Little Buddy Heater Trouble

[nofishfisherman]

Has anyone had any trouble getting their Little Buddy Heater to light?

I've had mine for a couple years and all of a sudden it has become hard to light. The pilot will light and i'll hold for 30 seconds up to several minutes but when I release the on button the flame goes out and the heater won't light.

I did some looking online and it seems like it being dirty or dusty could be the problem but I'm not sure. I opened it up and cleaned it out the best I could and was able to light it at home. Took it fishing last night and it was really hard to light again. I finally got it fired up but not sure what the issue is.

I had it going once right away but then it shut off the second I set it down and it touched the ice. Is there some sort of kill switch that might be an issue?

The problem started randonly a few trips ago. I had it going for maybe an hour and it shut itself off with at least half a tank of propane left. I have tried it on several different tanks including brand new tanks, hasn't seemed to make a difference.

Any ideas?

[leechlake]

quickest fix for me was dipping a qtip in alcohol and cleaning out the gas orifice, then running a few dry ones in there. Worked perfect, try that first and then if that's not it you can move on to thermocoupler etc.

[nofishfisherman]

I used a dry q tip yesterday but I'll try the alcohol and see if that helps.

[dairyman]

sounds like a thermocouple problem to me---------------

[nubote]

You can't move it after you light it. It has tip over protection. Put it where you need it , then light it.

[Pigmeat]

Try pushing the off switch a few times before relighting. That often works when mine doesn't want to start.

[Pooh]

Thermocouple needs to be replaced the way it sounds to me

[nofishfisherman]

I haven't had a chance to look at it closer yet but after asking around I've got a wide range of possible culprits. I'll see what I can do with it this week as I don't think I'll be getting out fishing this week.

[picksbigwagon]

my little buddy was having the exact problems you were describing. I use gin (no rubbing alcohol in the house) and a q-tip and it works great now.

I had a little "adventure" with a frozen propane bottle pouring out propane in liquid form on Mille Lacs and stupid me tried to light the heater resulting in a big fire ball and me launching it out of the ice house. a little of the plastic burned but I have learned that I have to slightly rotate the "on" button when I release it and it works perfectly. If I don't rotate it right, it goes out. Needless to say, my son who was 9 at the time, refers to the heater as Bernie. My bibs caught on fire, my gloves were on fire and there was a big fire ball, but we all survived and got a little wiser into keeping the one pound tanks out of the sub zero weather over night.

[dpacapt]

I found this on another site, there is an improvement you can do to the thermocouple mounting position that will put the tip of the thermocouple farther into the flame.

http://www.chitownangler.com/1fish/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=36910