things.

The stove folds up and is kept in a small stuff-sack of it’s own. Inside this sack also goes the aluminum foil wind screen these stoves use, the spoon, Bic lighter, and a tiny plastic bag with the P-38 can opener and usually a vent pick, extra jet for the stove, and a tiny sheet metal jet wrench.

The pot lid goes in the bag first, then the pot, then the little bag with the stove and the fuel bottle fit in the pot, and the food is piled in on top of that. I can get three day’s or so worth of food in there. on longer trips I’ll use a second stuff-sack for the bulk of my food and use the kitchen sack for the gear and one day’s worth of food.

I simply love my little WhisperLite stove and can’t say enough about them. One little fuel bottle has lasted me five days, cooking three hot meals for two people every day, plus a few extra pots of coffee or tea thrown in! It simply can’t be beat for fuel-efficiency/heat-output/weight.

If your worried about TEOTWAWKI, you can get the multi-fuel version, which will burn gas, diesel, white gas, and what have you.

My clothing bag is even simpler, it’s an old stuff-sack containing:

• Extra pair of socks
• Pile jacket
• T-shirt
• Knit watch cap
• Another spare bandana (OK FINE! SO I’M A BANDANA FREAK! Remember, I also have my rain gear carried elsewhere)

Those are the basics that don’t change. Even in the summer I’ll run into snow pack up high, and it gets quite cold at night. I just don’t sleep comfortably without a cap on my balding head… and the same for the cotton T shirt. I use it only to sleep in. I’m more comfortable that way and it’s just one of those quirks I’ve developed over the years.

Of course the contents vary according to season.

I often carry my shorts and wear BDU trousers if I know I have to do lots of bushwhacking through nasty brush.

In the winter I’ll wear wool pants, and pack long johns. I have carried a very light set of long johns, and put them on under my shorts and my rain pants on over that when things got really cold and windy.

I use heavy, short, mostly wool socks that hold their shape when worn day after day after day…

For river crossings I go barefoot, and possibly even naked, with all my clothes stashed where they will stay good and dry.

Shelter:

• Black Diamond Megamid, pole, stakes, and ropes (carried an yet another stuff-sack)
• Sleeping bag (in oversized, waterproof stuff-sack)
• Ensolite pad (carried outside the pack, under the top flap straps. In wet weather, this is encased in a plastic garbage bag)
• Ground sheet (carried in top of pack, right under flap)

I think the Megamid and similar designs like the Sierra Designs Origami are the ultimate tent. It’s very light weight, and is the modern day equivalent of the teepee. It has no floor and plenty of head room so you can easily cook inside, yet has a door to keep out the wind (and windblown rain). You can sit up inside! I find it easier to set up than a tarp, and they offer more protection, even offering some protection from bugs. For TEOTWAWKI, they are the only lightweight tent that is comfortable to live out of for extended periods of time.

Always carry your pole and more stakes than you think you’ll need. They are lighter than a hatchet, and you’ll always have them right when you need them without having to chop up the surrounding greenery.

Bivy sacks and ultra-small tents are an abomination to be avoided at all costs.

Tarps are OK if you can set them up quickly and properly in all types of terrain and wind when fatigued, and the bugs ain’t too bad. I certainly have made great use of them in the past, but not anymore.

After a long and difficult day spent climbing a mountain in the rain, you can set up your Megamid, and go in with your pack and shake off the wet. Lay down your ground cloth in the back of the tent and set yourself down. Change into some dry long johns, slip into your pile jacket, and lounge on your sleeping bag while you fire up your stove and enjoy a hot meal while listening to the storm howling outside. Your wet gear gets to dry a bit on the other side of the tent, off the ground cloth, and all your equipment is close to hand.

Or, you could be battling with a flapping tarp (which is usually too small), looking for just the right trees to tie it to, fumbling in the dark with cold hands to cut stakes and poles, trying to rig it to get some semblance of shelter.

Or, you could drop your wet pack to the ground, grab a cold snack while shaking out a bivy bag (body bag), and crawl in to spend a miserable night.

You pick.

I have also made very good use of a truly wonderful tent by Eureka, but it is too heavy for solo use.

I do have two inflatable Therm-A-Rest pads, and have made good use of them, but they are simply much to heavy for solo use. I’d rather have an extra pound of food, and prefer to use a simple Ensolite pad such as the green G.I. pad one often comes across. I do like a full-length pad though. The sleeping pad is to provide insulation, and a dry spot to put your sleeping bag on. It isn’t intended as a mattress away from home that rivals the comfy bed you left behind, so don’t be tempted by heavy, bulky pads. When you lie in your bag, you compress the insulation under you which renders it much less effective at keeping you warm. The pad is to compensate for this. You soon get used to sleeping on the ground.

