thought this was noteworthy

flip fuel review

Interesting design to use temperature differential to move the gas. But the issue of overfilling a canister means I would only use it with a scale to judge volumes.

But we got through multiple canisters per trip. So I don’t mind taking a half full one. Really low ones get used for stove testing and teaching people how the stoves work. So I’m not sure I need it.

I definitely don’t need their planned ones for larger propane canisters. I use those for car camping and don’t have an issue with taking an extra.

I still use white gas so not an issue for me. Just thought worth posting. Have been considering getting a jet boil for backpacking. I can see if you are solo and only carrying one or maybe two canisters and cutting it close, you'd want full ones. If you return with less than full, not much use. I am talking about gram counters for whom taking an extra 1/2 full canister would be an issue. Not so for canoe and groups.

Flip Fuel is not a new concept, just a new name. The G-works gas saver has been around for years. There have been multiple threads here on refilling iso-butane canisters, calculating amount of fuel needed, recycling empty canisters (yes it can be done), etc. There are many YouTube videos about refilling them.

Hardly a new item or concept as boonie pointed out. Simply explains in a less technical manner. The temperature difference causes a pressure change, the pressure difference drives the liquid fuel transfer.

Never had a problem running a canister empty, for me it's an answer to an un-asked question. Doesn't answer anything about the safety of re-filling a non-reusable fuel container.

Far as recycling empty canisters, I simply use till fully empty the vent the can with a knife and crush the vented can, dispose in a proper manner after the trip.

butthead

I think that this is a useful idea! I have multiple partially filled cans of varying levels and am always warry of bringing them along on trips as they may run out prematurely. I didn't know about the G-Works gadget either, so this is helpful. I bring two full cans per trip. Would make a great stocking stuffer.

Seems like a good idea to me. I usually take my one partial canister (which I mark as a partial after the trip) along with a full one so I am not accumulating a number of partials. It will probably be of use to a lot of people like my daughter who has several partial canisters in her garage.

After having a trip partner mess up the threads on a tank once I learned the importance of always having two tanks along on a trip. I'd rather have two partials than one full.

Weighing them before and after a trip will tell you how much is left in the canister. It will also tell you how much fuel you use on average for cooking. That allows you to make a better calculation of how much fuel you need to bring on a given trip. It seems it would also be useful to know how much fuel is left in the partial canisters if planning to combine them.

Here is an old blog (inactive for a few years now) with a lot of good information. There used to be an interactive Excel worksheet there he used for fuel calculation, but the link is gone. The calculation looked something like this:

I plan to boil 47 cups of water
My stove burns about 3.5 "grams of fuel per cup boiled.
I will need about 165 grams of fuel as a baseline estimate.
I want a 15% margin for error.
I will need about 190 total grams of fuel (baseline + margin).
Therefore I need a 220 gram sized canister.
I will have about 30 "excess" grams fuel.
Giving me about 8 additional cups boiled total

You need to enter your own fuel numbers for number of "boils" - minutes/whatever you use, average fuel usage, and margin of error desired.

I use one of the G works valves and really appreciate it. I still generally take 2 canisters of fuel on a trip for redundancy but I like to know what's in them. I use a gram scale (primarily used in our house for weighing coffee) and label the canister with its new fuel weight using a sharpie. After a couple recent trips I was able to consolidate 4 partial canisters into one full one-love it! Empties were pierced and recycled. I wouldn't make a habit of reusing/refilling one particular canister but they are designed to have a stove removed and replaced and the flip fuel or G works valve is really no different in its connection.

tg

also I have a couple older 400g primus canisters that the G works valve does NOT work with. Threads are the same but the pin must be deeper so it will not release any gas from those canisters. I suspect this is because they are 10+ years old and the specs may have changed.

I am actually quite interested. Unfortunately they are back ordered currently. Anybody ever used one of these? Could you inadvertently overfill a cannister (over transfer) beyond factory full level? Or will it simply stop when it reaches that level? I'm just curious if there is any danger of this transfer causing an explosion in my basement. I try to avoid explosions in my basement if at all possible.

HangLoose: "I am actually quite interested. Unfortunately they are back ordered currently. Anybody ever used one of these? Could you inadvertently overfill a cannister (over transfer) beyond factory full level? Or will it simply stop when it reaches that level? I'm just curious if there is any danger of this transfer causing an explosion in my basement. I try to avoid explosions in my basement if at all possible."

