Mick, it's not that the LPG converter can't be bothered, but he may well not be aware of how it's done elsewhere. He's a car converter, well-regarded and experienced with this particular tricky vehicle - big engine with tiny bonnet space, with space for 85L toroid tank if you select the ideal components (some have a much less useful 60L, from a fitter who was tied to a particular manufacturer).
As my camper conversion has dedicated space for a 907 I'll stick with that and go to refillable, probably Gaslow.
After many years of diy refilling 907's I have also gone with a gaslow. Mainly as one bottle rarely lasts a trip, mid holiday topups much easier with a gaslow. However I always carry a 901. In an emergency it's just enough to get you through till next lpg station without the bulk of a 907.
When we had wife's car lpg converted, two months old at time, we had an external BBQ point fitted from the vapour take off. At first wondered if we had wasted our time, but every summer we find best thing we did. Thinking about it this 10th year so recertification due soon.
Greatest thing with gaslow is a true reading content gauge, you can view fuel level at a glance. This will be our second season with ours all good so far.
I bought a 907 bottle to fill, but when it came right down to it I decided to go a different route.
I use a cadac dual power pack with 2 x 500g bottles at roughly ~£3.45 a bottle (6 at a time). Now the 907 holds again roughly 2.72Kg of gas (please correct me if I am wrong on that) so you would need to buy just over 5 bottles of the cadac to get the same quantity of gas. Cadac is a propane/butane mix so works well.
I use a campinggaz cooker which works perfectly well with the cadac system. I buy 6 cadac bottle at a time which comes to less than one refill of 907. Buying the bottles individually costs more of course.
Coleman also sell the same bottles, the C500, these can be purchased for £3.45 per bottle. I have seen these at £16.95 for 6 bottles.
To me the benefits far outweigh the cost of the refill of the 907. The whole system is smaller as I can pack 6 bottles and a regulator in less space than the 907 bottle takes up, plus it is not one big lump, taking up space. You can buy spare bottles most places, unlike refilling a 907.
Whimp, the Cadac 2x500g looks interesting. Seems mad that a disposable system is cheaper than a 907 refill but, yes, the practicality advantage is clear.
Depending on where you are in Beds I'll buy your spare 907 if you want to sell it. My usage is such that a single 907 will last me a whole season, so my only real concern now is having enough to last any one specific trip. For the last fortnight away I established this by simply weighing the cylinder before departure. So long as I have a (full) spare in the garage I can swap accordingly before any significant trip.
Hi Mick, came across this forum topic in search of a reasonably cost effective way of refilling 907 campingaz bottles. Couldn’t see a way of emailing you directly but if you could forward me the details of the adaptors etc that you use that would be most appreciated (willmrsh [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks
I would have a think about that, because the return and refill system, filters out cylinders that are past there best, and recons existing ones in order to extend the servicible life of the cylinder.
If you are finding CampinGaz 907 refills to expensive, then I would say go for the Gas flow lite 5kg plastic cylinder, or Calor 5kg Patio cylinder, if your ever in France Le Cube 5kg cylinder is a good option.
Of course Somthing needs to be done about the price of CampinGaz 907 refills, the eqivelent amount of gas from Calor would be about £6 so even if the 907 refill was £10 they would still be raking it in.
We carry two 907 cylinders for when we are over in France, to ensure that we are never out of gas, and to be fair as we are mostly using EHU, a 907 cylinder can last for ten weeks of camping, the reason why I have stuck with CampinGaz is that the cylinders are the perfect size, and our two are stored in the trailer tongue box, taking up very little room indeed.
Thanks for your reply, we’ve been camping in France the last 7 years now and have a 4.5kg calor butane bottle and always weigh it before going so as not to run out over there, and am fully aware that on the continent campingaz is the gas of choice but contain lots less gas and more expensive and total rip off on price, was just trying to fathom out how people refill
As well is two words!
How does a sage know everything about everything? or does he? or does he just think he does?
Remember, if you buy something you bought it, not brought it.
Firstly I'm not going to tell you how to do it, because done incorrectly it's potentially a huge risk to life and property, and I wouldn't wish to be responsible for putting anyone's life in peril, but it is a fairly simple DIY proposition.
I'll highlight the risks (which WILL no doubt bring responses accusing over caution, nanny state etc. etc. - I'll live with that just fine) for you to judge the overall value/risk balance of DIY refilling.
1) Every cylinder that is refilled by Calor, Campingaz or whoever, is individually safety checked AND batch recalled if known issues have occurred with other cylinders from that batch (think about fairly recent mass recalling of faulty Calorlite cylinders and no new cylinders being re-issued!). That will not happen if you DIY!
2) Any leaking LPG liquid (and you are transferring liquid not gas!) creates huge gas clouds which are a very serious fire risk. - Liquid Propane converts to gaseous Propane at the ratio of 1:270, so one litre of leaked liquid would create 270 litres of gas, then mixed with air to a combustible ratio of around 5% gas to air, you then have an explosive gas cloud of 26,000 litres! - not the kind of bang you want to be in the middle of, and a bit beyond DIY fire extinguishing, all from a reasonably small one litre accidental spill and EVERYTHING that follows is totally out of your control!
3) Cylinders are NOT filled to capacity, there needs to be significant head room for the liquid to turn to gas, otherwise still liquefied gas will be emitted from the cylinder and only turn gaseous when exiting something like a stove burner - back to the liquid:gas ratio of 1:270 etc, - result is a huge fireball! You would need to measure the amount of LPG being transferred to empty cylinder to ensure not exceeding the safe volume!
4) I dread to think how many fire regulations and Health and Safety laws you would be in breach of, if you survived the 'bang', they'd probably prosecute your charred arse every which way, so would any fire/blast damaged neighbours!
As much as I object to the criminally exploitive price of a 907 cylinder, I'm more inclined to just use a cheaper source of gas such as a Calor 4.5kg, than try and economise by DIY refilling a 907. I know that the argument goes that "have you ever heard of the doomsday scenario you painted actually happening to the many that do it?", well it isn't totally unknown! As a engineer I could rig it up easily enough, but it's a risk too far for saving only a few pounds to me!
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Topic: CAMPINGAZ 907 REILL
via mobile 03/6/2020 at 1:19pm