A word about rain gear:

Mine is a brand called “Spray Away,” I purchased it in ‘86 in England, so don’t try and find the same brand [the company does seem to still be around, see link — ed.]. It’s a very simple nylon shell with Gore-Tex inside. No liner! Don’t get rain gear with cloth shells, fabric liners, a zillion zippers and extra pockets. The more crap built into it, the more expensive it is, more likely to leak and will take longer to dry. You can shake the rain off a bare, impermeable nylon jacket. A soaked fabric liner or shell will take days to dry.

All you want is a durable, light weight, wind proof, water proof shell jacket and pants. Make sure the jacket has a good hood, and is quite large — if not downright huge — on you. I got mine big enough to fit over a bulky down coat. The pants don’t have to be so oversized.

Don’t mess with ponchos. I sure as heck did in my youth, and would use it for shelter and as a rain garment. The trouble was they do neither task very well, and if it rains all day long you’re wearing the silly thing, so now how do you set up your shelter? Take the silly, soaked thing off and rig it as a miniature tarp in the driving rain? You might just as well, because after a day in the rain wearing one, you’ll be soaked anyway.

It doesn’t have to be breathable stuff. Inexpensive impermeable stuff is just fine, if it’s durable. Starting over, I might pick Campmor’s Cascade II rain gear.
The jacket costs 23 bucks, weighs 12.8 oz. The pants run 15 bucks and 9.6 oz.

Office (carried in the top flap pocket, contained in a gallon zippy-bag with a heavy rubber band around it to compress it):

• Sewing kit/repair kit
• Match safe
• Fishing kit
• Flashlight (these days usually a small LED headlamp)
• First aid kit (packed in it’s own sandwich sized zippy bag)
• Extra set of eyeglasses
• Paracord
• Bic lighter
• Notebook (small spiral bound kind, usually with most of the pages missing. May have bit of fine sand paper taped to cover to sharpen knife with)
• Pencil stub
• Toothbrush

The list does change from trip-to-trip as I add things, but that’s about the basics that don’t change.

The fishing kit, sewing kit and match safe are contained in identical small plastic tubes with snap tops, maybe three inches long. I’ve used the sewing kit a time or two, but never needed the others. Still carry ‘em though.

I’ll usually add an item or two to this “office,” but it is never allowed to overflow, or even completely fill, that gallon zippy bag.

Some things it might also hold:

• Candle lantern (heavy, but nice on winter trips)
• Paperback book
• Extra ammo (usually six rounds rubber banded into a consolidated lump. Usually only carried on long trips in real back country)
• Very small container of Dr. Bronner’s soap
• Bug repellent
• Small flask of rubbing alcohol (empty bug repellent container)
• 35 MM film container of foot powder
• Extra Kleenex or toilet paper (uh, I often use empty instant oatmeal packets instead of toilet paper… you probably didn’t need to know that, huh?)
• Space blanket (carried for years, never found a use for it, finally left it home)
• Space blanket sleeping bag (much better than the blankets. Used to cover sleeping bag when sleeping under dripping poncho during howling storm, or inside sleeping bag when it gets freaking cold)
• Pipe and tobacco
• Garbage bag

The alcohol and foot powder is used to pamper your sore feet several times a day. The alcohol will toughen your feet and cool them, and the foot powder keeps ‘em cool and helps prevent blisters. Few people carry this stuff but it makes good sense on long hikes.

Well, the list goes on-and-on. The Office is where you stash all the little odds and ends and gadgets you just couldn’t bring yourself to leave at home. The gallon-sized zippy bag ensures that they will stay dry and organized. In use, I pull the whole bag out, and since it’s transparent I can locate what I need, then open it and pull it out.

Remember that with these little gadgets, less is more! Don’t carry a ton of stuff that you just never use. Some small bits of “survival gear,” such as extra matches, a tiny sewing kit, and a few feet of paracord are fine. Just don’t go overboard there. Do carry extra eyeglasses if you wear them!

My top flap pocket is pretty big, and in the past I’ve also crammed in a camera, binoculars, flask of booze, or something along those lines. Not very often though.

Rather than take my old heavy 35 MM camera, or our newer, delicate, battery munching, digital camera, I’ll buy a small disposable camera just for that trip.

As you can probably tell by now, I despise having gear loose in my pack. As much as possible, it all goes into sub-units.