To clarify what I alluded to above:

If you weigh canisters before and after, you know how much fuel is left in a partial. That means you also know how much you can add before you reach the original amount. Therefore if you never put a canister with more fuel than available capacity, you’ll never “overfill”. Some have recommended only refilling to a percentage of full, such as 90%.

boonie: "
To clarify what I alluded to above:


If you weigh canisters before and after, you know how much fuel is left in a partial. That means you also know how much you can add before you reach the original amount. Therefore if you never put a canister with more fuel than available capacity, you’ll never “overfill”. Some have recommended only refilling to a percentage of full, such as 90%. "

Thanks Boonie. It sounds like you've done your homework. Would you care to take discussion to the next level? I follow your logic, but if I cannot make a canister completely full using this Flip Fuel procedure, then it defeats the purpose for me. I'd also add that it would be a rare event that I'd have one partial canister with exactly the right amount of fuel remaining to make another canister completely full.

So, would you or anyone else be willing to play along with the following example?

Let's say I have 2 partial 8oz capacity MSR tanks. Both canister #1 and canister #2 have 5oz remaining and therefore I only want 3oz to transfer from canister #1 to canister #2 in order to make it 100% full. I put canister #2 in the freezer for 5 minutes. I put canister #1 in the sun for 5 minutes. I connect them with the Flip Fuel valve and begin the transfer from canister #1 (warm) to canister #2 (cold).

Will the transfer stop when canister #2 hits 100% full at 8oz?

If the transfer does not stop, then will one canister even hold the entire 10oz. and if so then is that dangerous?

Obviously, I could keep disconnecting the Flip Fuel valve and keep repeatedly weighing the canisters during the process but then that becomes a bit of a hassle.

Anybody care to offer some insight?

More homework to do:

This article, discussing the G-Works Gas Saver, introduces another question about whether or not this is an ideal procedure.

"It’s hard to know exactly what kind of gas is being transferred from one canister to another since different canister manufacturers mix butane, isobutane, and propane in different combinations to improve cold-weather performance. Things get even more uncertain when you mix one manufacturer’s fuel into another. Do the constituent components stay “mixed” or do they separate when transferred using gravity. For example, would the heaviest fuel component drain from the top canister into the bottom canister first before the lighter components?" It then goes on to describe some less-than-ideal results when burning gas which they had transferred.

Seems to me that this would indicate that you might want to empty any "donor" canister completely during any single transfer session to ensure all (possibly) separated fuel types are transferred in their original proportions.

Any chemists out there wanting to chime in?

HangLoose: "

boonie: "
To clarify what I alluded to above:



If you weigh canisters before and after, you know how much fuel is left in a partial. That means you also know how much you can add before you reach the original amount. Therefore if you never put a canister with more fuel than available capacity, you’ll never “overfill”. Some have recommended only refilling to a percentage of full, such as 90%. "

Thanks Boonie. It sounds like you've done your homework. Would you care to take discussion to the next level? I follow your logic, but if I cannot make a canister completely full using this Flip Fuel procedure, then it defeats the purpose for me. I'd also add that it would be a rare event that I'd have one partial canister with exactly the right amount of fuel remaining to make another canister completely full.


So, would you or anyone else be willing to play along with the following example?


Let's say I have 2 partial 8oz capacity MSR tanks. Both canister #1 and canister #2 have 5oz remaining and therefore I only want 3oz to transfer from canister #1 to canister #2 in order to make it 100% full. I put canister #2 in the freezer for 5 minutes. I put canister #1 in the sun for 5 minutes. I connect them with the Flip Fuel valve and begin the transfer from canister #1 (warm) to canister #2 (cold).


Will the transfer stop when canister #2 hits 100% full at 8oz?


If the transfer does not stop, then will one canister even hold the entire 10oz. and if so then is that dangerous?


Obviously, I could keep disconnecting the Flip Fuel valve and keep repeatedly weighing the canisters during the process but then that becomes a bit of a hassle.

