Efoy fuelcell

[Wully]

You forgot to add the corporate logo, Wully. :tongue:

Looks good terry you think like me. I’ve attached a wee bottle to the vent pipe with tape pure 100 distilled water got to be good for somthing although I’m not one for contaminating my whiskey with water they guys took 12 years to get it perfect slanj

 

[MOJO]

Battery type

Is it worth going with a lithium battery as well ?

 

[Thebroons]

In your install does the Efoy draw power for the leisure battery to run.

 

[Wully]

In your install does the Efoy draw power for the leisure battery to run.

Sorry I’m not quite getting what you mean. It works and wires direct to battery you set the level that you want it to start up so when you’re battery say dips to 12.3v it’ll start up automatically and run and if you’re using a constant feed from battery then it senses this and stays on until battery is fully charged or the setting that you’ve asked it to turn off at I’m no expert but find its been pretty simple to manage the settings

 

[Wully]

Thanks very much for you’re calculations you must have a good calculator and a lot of free time as I have already bought and fitted this piece of equipment I’m not that bothered about cost couldent give a toss if it cost £1000 a kw I’ve got the money to buy it and the money to run it and it’s fitted to a 100k van so moneys not a problem just like the idea of the use any time any where and if it saves me one ear bashing from wife then it’s paid for itself in my book.

 

[Deleted member 5816]

Fuel Cell

There is an interesting article on fuel cells on Clive Motts website Clive is a leading writer for MMM

Alf

Clive`s

 

[campervanannie]

Every days a school day, all new for me, went off to find more info, keep the info coming, a lot of money:, but my only concern will be Annie, she might fancy a change from vodka, and it doesn't look a big enough container, thanks for sharing

 

[wildebus]

I was curious about the running costs so thought I would do some number crunching ....

Certainly an expensive - even if good - solution to a problem.
The EFOY website looks like it is manipulating the numbers to make them sound more attractive as well, I think?

"How long does an M5 or M10 fuel cartridge last on average?
Assuming an average requirement of 33 Ah/day (400 Wh/day):
- one M10 will last approx. 4 weeks"

33Ah/day is not a lot of use really - you would get that out of a small 80Ah leisure battery perfectly easily. If people are often in reality looking to upgrade the batteries to gain more usable power, then maybe a more realistic number EFOY should quote is 60 or 70Ah/Day say?

Anyways, using EFOY numbers, at around 4 weeks for an M10 providing 400Wh/day (=11.1kW) , I make that £4.46/kW at a cartridge cost of £50 for an M10, and costing £1.78 a day.
Hookup costs what? £5-6 a day extra maybe? so if you use less then 1.2kW a day, you would save money (but IF you were hooked up, you could use electric heating instead of Gas/Diesel, saving other fuel costs, and an electric heater would use give you 1kW+ a HOUR use)


How many fuel cartridges will I need in a year?
EFOY customers generally need 2-3 M10 fuel cartridges per year in normal use.

With their 33/Ah a day number and one M10 lasting 4 weeks, 2-3 M10s mean 8-12 weeks.
Using just 33Ah a day = 400Wh (= a (very) small heater on for an hour a day) = £100 of fuel cell consumption in 8 weeks.
And - IMO - 33Ah is unrealistic and should be likely doubled ...£100 a month (based on 14 days use)


To fit a unit like this means you must be serious about maximising the use of your MH, so 8-12 weeks a year is just about as realistic as averaging 33Ah/Day. Benefit in the winter for sure as Solar is pretty useless then, but this replaces Solar in the summer as well (EFOY promotes it as a better alternative, not in conjunction with), so as a primary source of battery replenishment in the summer as well when parked up, those on-going costs rocket.