Water purification:

I just strain the stuff through my front teeth. Seriously, I have tramped many miles all over the place, and have never once in my life used a filter or chemicals. Often I’ll throw my bandana down on a muddy bit of water and laying down, suck the water up through the bandana to strain most of the chewy bits.

Everyone has a different comfort level, and has to make up their own minds. Me, I’m comfortable sucking water from muddy hoof prints, and have never has so much as a hint of trouble doing so.

I live without running water. In the winter we melt snow, filter it through a strainer lined with (you guessed it) a bandana, and drink that.

In the spring and fall, we drink rainwater from our roofs. In the summer, we drink from various springs around our homestead. I’ve never lived on chlorinated water, and I drink gallons and gallons of raw goat milk. I suspect I may have some pretty tough intestinal bacteria. Maybe I’m just lucky. Either way, I don’t bother with filters and crap, and never will. One less thing I need to carry.

I know folk who are just simply horrified at the thought of going out into the woods and drinking water right from a stream! They are positive they will get sick… so naturally they do every time they try it.

Now, I’m a northerner. My backpacking beat has been from New Jersey north through Maine, and out west, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. I’ve hiked northern bits of the Appalachian trail and had no trouble with the water. But I can’t say if a filter on the southern Appalachian trail is a good idea, or if you’ll get sick and die without one.

So there you have it, my very opinionated version of what to carry on your back.

Everyone’s list will differ. The best way to figure out what you’re comfortable with is to practice as much as you can. Sleep out in the backyard a lot. Especially on rainy or snowy or windy winter days. Don’t wait till you’re miles from home, it’s dark, the rain is falling and the wind is howling to try out that tarp or sleeping bag.

Remember to travel as light as you possibly can. It is a joy to ramble with a 20 pound pack, still fun with 30 pounds but it’s work at times, not really fun anymore with 40 pounds and the sweat is pouring off you, and a downright chore with 50. The lighter you pack the freer you’ll be, and that’s a good thing.

Backpacking is about the-getting-there. You can go and camp in one spot by a lake and have fun, but you’ll not have the same feeling of fun, self-sufficient, complete contentment that wandering about with everything you need to be perfectly comfortable (well, almost, anyway) right on your back brings. Traveling at your own pace, where you will, and having fun doing it is what it’s all about.

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(post photo by Jef Maion)

One of the best water purifiers on the market are Berkey water filters. Berkey’s use gravity filters that are cleanable, and use micro-permeable ceramic filter elements. These filters are extremely effective, long-lasting and require no electricity. The only drawback is the cost, following the steps in the video below you can make one yourself for about $100, saving you about $200.

Parts

• Two 5-gallon food grade buckets (about $5 each)
• Two lids for the buckets (about$1.50 each)
• A pair of Black Berkey filter elements (On Ebay or Amazon for $99 which sometimes include free shipping and a free Sport Berkey filtered bottle)
• A food grade spigot (the kind used for large coffee pots or water coolers is perfect. About $10)

DIY Berkey Water Purifier

Additional Notes

To use the filter, fill the upper bucket with water and wait. If you are starting with dry elements, it will take quite a while before the water starts dripping into the lower bucket. It takes up to several hours for the clean water to drain into the lower bucket. This process can be sped up considerably by frequently topping off the water in the upper bucket. This maintains maximum pressure on the elements.

• I had no scientific way to test the water quality; however, the filtered water was clear, had no odor, and tasted similar to distilled.
• The specifications of the Black Berkey elements can be found here: http://berkeywater.com/BerkeyLight/BB_Purification_Elements.html
• There are a number of ways to make this even cheaper: Use free buckets from a grocery store bakery or restaurant. I have found the same type of spigot for $5 since making this one. Super Sterasyl elements can be substituted for the Black Berkey elements. They cost about $84 a pair.
• The filter can be made considerably larger by using any two stacking containers suitable for water, trash cans or 30-gallon water barrels for instance. The flow rate can also be increased by adding more filter elements.
• The filtered solids remain on the outside of the filter elements and will eventually interfere with the rate of flow. Therefore, it is important to prefilter through a dense cloth (we use cloth diapers) if your source water is particularly cloudy. The elements can be scrubbed clean with a plastic scouring pad. The Black Berkey elements last for about 3000 gallons each (6000 gallons for the pair).

