projects

[tvguy]

I'm making a solar heat collector. I got a great deal on some solar hot water panels. 50 bucks for 9 of them. They were worth 900 bucks in scrap I saved two complete ones and a couplle of others I saved the aluminum frames plus all of the glass.

So I took two of the frames and screwed them together in order to make a deeper box.I guess it's about 10 in deep now. I put Styrofoam insulation in the bottom and next goes something to collect heat.
I'm going to try a piece of my old solar pool heater, It's made of some thick black plastic that I assume will hold up well with the heat.
And on top of that I'm thinking about using either aluminum downspout or possibly some of that flexible aluminum dryer or exhaust ducting. It will fill the box and zig zag through.
Like this guy did.....

I don't know why this guy used stainless steel ducting instead of aluminum. I think the stainless would be a lot more expensive.

Any ideas??

[Yeshuah Hamashiach]

Less corrosion /toxicity ?

[PonderThis]

I'm making a solar heat collector. I got a great deal on some solar hot water panels. 50 bucks for 9 of them. They were worth 900 bucks in scrap I saved two complete ones and a couplle of others I saved the aluminum frames plus all of the glass.

So I took two of the frames and screwed them together in order to make a deeper box.I guess it's about 10 in deep now. I put Styrofoam insulation in the bottom and next goes something to collect heat.
I'm going to try a piece of my old solar pool heater, It's made of some thick black plastic that I assume will hold up well with the heat.
And on top of that I'm thinking about using either aluminum downspout or possibly some of that flexible aluminum dryer or exhaust ducting. It will fill the box and zig zag through.
Like this guy did.....

I don't know why this guy used stainless steel ducting instead of aluminum. I think the stainless would be a lot more expensive.

Any ideas??

Yes.

1. There's no benefit to making solar collectors deeper, because you can only collect as much heat as sunlight shines on the box anyway - the extra depth isn't gaining you anything.

2. Using a long continuous loop results in high friction losses for your fan. Designs using headers at the top and bottom are better.

3. Plastic tubing won't work if the temperature ever exceeds the melting point of your plastic - often not much more than 200 degrees F. - a temperature that can occur in case of direct sun and fan failure, for example. I don't understand if you're really using plastic tubing or that stainless steel stuff, but it's something to consider. Test melt some plastic in your oven sometime when your wife is gone, it stinks up the house but tells you the melting temperature. (Don't ask how I know this.)

4. There's better designs cheaper to make that are just being invented, I'll get you a you-tube link in a bit.

Oh, and 5. What were your original designs made out of again? If you could run hot oil in it instead of water, and if you mounted these lower in elevation on the wall than you needed the heat, I think you could thermosyphon the heat up into a house radiator to circulate the heat. I have some ideas to run a solar barbecue the same way, and possibly to run some free-energy devices. I don't know if your designs would hold up to that use though, and I don't know how many besides myself are thinking such things either.

[PonderThis]

The solar energy group I think you should be a member of is http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SimplySolar/ You would enjoy looking through their files, for example.

No Youtube yet, but I think this is what they're doing. Truthfully I haven't paid much attention so far, but the group has been raving about how cheap these collectors are to make and how super-efficient they are. I've had more of an interest in heating up hot oil but this gives you some ideas of what they're doing.

All these boxes consist of is fiberglass window screen and an intake and exhaust header on each end (maybe a sheet of foil-backed insulation in the back too, that seems likely, and of course, glass in front - you probably already have this much). Armed with this much information, you can probably find the videos on your own now too:

[tvguy]

1. There's no benefit to making solar collectors deeper, because you can only collect as much heat as sunlight shines on the box anyway - the extra depth isn't gaining you anything.

Hmmm. Out of all the ones I've seen I have never seen one that was as shallow as mine would be if I didn't double the depth. Also I need the depth in order to put the ducting inside.

There has to be some kind of standard. Too shallow and you won't heat enough air. Too deep and the air won't get hot enough.

2. Using a long continuous loop results in high friction losses for your fan. Designs using headers at the top and bottom are better.

I'm not sure what you mean by "headers".