As a solution for off-season Wild Camping, when you are stationary for days at a time, it is a good technical solution (but at £3,000+ purchase and £2 a day running)
If your off-season Wild-Camping involves moving day to day and for over say just 30 minutes driving, your Alternator will put more power into your Leisure battery than the 33Ah/Day projected use by EFOY (£250 Purchase for a B2B Charger + £Zero ongoing)
When in-season Wild Camping, a single 100W Solar Panel will almost always provide more power during the day then the EFOY Fuel Cell (£100 Purchase, £Zero Ongoing)
When On-Site Camping - off-season needs heating, and heating via hookup is more cost-effective then EFOY plus Gas/Diesel; in-season, Solar will be more effective then EFOY when On-Site without hookup.

my own conclusion (YMMV) ....
A great gimmick for those who have the funds to spend on it.

 

[Robmac]

As a wealthy guy I knew used to say "Anyone can buy a Rolls Royce , but if they need to know the running costs they can't afford it "

I once phoned a dealer about a Jag I was interested in, it was POA.

I asked him how much and he replied "If you need to ask how much, you probably can't afford it"

I replied " I need to ask how much so I know how much cash to give you if I buy it!"

I bought one elsewhere.

 

[mistericeman]

I was curious about the running costs so thought I would do some number crunching ....

Certainly an expensive - even if good - solution to a problem.
The EFOY website looks like it is manipulating the numbers to make them sound more attractive as well, I think?

"How long does an M5 or M10 fuel cartridge last on average?
Assuming an average requirement of 33 Ah/day (400 Wh/day):
- one M10 will last approx. 4 weeks"

33Ah/day is not a lot of use really - you would get that out of a small 80Ah leisure battery perfectly easily. If people are often in reality looking to upgrade the batteries to gain more usable power, then maybe a more realistic number EFOY should quote is 60 or 70Ah/Day say?

Anyways, using EFOY numbers, at around 4 weeks for an M10 providing 400Wh/day (=11.1kW) , I make that £4.46/kW at a cartridge cost of £50 for an M10, and costing £1.78 a day.
Hookup costs what? £5-6 a day extra maybe? so if you use less then 1.2kW a day, you would save money (but IF you were hooked up, you could use electric heating instead of Gas/Diesel, saving other fuel costs, and an electric heater would use give you 1kW+ a HOUR use)


How many fuel cartridges will I need in a year?
EFOY customers generally need 2-3 M10 fuel cartridges per year in normal use.

With their 33/Ah a day number and one M10 lasting 4 weeks, 2-3 M10s mean 8-12 weeks.
Using just 33Ah a day = 400Wh (= a (very) small heater on for an hour a day) = £100 of fuel cell consumption in 8 weeks.
And - IMO - 33Ah is unrealistic and should be likely doubled ...£100 a month (based on 14 days use)


To fit a unit like this means you must be serious about maximising the use of your MH, so 8-12 weeks a year is just about as realistic as averaging 33Ah/Day. Benefit in the winter for sure as Solar is pretty useless then, but this replaces Solar in the summer as well (EFOY promotes it as a better alternative, not in conjunction with), so as a primary source of battery replenishment in the summer as well when parked up, those on-going costs rocket.

As a solution for off-season Wild Camping, when you are stationary for days at a time, it is a good technical solution (but at £3,000+ purchase and £2 a day running)
If your off-season Wild-Camping involves moving day to day and for over say just 30 minutes driving, your Alternator will put more power into your Leisure battery than the 33Ah/Day projected use by EFOY (£250 Purchase for a B2B Charger + £Zero ongoing)
When in-season Wild Camping, a single 100W Solar Panel will almost always provide more power during the day then the EFOY Fuel Cell (£100 Purchase, £Zero Ongoing)
When On-Site Camping - off-season needs heating, and heating via hookup is more cost-effective then EFOY plus Gas/Diesel; in-season, Solar will be more effective then EFOY when On-Site without hookup.

my own conclusion (YMMV) ....
A great gimmick for those who have the funds to spend on it.

Excellent, thank you for that

Confirms what I thought.

I'll stick with VSR and solar panels and batteries.... It's worked perfectly well for the sort of wild camping WE do.

 

[ChrisInNotts]

I suspect it's possibly more complicated than just topping the methanol up....

Shame as the last lot I picked up (mid last year) was less than £80 for 204 litres of top grade M1 Stuff.....