Video demonstration via green-trust.org

Additional notes via alpharubicon.com

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Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Coleridge, 1798

The talking points of this, my second sojourn into writing what will be a monthly editorial piece for this fledgling new column, Chorus of Change, are twofold. First, I would like to acquaint those of you whom are unaware with Dean Kamen’s newest invention: the Slingshot; and how it’s potential for global good is beyond anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. Secondly, I am taking this opportunity to voice my frustration with how difficult it has been to come by this information: what Kamen and his team have managed to accomplish in the conception and realization of this glorious contraption.

An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world (20% of every person on the planet) go to sleep every night without clean water to bathe in or drink….

I believe that the only real downside to this story is the fact that you can go to the Google News’ search engine and type the search string, “Dean Kamen” and the word “Slingshot” in combination, and only two articles will appear (as of the writing of this article). Both of these commentaries belong to Wired News, the second article whimsically titled, “Dean Kamen Saves the World, Again.” I especially enjoyed the comédie noir writer Charlie Sorrel utilizes in this piece’s title because it seems to me that Kamen’s inventions, which are mostly medical in nature, are so often either overlooked or under-reported on, and are nothing less than spectacularly epic in their proportions and genius.

However, it seems that the only credit to Mr. Kamen’s good name, widely known publicly, on any tangible level, is his Segway mobile transportation devices. You’ve all seen them magically whipping and dashing about on television, seeming to defy the known laws of both physics and gravity. Of course, few realize that this plaything was only an afterthought, built on the medical technology of the iBot. The iBot is a “mobility system,” built from the same principles of gyroscopic compensation you’ve seen in the Segway devices; however, this modern miracle takes a wheelchair-bound individual and gives a sort of freedom-of-movement and dignity-of-engagement that, within the boundaries of our current sciences, is as close to restoring a person’s legs as we’re capable of. The ability to allow the owner to climb stairs, traverse difficult terrain, and the restored humanity of being able to “stand” near a person and engage him, at eye-level, are only a few of the attributes this medical marvel is capable of performing. But, alas! The public knows not of this divine sanction; nor of Mr. Kamen’s Stirling cycle-based 1-kW electrical generator, the AutoSyringe, a new type of mobile dialysis system for medical applications, and the first insulin pump, to name a few.

Dean Kamen standing by his Slingshot water device

While all the major news networks, hijacking our airwaves, perpetually berate me with relentless updates on Britney Spears’ never-ending vortices of personal tragedies, Paris Hilton’s latest appearance on Rodeo Drive or some other dead-behind-the-eyes, rehab-bound, train-wreck of a life misspent, ad nauseam; news stories such as Kamen’s never get so much as a top-of-the-hour nod. Why is that?

Faithful worship of such media junk has become the essential ingredient in the dumbing down of Americans. Any person with even the slightest hint of cognitive lucidity can see what’s being done, plainly and openly, before our very (glazed over) eyes. Apathy is the cancer eating away at the American Spirit. We lay down when fraudulently elected leaders take office. We change the channel when the statistics of dead civilians from our current invasion are reported. We order another “biggie size” combo-order from our local heart disease dealers and tune out the radio announcers citing that the current “war” is costing the American people ($12,000,000,000.00) twelve billion dollars per month.

The Slingshot is one of those once-in-a-lifetime inventions that truly can save the world. It takes any contaminated source of water, even pure raw sewage, and blasts the water out of the source by vaporizing it, extracting it, and storing it.

What I am commenting on, here, specifically is the media’s hijacking of free-thought. The manipulated masses complacent, yearning for more trivial news-junk, de jour. The media anchors? Thou talk’st of nothing. They report celebrity. …Which are the children of an idle brain. Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind. (Thanks there to “Bill” for always providing some appropriate wording.)

An informed population would be concerned about the matters at hand. The depletion of everything from our rainforests to the ozone layer. Here, the informed individual citizen is vital to the protection of such resources.

An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world (20% of every person on the planet) go to sleep every night without clean water to bathe in or drink. The water they do have is tainted. One point one billion, with a “b.”

“Eighty percent of all the diseases you could name would be wiped out if you just gave people clean water,” says Kamen. “The water purifier makes 1,000 liters of clean water a day, and we don’t care what goes into it. And the power generator makes a kilowatt off of anything that burns.”

