Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Propane help?

Got a chuckle out of me!

I have used these several times in the past but used the old style valve on the big bottle. It is my understanding that the newer valves on the big bottle wont work when upside down. Am I mis-informed?

You want to buy Flame king 1# refillable bottles and their refill valve assy. This setup uses a 20# bottle upside down. I have messed with filling the Coleman style cylinders and it is a nasty mess. Trying to fill and keep the spring loaded Schroeder valve open and not get propane on you is impossible. Once propane gets on your clothes, you might as well leave them outside. The flame king bottles have a socket head Allen screw for the vent. No hassles about freezing one. Turn on the valve until it spits liquid. 100% full. You do still need to pay attention to wind direction. Anything other than this method is a waste of time.

No reason. Waste of time with the right equipment.

You are correct. The new overfill protection valves close when the bottle is inverted. They’re designed to only let vapor pass, not liquid.

FWIW I believe it is illegal to transport any refilled ‘single use’ cylinders. Not sure how they know they were refilled, but I figured I would throw that out there.

If you are going through that much propane perhaps you should just get a feed line or distribution tree and use the big tank to directly feed the stove (and lantern on top of the tree).

I’ve never refilled a small cylinder but have had troubles out of some old ones leaking when disconnected (old cylinders stored in my fathers garage). I am guessing they have a finite life before they begin to leak. I camp quite a bit and don’t go through enough of the small cylinders to make it worth messing with trying to refill them.

bought a 100# tank from Tractor Supply today. They'll fill it for me on Monday when I pick it up.

Bought an adaptor on Amazon so I can hook the modern style regulator to it.

This Quote from the propane 101 website seems to indicate otherwise.

“OPD equipped propane cylinders will allow liquid propane into gas lines and hoses if tipped over or inverted. Overfill Prevention Devices are not a safety mechanism used or actuated during cylinder usage.“

An OPD is essentially a float valve. When the float lifts to the top, it shuts off. If the tank is upside down, the float tries to lift to the top of the liquid but now it's opening, not closing.

Our service techs can’t use them as pony tanks to get customers going when out of gas calls come in. Used to use regular 20lb tanks but had to switchover to forklift tanks without the OPD valves.

I have filled a lot of small 1# bottles and all my 20# tanks have OPD 's on them They all get turn upside down and all small bottles get filled . I never pre chilled them either. I hung several in tent or in my stock trailer when I used it as a camp. or sitting on the ground when I was out sides saddling stock.The propane trees are not the answer in all cases.

The most I could get into a 1# cylinder was about 8-10oz.
It seemed to work better if you put the empty ones in the fridge first.
We used to use piles of them in the scouts.

If you take the time to watch the clip I posted for you, it shows how to do it, what each method is capable of transferring, troubleshooting and pretty much everything you need to know.

It mirrors my experience 100%

Dunno, 1lb cylinders are only about a quart of liquid so maybe the opd valves will fill those before shutting down, never messed with em. I make a living delivering LP and pony bigger tanks on occasion but the opd valves don’t work for that.

Thanks all, I have a gizmo coming.

There's a safety valve in the OPD that will shut off if you turn the gas on too fast. It's designed to shut it off if a hose or something breaks.

That makes sense.

The other thing I thought of is that with the fill tank inverted as it empties the opd valve will be closing. Probably get the best results filling the 1lb tanks using a full fill tank.

I’d be leery of warming a fill tank much, the pressure relief valve might not like that.

I used to do it years ago, and not since the new valve style on the 20lbers. The new valve was designed to only fill the tank to about 80% capacity, to eliminate overfill and allow room for expansion of pressure in warmer temps. Not sure about inverting the 20lb tank, but a simple test would be to turn upside down and crack the valve slightly. Obviously, if nothing comes out, the valve will stop flow when upside down. Just picturing in my mind, I can't see how it could stop flow upside down. When I did it with a 20lb to 1lb refill, I did as the instructions stated. to put the small tank in the freezer for short time and to invert 20lber when refilling. I di warm the 2olber by using a hair blow dryer. The reasons with temps effecting the pressures is when a liquefied gas such as propane is cold it is condensed and lower pressure versus with warmer temps causing expansion with higher pressures. That is why sometimes when you use a 1lber outside like on a Coleman camp stove, when temps are say below freezing, there is very low pressure. And acts like the tank is going empty.

I've filled 100s over the years, I can get 2 tanks in one ....thing is don't use them in the lantern at the top of the tent ..there is a reason for that relief valve ...lol