/QUOTE]

I don't think it is. I am curious about the technology so waded through their website. I can across the following in the FAQs;

Why is it not possible to refill the fuel cartridges (either myself or through a third party) ? --> When will there be a refill solution available for fuel cartridges?
The law stipulates that EFOY fuel cartridges may only be sold in sealed containers for safety reasons. Accordingly it is not permissible in law to provide a refill solution. In addition, the costs and energy overhead involved in refilling would not justify the benefits.

Looks like it will be perfectly possible to DIY refill :banana:

Keith

 

[jagmanx]

So to sum it up

I was curious about the running costs so thought I would do some number crunching ....

Certainly an expensive - even if good - solution to a problem.
The EFOY website looks like it is manipulating the numbers to make them sound more attractive as well, I think?

"How long does an M5 or M10 fuel cartridge last on average?
Assuming an average requirement of 33 Ah/day (400 Wh/day):
- one M10 will last approx. 4 weeks"

33Ah/day is not a lot of use really - you would get that out of a small 80Ah leisure battery perfectly easily. If people are often in reality looking to upgrade the batteries to gain more usable power, then maybe a more realistic number EFOY should quote is 60 or 70Ah/Day say?

Anyways, using EFOY numbers, at around 4 weeks for an M10 providing 400Wh/day (=11.1kW) , I make that £4.46/kW at a cartridge cost of £50 for an M10, and costing £1.78 a day.
Hookup costs what? £5-6 a day extra maybe? so if you use less then 1.2kW a day, you would save money (but IF you were hooked up, you could use electric heating instead of Gas/Diesel, saving other fuel costs, and an electric heater would use give you 1kW+ a HOUR use)


How many fuel cartridges will I need in a year?
EFOY customers generally need 2-3 M10 fuel cartridges per year in normal use.

With their 33/Ah a day number and one M10 lasting 4 weeks, 2-3 M10s mean 8-12 weeks.
Using just 33Ah a day = 400Wh (= a (very) small heater on for an hour a day) = £100 of fuel cell consumption in 8 weeks.
And - IMO - 33Ah is unrealistic and should be likely doubled ...£100 a month (based on 14 days use)


To fit a unit like this means you must be serious about maximising the use of your MH, so 8-12 weeks a year is just about as realistic as averaging 33Ah/Day. Benefit in the winter for sure as Solar is pretty useless then, but this replaces Solar in the summer as well (EFOY promotes it as a better alternative, not in conjunction with), so as a primary source of battery replenishment in the summer as well when parked up, those on-going costs rocket.

As a solution for off-season Wild Camping, when you are stationary for days at a time, it is a good technical solution (but at £3,000+ purchase and £2 a day running)
If your off-season Wild-Camping involves moving day to day and for over say just 30 minutes driving, your Alternator will put more power into your Leisure battery than the 33Ah/Day projected use by EFOY (£250 Purchase for a B2B Charger + £Zero ongoing)
When in-season Wild Camping, a single 100W Solar Panel will almost always provide more power during the day then the EFOY Fuel Cell (£100 Purchase, £Zero Ongoing)
When On-Site Camping - off-season needs heating, and heating via hookup is more cost-effective then EFOY plus Gas/Diesel; in-season, Solar will be more effective then EFOY when On-Site without hookup.

my own conclusion (YMMV) ....
A great gimmick for those who have the funds to spend on it.

I the summer you do not need it

In winter you need to much fuel (Efoy fuel)

AS you may have read .
Not for us !

 

[wildebus]

I'm amazed that nobody seems to have experience of refilling the fuel tanks.
Methanol is not all that expensive, so unless there is hidden magic in there (which chemical analysis would reveal) there is a huge potential for reducing the running costs significantly.
After all, if you ignore the ludicrous running cost, Efoy is a brilliant idea.Providing a sensibly-priced fuel supply would make it a far better buy.

TBH, it sounds a bit like ink-jet Printers ... make a shedload of money on the consumables by telling people they only get good results from the special branded containers (Epson Carts = £15 each, clones = £2.50 for set of 5) - except in this case the EFOY Fuel Cell burner does not appear to be the loss leader like the Printer is.