• The Slingshot’s advanced Stirling Engine can run on any combustible product, propane or …even cow dung (Wired)
• The Stirling Engine, which is still considered a mystery to most engineers, can generate 1 kilowatt, or enough electricity to light 70 efficiency light bulbs according to Wired, and can be used as an electrical generator producing 200 watts of electricity and 800 watts of waste heat (TED)
• The Slingshot weighs less than 60 pounds (TED) and is smaller than a portable washing machine (Wired)
• The Slingshot uses vapor compression distillation to completely remove pure water from any “wet substance” (Wired) using just 2% of the power of anything that is currently in production
• The Slingshot can produce 1,000 liters of fresh water per day
• The heat from the purified water is recovered with a “counter-flow heat exchange” process and recycled to the next batch of water (TED)
• There are no filters on the Slingshot to replace, no carbon filtration system, no fluoride or chlorine necessary, and no ion extraction process is utilized (Wired)
• The Slingshot can use any water source available, safely: the ocean, bio-hazardous water sources, lakes, chemical waste dumps, removing everything from arsenic, hexavalent chrome, poison, heavy metals, etc.

The Slingshot is one of those once-in-a-lifetime inventions that truly can save the world. It takes any contaminated source of water, even pure raw sewage, and blasts the water out of the source by vaporizing it, extracting it, and storing it. The contents that have been extracted from the water is deposited in a separate bin and can even be used as a combustible to power the engine!

My favorite quote of Kamen’s is the following, “Not required are engineers, pipelines, epidemiologists, or microbiologists. You don’t need any -ologists. You don’t need any building permits, bribery, or bureaucracies.” Sounds like my kinda guy…

Kamen says that the prototype device is hand-machined at a cost of $100,000 – however, his goal is through mass production to lower the cost to $1,000 per unit.

Kamen named the Slingshot in reference to the duel between the biblical characters of David and Goliath, putting the power back into the hands of the little guy through the use of a small piece of technology, a slingshot.

Once a fluid has passed through this device it’s actually pure, distilled water. Any bottled water that you can buy off-the-shelf has far more minerals and other contaminates than you’ll find in this clean liquid-gold. It really doesn’t matter what the input source was, the export is pure, clean water. Generally, water is taken from its source, then chlorine along with other chemicals are added to disinfect it to make it biologically inactive. When these units are a thousand dollars a pop, sign me up. I’d prefer the water processed by this machine to anything I’m drawing from my faucet, and nuts to paying three dollars a liter for off-the-shelf bottled water that’s nowhere near as clean!

Cameron,
Wednesday, 02 April 2008

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Further information from the horse’s mouth can be found at the DEKA Research site. I cannot, sadly, find too much recently updated information regarding the current price or availability of this device; nor much great detail about successful (or not) it’s been in real-world settings post-2006. Here’s what I was able to discover:

From allwaterpurification.com:

[Kamen] had been making negotiations and partnerships with leaders of African and Asian countries to use the water purifiers, and accompanying electric generators in areas that need it the most. He had demonstrated the water purifier to the president of Rwanda in 2003, and made trial runs in Bangladesh, using power from the cow dung-fueled electric generator.

Those Bangladesh tests enumerated the problems that could arise when using the water purifier, which Kamen in turn addressed. Also, in promoting the products to the people, Kamen also devised a way to give local, out-of-work individuals jobs as merchants and manure/fuel gatherers for the products.

From Wikipedia:

The test devices have been used with “anything that looks wet”, including polluted river water, saline ocean water and raw sewage. In a demonstration at a technology conference in October 2004, Kamen ran his own urine through the machine and drank the clean water that came out.

By the end of 2000, a team of 200 at DEKA had produced 30 units, each the size of a compact refrigerator. A pair of Slingshot devices ran successfully for a month in a village in Honduras during the summer of 2006. While the initial devices cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kamen hopes that increased economies of scale will allow production machines to be made available for $2,000 each.

A Chinese peasant has made a solar water heater – using only beers bottles and hoses.

The beer bottles lie on a board in rows, all connected by hoses which allow cold water to flow through them and be heated by the sun.

Yet another one chalked up to the Mother of Invention! And another mother, too…

“I invented this for my mother. I wanted her to shower at any time more comfortably,” says Ma Yanjun, a carpenter, of Qiqiao village, Shaanxi Province.

If you feel like constructing a similar system, check out the handy little diagram at Make, as well as a couple other alternate methods.

Also, an interesting alternative from my buddy, Tobus:

Man, that seems like a lot of work. A plain old black garden hose will do the job much better. Just lay it out in a frame in a back-n-forth manner like a radiator. The frame can be a wood box with a painted black bottom. Secure the hose inside and cover the top with a pane of glass. That would work so much better than beer bottles or flourescent light bulbs, and it’s a lot less work. Hell, even a regular green garden hose laying in the sunshine usually gets the water hot enough to scald me. If I want to use the water hose, I have to let the water run long enough so that it’s drawing cool well water before doing anything.