Anybody care to offer some insight?
"

to your overarching question-yes it is possible to fill a canister to 100%. eg 100g fuel in a 100g "capacity" canister. i do it all the time. you can always close the transfer valve, disconnect, weigh the respective canisters-assuming you have a scale-i really think a scale is critical to doing this safely. compared to the amount of time spent chilling the receiver canister-connecting and reconnecting canisters to the valves is a negligible inconvenience. this might be a fair time to point out that i have never placed a canister I was attempting to empty in the sun-i usually just put it in a pocket or under my armpit close to my body. not that it wouldn't work or help-just that its unnecessary. I also rarely can COMPLETELY empty a canister. I usually burn off the last few g of residual fuel with a lantern (nice ambient light while reading bwca.com).

It is possible to overfill a canister-not that I would recommend it. Without the proper space (volume) the fuels will not as readily vaporize or burn. Unless you close the valve the transfer of fuel will only stop when the pressures are equal in the two canisters.

Its always helpful to think back to the ideal gas law: PV=nRT where pressure (P) and temperature (T) are directly related.

Schweady referenced an article I had admittedly not read BUT I started refilling my canisters knowing it may not be the precise ratio of isobutane to butane to propane or whatever hydrocarbon your fuel contains. If this is a concern and the supply is consistent stick with one brand and mix of fuel. But know that even this is imperfect. The temperature of the canister when "opened" will determine which fuels are burned first as some fuels vaporize better at colder temps. Because propane has a lower boiling point than butane at -42°C vs -0.4°C it tends to burn first and generally functions better in colder temps. So if you open a mix at 20 below you're going to burn more propane-and then when you combine that with another fuel it will have less propane remaining in the mix.

Clear as mud?

Looks like a neat little device. I monitor % full by weight so it would be easy to keep from overfilling. MSR has can and content weight on side of can.

My own opinion is to not re-fill the disposable canisters. Potentially dangerous results are a possibility. I will not do this to save a few $$, risking a much more expensive vacation or my own skin.
With that out of the way a very good article on re-filling from Adventures In Stoving goes into detail, pros, cons, how to and what to avoid (orange labeled Coleman cans will not work). Jim is re-filling with butane but does mention G-Works and added a link.

butthead

butthead: "My own opinion is to not re-fill the disposable canisters. Potentially dangerous results are a possibility. I will not do this to save a few $$, risking a much more expensive vacation or my own skin.
With that out of the way a very good article on re-filling from Adventures In Stoving goes into detail, pros, cons, how to and what to avoid (orange labeled Coleman cans will not work). Jim is re-filling with butane but does mention G-Works and added a link.


butthead"

Thanks for the link Butthead. After reading the comments on that link, I've decided not to bother with fuel transfer on disposable canisters. The cost of the valve, the fiddle factor, the safety factor, etc. This has been a fun discussion, but it simply doesn't seem worth it for me on maybe 4 canisters per year.

Thanks all for the discussion and additional points. I thought it was a new concept because of my own ignorance. I see other brands of virtually same product on Amazon ("CampingMoon" for example).

I still think it's something I would try. I hate partial canisters - if I'm making space for it, I'd rather it be full.

If someone ends up with an actual FlipFuel, I'd like to know if it's quality built. They got a lot of traction from their gear review and now I wonder if they are cutting any corners to meet demand.

I got a flipfuel back in late October. Prior to that I would save partials for local trips or specialty stuff like helping Scouts get the hang of connecting, using, and disconnecting stoves.

It helped me condense 3 partials down into a single 85% full canister. It wasn't 100% effective, though, as all of the donor cans did have fuel remnants after transfer was completed. I flared them all off and none burned for more than a minute before exhausting the remaining fuel in the can. I then punctured the cans with a Jetboil Crunchit and put them into my local recycling.

I did use a scale to weigh all of the cans ahead of time and after, then compared against Internet sources for "full" and empty weights.

I figure I will get a few uses out of it per year, but the potential to help me keep a minimum of partials is really nice.

mirth: "I got a flipfuel back in late October. Prior to that I would save partials for local trips or specialty stuff like helping Scouts get the hang of connecting, using, and disconnecting stoves.


It helped me condense 3 partials down into a single 85% full canister. It wasn't 100% effective, though, as all of the donor cans did have fuel remnants after transfer was completed. I flared them all off and none burned for more than a minute before exhausting the remaining fuel in the can. I then punctured the cans with a Jetboil Crunchit and put them into my local recycling.


I did use a scale to weigh all of the cans ahead of time and after, then compared against Internet sources for "full" and empty weights.


I figure I will get a few uses out of it per year, but the potential to help me keep a minimum of partials is really nice."

Thanks for sharing your experience.