Truma Gas level control monitor
Being new to this, had our Benimar for a couple of months now, I'm looking at this unit and wondering:
a) Do they work
b) Is it any better than the old hot water trick and
c) if you have one how do you stop yourself forgetting and lossing the unit by leaving it on a bottle when you change it.
Any experiance from anyone who has one would be appreciated.
Comments
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Hello and welcome to CT and a great hobby.
Not had one of these but have had the plastic?, self stick on type which wasn't overly successful. Weight is a good indicator and the ability to carry a spare so you can swop over as necessary and replace empty when convenient
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Neil, im guessing you have two bottles in your Benimar?
if so, why not runnthe first one right down until empty, then switch over to the 2nd one...
then, when convenient, exchange the 1st one...
then when the 2nd one runs out.....etc, etc....
with 2 bottles im not sure any sort of measuring device is really necessary?
of course, if you only have one.....
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That was the plan, but due to the shortage Marquis could only supply us with one.
To be honest we're getting a bit close to weight limit (probably due to having stuff in there we don't really need, but as beginners we need to learn what not to take) so was wondering if one of these would be useful so we didn't need the second bottle.
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id put the cost to either an extra Calor, or better still, get a Gaslow (or Alugas to save weight) refillable to use alongside the single Calor, far more flexible and best of both worlds re avaialbility...
fill with cheap LPG when available, if getting low switch to (expensive) Calor gas until LPG next becomes available
you could even dump the Calor altogether, save weight and sell it on ebay for a fortune!
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A Safefill bottle is translucent. You can "see" there gas level. Plus the gas is about 20% of Calor's ripoff prices.
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Check out Mopeka Gas Level. I got one for £50. Works the same as the Truma system in that you fit the sensor to the base of the cylinder and the gas level can be read on your smartphone. I have one and it works just fine. The accuracy is a tad questionable, but well within reasonable tolerance. It seems to read slightly low, but that's not a bad thing. I tested it on both my Calor Lites. Tank 1 has 1.6 kg and the other 5.68kg. The sensor said the first had 19% ie 1.14kg and the other 93% or 5.58kg. The latter measurement only 1% out.
All in all great value for £50.
Mr LR
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A few garages are a bit twitchy but Morrisons supermarket petrol stations for one allow filling of them. The benefit of them is that you can top up with LPG whilst on your travels. You don't have to wait until the bottle is empty. I've just finished a months tour of Scotland and topped up three times at various places en route, so very convenient. If you're travelling abroad, you can refill. You can't get Calor south of Dover! The big plus is that it's about 20-25% of the price that Calor charge for their gas.
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hence my suggestion to carry one refillable and one exchange bottle...
best of both worlds, there will always be one sort available...
...a Calor in the UK....and even abroad, you can supplement the (usually available) refillable with a French or Spanish bottle.
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I know it doesn’t answer the question but I get wound up thinking about those horrible Calor steel cylinders. BP Light (now Gaslight and sold by Homebase) do an excellent cylinder that is lightweight, transparent, has a clip-on regulator and an excellent carry handle. Very simple to see how much gas is left. They are still popular in the Netherlands but there are other transparent lightweight cylinders sold in France. How do Calor survive with such an obviously inferior product? If Safefill can do a light, refillable, transparent cylinder why are Calor still in the dark ages using gas lights?
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I believe that you keep the regulator but will need a HP “tail” with a 27mm snap-on connector. Suggest you check availability of Gaslight before doing the modification.
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I bought into BP Gaslight about 8 years ago - yes they are light and you can see how much gas you have and yes, at the time I bought into them, they were even cheaper than Calor, but not now.... They are way over charging their customers.
The usual 10Kg exchange price is £50 from many sources, like Homebase. You can get them a little cheaper from HomeBargains, £45 at the moment. Once BP they became MacGas and now FlowGas.
If we used a little more gas per year than we do, I would be looking to swap to the Safefill system, which uses an identical plastic bottle, but with the 80% fill limiter built in.
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No, the bulkhead regulators are a compromise in pressure between propane and butane. All that needs to be done is to swap the adaptor on the end of the thick high pressure to suit the cylinder you want to use - in this case a Gaslight 27mm clip on adaptor.
The old way way to have a combined regulator and bottle adaptor as one item, where you had to change the whole unit for a different adaptor/regulator.
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the problem with them is they only work on a steel bottle
we have the plastic safefill and we have a gauge that screws on the propane bottle, then your pigtail screws into the gauge, watch the gauge as it changes from green to yellow, yellow to red
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