3. Plastic tubing won't work if the temperature ever exceeds the melting point of your plastic - often not much more than 200 degrees F. - a temperature that can occur in case of direct sun and fan failure, for example. I don't understand if you're really using plastic tubing or that stainless steel stuff, but it's something to consider. Test melt some plastic in your oven sometime when your wife is gone, it stinks up the house but tells you the melting temperature. (Don't ask how I know this.)

The plastic is not tubing, it's a flat mat about 3/8 in thick that normally lays flat on your roof and water from your pool circulates through it.
I don't need to use it but I assume it's rated for some high temps. If it doesn't hold up my plan B is metal roofing painted black with high temp stove paint.

4. There's better designs cheaper to make that are just being invented, I'll get you a you-tube link in a bit.

I'm sure there are better designs but as far as cheaper? So far I haven't spent a dime. All I need is ducting.

Oh, and 5. What were your original designs made out of again? If you could run hot oil in it instead of water, and if you mounted these lower in elevation on the wall than you needed the heat, I think you could thermosyphon the heat up into a house radiator to circulate the heat. I have some ideas to run a solar barbecue the same way, and possibly to run some free-energy devices. I don't know if your designs would hold up to that use though, and I don't know how many besides myself are thinking such things either.

These things are copper tubing laying of sheet copper. The two I saved that are still intact I plan to use to heat water. That should save me more money than anything else.
I know you are in to the thermosyphon idea but I totally don't mind using a circulating pump plus then I can put the collectors anywhere I want.
The cost to run one of these pumps would be very low.

I suppose I should spend a lot more time on youtube looking at what and how others have built the solar heated air collectors but I'm just throwing together what I have for now, quick and easy to see how it works.

[tvguy]

The solar energy group I think you should be a member of is http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SimplySolar/ You would enjoy looking through their files, for example.

No Youtube yet, but I think this is what they're doing. Truthfully I haven't paid much attention so far, but the group has been raving about how cheap these collectors are to make and how super-efficient they are. I've had more of an interest in heating up hot oil but this gives you some ideas of what they're doing.

All these boxes consist of is fiberglass window screen and an intake and exhaust header on each end. Armed with this much information, you can probably find the videos on your own now too:

Yeah I've seen the exact same thing, There are tons of them on Youtube. So I see what you mean with the headers. Just a pipe with holes drilled in it? on each end? I can do that, what ever works best.

[PonderThis]

All a header means is, there's a manifold tube at the top and the bottom, and all the individual runs go between those (this design presents less resistance to flow) - the electrical equivalent would be wiring things in parallel rather than in series.

Here's a hot water design they've been promoting lately too, it's made out of cpvc pipe and I think has metal fins attached somewhere - you'll have to check out the video. They say these are exceedingly cheap to build too (I think they can overheat if for some reason stagnation occurs though):

[tvguy]

All a header means is, there's a manifold tube at the top and the bottom, and all the individual runs go between those (this design presents less resistance to flow) - the electrical equivalent would be wiring things in parallel rather than in series.

OK I got it. My thought was that the longer the air is in the collector the more it would heat up...as in series.

With the parallel set up the air goes from one end to the other. With the series it has to travel a lot farther.
Anyway I'll try both. Or I guess I should do some more research.The problem is that not too many of them actually show the temps they are getting.

And a lot of the videos focus WAY too much on how to build the freaking box:wacko:





I watched that same guy the other day on a vid about the hot air collector.






Here's a hot water design they've been promoting lately too, it's made out of cpvc pipe and I think has metal fins attached somewhere - you'll have to check out the video. They say these are exceedingly cheap to build too (I think they can overheat if for some reason stagnation occurs though):


[/quote]

I watched that same guy the other day on a vid about the hot air collector.

[PonderThis]

That's as cutting-edge for home brew solar as I know of. It's a newsgroup that generates copious messages daily, so a bit unwieldy to go through, but people bore each other to tears with their temperature observations. I'd rather just wait and let them work all the kinks out and then hopefully somebody will manufacture them dirt cheap anyway. Actually, I'd just as soon you study these ideas in depth and then report back to us.

p.s. The manifold designs outperform designs in series, whether it's air, water, or oil being heated up, at least as I understand it.