I am sure if/when this was more established, there would be copy "M10" fuel tanks out there at a considerable lower price, just like inkjet cartridges.

 

[colinm]

The law stipulates that EFOY fuel cartridges may only be sold in sealed containers for safety reasons. Accordingly it is not permissible in law to provide a refill solution.
Keith

AFAIK the law does state that items such as this must be sold in sealed containers, same for Meths, Thiners, White Spirit, etc. That doesn't mean it couldn't be part of a refillable system.

 

[Deleted member 27480]

Servicing

Has anybody considered servicing intervals and costs which the official Efoy site fails to mention (well. I couldn't find it)? After a bit of research on other forums I found this response from Efoy's customer service dept in 2013 to a query:-

"The EFOY Comfort is designed for private use in motor homes. With an estimated lifetime of approximately 5000 h the EFOY fuel cell lasts for up to 10 years assuming average use of the motor home and average use of the fuel cell of approximately 300 to 500 charging hours per year.

After 5000 h the risk of a defective component or power decrease of the stack is high. A replacement of a defective component costs 200-600 €. If the stack reaches his limit, an exchange of a stack usually includes an exchange of several other components and ends up in costs of 1500 to 2000 €. After this repair it is not a new unit. Therefore we usually recommend also replacing the whole unit after reaching the fuel cells lifetiime.

Kai Steckmann
Leiter Kundenservice
Head of Customer Service"

 

[Deleted member 5816]

Charlie the word Jealousy springs to mind when all these negative posters suddenly come alive.

Alf

It's a leisure product designed for use in totally unnecessary vehicles and boats for people who want to enjoy their leisure time and most won't care how much it costs to buy or run .
Too many on here criticise everything from people buying new vans to people buying the latest generator.
If I wanted one I wouldn't hesitate just as if I wanted a new van , there wouldn't be any good used vans about if some of us didn't have new vans and kit .

 

[wildebus]

Is analysing an interesting product (the EFOY is certainly an interesting product) and not coming to a positive conclusion automatically Jealousy?


Personally it doesn't matter to me what anyone buys. I don't give a damn about keeping up with the Jones or having to have the lastest Car Model, Reg Number, etc, but I DO like to evaluate things of interest to see if they might appeal or be of use. This particular product IMO doesn't really hit either buttons as it is very expensive to run and has low output.

Just to balance the books, here is another popular product - this time in the US - that is big on hype and price and low on true value:
Goal Zero Yeti 1250 Portable Power Station | Power Packs | Goal Zero
for US $1,500 you get a nice box that contains PSW Inverter and a bunch of USB/12V Sockets powered off a 100Ah AGM battery that takes 44 hours to recharge via the vehicle. Am I jealous of the people who have these? What you think?

 

[Wully]

View attachment 60632Fitted my efoy 140 fuelcell today took about 1 hour to completely install. I’m even more impressed when I heard it running or dident hear it. For me it was a hard decision because of initial set up cost and listening to everyone saying how good solar was well it’s pitch black outside and this things still charging my batteries at a cost I know but the piece of mind it’s giving me is great a constant 24 hour energy without sun or a noisy and polluting generator I’ll keep youse posted on running costs over time. View attachment 60627View attachment 60628

This started off so positive wished ide kept my trap shut it’s a bad day when you just try to inform people about somthing that you may find would be of help or interest and it turns into a typical wild camping turkey shoot as I’ve said I realy don’t care about cost or running costs it’s about the convenience. love and peace brothers

 

[Canalsman]

Well I for one appreciate you starting the thread.

I intend to buy one later in the year. For my pattern of use it will be an invaluable supplement to the two 100 watt solar panels. Further investigation of refilling is warranted and may be a good option once the warranty has expired.

Please continue to post about your real life usage.

Incidentally RoadPro prices do include all necessary ancillaries.

 

[Wully]

Chris I’ve found an independent supplier for fuel there more than half the price of the company that supplied mine although most of the cost is shipping so 4 m5 tubs delivered from original supplier cost£196.80. The same order from an independent supplier £91 . Think I might need to check this looks a bit iffy