EFOY for me or you?

So my EFOY testing showed solid performance as advertised and also suggested that premium amp hours can have high value for certain boaters. But one factor so far unaccounted for is the “EFOY 5,000 running hour lifetime” much discussed on this long and influential cruisers forum EFOY thread. You’ll find a lot of intelligent commentary there and pay particular attention to “Maine Sail,” who is marine power expert Rodd Collins of Marine How To (formerly Compass Marine) website fame.

But then again, this discussion was largely focused on using older EFOY models as primary charge sources, and the killer 5,000 hour limit was apparently something of a misunderstanding anyway. According to EFOY, “The running hours mentioned are from earlier warranty regulations of SFC. Please note warranty hours are not lifetime hours. We learned that this confuses customers and removed this part of the warranty regulations. We offer an extended warranty to show that we trust our products.”

Here is some PDF detail on EFOY’s non-EU warranty, but maybe more important is that Gemeco has yet to take one back, and “They just work” is what they heard from several longtime European EFOY distributors before they took on the line. But all that said, I somewhat wistfully decided not to keep the test Efoy (even at a trade discount). It’s largely because after ten years of test installations, I have a strong hankering to strip the poor boat down and start fresh. Plus I’m curious about more ways to reduce battery loads without losing comforts — I’ve yet to try the Fridge Optimizer, for instance — and possible EFOY alternatives like those from Dynad Hydromax or New-Enerday (if they mature).

But I didn’t have to ship the EFOY back to Gemeco. When I gave my friend Luis Soltero a what’s-new-on-Gizmo tour in July, the fuel cell lit him up. Team Soltero stopped back in Camden last weekend on their way back from Canada and the Comfort 210 will eventually be installed in an aft cockpit locker on Bliss. If it works as expected– and the highly analytical Luis did his own homework — the trawler’s rarely-used generator will go to a new home, more solar panels will get added, and EFOY premium amp hours will become a significant aspect of some serious cruising plans.

I look forward to hearing about phase 2 testing on Bliss, and also your thoughts and experiences with alternate charging sources.