[tvguy]

That's as cutting-edge for home brew solar as I know of. It's a newsgroup that generates copious messages daily, so a bit unwieldy to go through, but people bore each other to tears with their temperature observations. I'd rather just wait and let them work all the kinks out and then hopefully somebody will manufacture them dirt cheap anyway. Actually, I'd just as soon you study these ideas in depth and then report back to us.

p.s. The manifold designs outperform designs in series, whether it's air, water, or oil being heated up, at least as I understand it.

That's good to know because it's easier and cheaper anyway.

I see lots of guys using pop cans. I don't understand it? drilling out both ends of a crap load of cans and gluing them together is not for me. There's got to be a much simpler way to go.

[PonderThis]

The aluminum sheets from newspaper printing presses are one cheap alternative, and aluminum flashing is used sometimes in a one foot width. I've seen designs where you router out a round groove in a block of wood and then pound a piece of pipe over the flashing to put a perfect round indentation in the flashing that fits right around the tubing. Frankly I've wondered why people go to so much effort to make homemade collectors, but I haven't priced the commercial alternatives either.

[tvguy]

The aluminum sheets from newspaper printing presses are one cheap alternative, and aluminum flashing is used sometimes in a one foot width. I've seen designs where you router out a round groove in a block of wood and then pound a piece of pipe over the flashing to put a perfect round indentation in the flashing that fits right around the tubing. Frankly I've wondered why people go to so much effort to make homemade collectors, but I haven't priced the commercial alternatives either.

All those solar water heaters I bought had sheet aluminum backing. I saved them all

[PonderThis]

There's something they've been doing with aluminum gutter downspouts too. Truthfully there's a lot of subjects in this newsgroup I don't pay much attention to, I'm still fixated on heating up hot oil myself. In some ways heating air alone is easier though, because the hotter you make it the more difficult it is to raise it any higher in temp, whereas if you can only heat things up 15 degrees or so and still get a benefit out of that increase, that's considered more efficient to do (meaning, it's a lot easier to get 85 degree air to warm your house up than to get 200 degree + oil to warm an oven up). To a certain extent at least it depends on how fast you pass your air or whatever through the collector.

[tvguy]

There's something they've been doing with aluminum gutter downspouts too. Truthfully there's a lot of subjects in this newsgroup I don't pay much attention to, I'm still fixated on heating up hot oil myself. In some ways heating air alone is easier though, because the hotter you make it the more difficult it is to raise it any higher in temp, whereas if you can only heat things up 15 degrees or so and still get a benefit out of that increase, that's considered more efficient to do (meaning, it's a lot easier to get 85 degree air to warm your house up than to get 200 degree + oil to warm an oven up). To a certain extent at least it depends on how fast you pass your air or whatever through the collector.

There's something they've been doing with aluminum gutter downspouts too

yeah the same guy in your video built a solar collector with gutter downspouts and also his friend built one.
They both seem to work very well especially the larger one and neither one has the headers you described so I'm re thinking the alleged better performance of the header design.

It looks like a combination of the two is the way to go like this..........



http://www.n3fjp.com/solar/solarhotair.htm

[PonderThis]

You're ahead of me here, because I never look at any of their photos or their videos, and I only skim over the messages. I really have been mesmerized with the oil heating ideas instead, maybe because my new house is so well insulated it practically heats itself anyway, and I don't foresee needing any more heat when the sun is shining than already will come in through the 3 french doors on the south side. I don't see how collecting hot air only would do my life any good.

[tvguy]

You're ahead of me here, because I never look at any of their photos or their videos, and I only skim over the messages. I really have been mesmerized with the oil heating ideas instead, maybe because my new house is so well insulated it practically heats itself anyway, and I don't foresee needing any more heat when the sun is shining than already will come in through the 3 french doors on the south side. I don't see how collecting hot air only would do my life any good.

I don't either. But your were talking about a solar collector with hot oil going through a radiator inside. That would also require a sunny day when you say you don't need heat anyway?
Seems to me like heating your water would be the most beneficial in your case.

[PonderThis]

I'm not wanting to use the heat for heating water either. I'm wanting to first heat a solar oven with it (because that seems like a simple enough application, possibly one even built into the south wall that is always "on"), and when I'm not doing that, I want to use the heat to drive a boiling refrigerant gas (that boils at temperatures in the '60's) that drives a turbine to generate power. It's called the Organic Rankine Cycle, and is sort of a heat pump kind of a deal that works off waste heat of any kind, these could even run off waste automobile heat. But solar is the most renewable. (Well, geothermal too).

[tvguy]

I'm not wanting to use the heat for heating water either. I'm wanting to first heat a solar oven with it (because that seems like a simple enough application, possibly one even built into the south wall that is always "on"), and when I'm not doing that, I want to use the heat to drive a boiling refrigerant gas (that boils at temperatures in the '60's) that drives a turbine to generate power. It's called the Organic Rankine Cycle, and is sort of a heat pump kind of a deal that works off waste heat of any kind, these could even run off waste automobile heat. But solar is the most renewable. (Well, geothermal too).

Well good luck with all that. The fact is that because electricity is relatively cheap all that stuff just isn't worth it.
Your water wheel and the paltry amount of power that it generates should have taught you that.

Waste automobile heat to generate electricity??? Aren't you going to need some really long extension cords.
No offense dude but IMO some of your ideas are not practical and pretty far out man.
The Organic Rankine Cycle is almost always used to generate power from large amounts of wasted heat sources.
In your case in order to generate any significant amount of power using one you would first have to build a vast system of solar collectors that would cost you more of an investment than you could live long enough to ever recover.

You want to run an oven with the sun? A typical electric range is not a major energy user. They only cost a couple bucks a month to use for most people

[PonderThis]

As regards automobile heat, suppose you could eliminate the power loss of the cooling fan and also the drag of the alternator by using waste heat to power those instead of engine power? Would you see that as a benefit? Suppose waste heat also powered the air conditioning? Would you see the benefit to that? I think you're scoffing at what you don't understand again.

And, you have more of a confidence than I do that power is going to continue coming through those wires. I realize that's where you made your money at, but I think it's quite wise to be more self sufficient on those things. (Besides, I've seen the power be out for a week at a time just in snow storms).

And, I think many people would get a kick out of a solar powered barbecue, and it might potentially be a mass-market item if perfected.

Regarding the water wheel, I learned how to generate with and use 3 phase 240 volt power from that experience, and then convert it into low voltage DC, and I have to think that information will do me more good somewhere along the road. If not, well, it won't be the first time I went down dead end roads either. One thing I have always done is, allow myself to fail without much personal remorse. I've had enough successes that that attitude still has done me more good than bad overall.

[tvguy]

='PonderThis' pid='164026' dateline='1324851169']
As regards automobile heat, suppose you could eliminate the power loss of the cooling fan and also the drag of the alternator by using waste heat to power those instead of engine power? Would you see that as a benefit? Suppose waste heat also powered the air conditioning? Would you see the benefit to that? I think you're scoffing at what you don't understand again.

Ponder it's not scoffing if I point out what I perceive as something you want to do that is not viable.
I really was not trying to scoff. I was dead serious when I said s some of your ideas are not practical and pretty far out. It's just me being me and being honest.

And, you have more of a confidence than I do that power is going to continue coming through those wires. I realize that's where you made your money at, but I think it's quite wise to be more self sufficient on those things. (Besides, I've seen the power be out for a week at a time just in snow storms).

And, I think many people would get a kick out of a solar powered barbecue, and it might potentially be a mass-market item if perfected.

I didn't consider that you were banking on our entire power system failing. I don't consider that very much at when I try and do things or create energy.
So as long as we're clear on our motivation these ideas can make more sense.
YOU are politically motivated and like your arch enemy ham sandwich seem to want to see our economy and gov fail. ME, I just want to save money.

And you might have mentioned the solar oven was a novelty. I'm in to that

As far as using the wasted heat from a cars tailpipe to generate electricity or run an AC... I'm sorry but I think those ideas would already be utilized if they were not so cost prohibitive.
I think the great many other ways that reduce the fuel or energy a car uses that are being used put that idea at the bottom.
I just don't believe the math will work. Input versus output, what you put in versus what you get out.
There has to be a million other people who have considered the same thing.

That's not scoffing, it's just my opinion.

I'm glad you learned a lot from your water wheel experimenting and I guaratee I've had more bad ideas than good ones.
I was trying to point out the amount of energy. In any form. required to spin a turbine that will produce a SIGNIFICANT amount of electricity.

"Significant" is the key. What's significant to you with your prophesy of the day coming with no more power is one thing.
To me it's another