Salt, science and energy.
Did some more analysis.
I wanted to see how the sun's angle was going to effect the focus of a parabola.

I started with a parabola 12 inches across and the focus 1 inch from the bottom.
I traced the rays for a 90 degree, 80 degree, 70 degree and a 100 degree
(I only traced left half to keep it clear)

[Image: box1.JPG]

[Image: box2.JPG]
[Image: box3.JPG]
[Image: box4.JPG]


If you have excel and want to play, I made a spread sheet where you can adjust sun angle, focus and width.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24334931/parabola%20design.xls
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What you're doing is beyond me, Chuck. I don't feel my design skills are even in the slightest up to this task. I can only say, continue on.
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(01-04-2012, 07:39 AM)PonderThis Wrote: What you're doing is beyond me, Chuck. I don't feel my design skills are even in the slightest up to this task. I can only say, continue on.

Yeah same here. I'm more of a hands on guy. I would like to first make a parabolic trough and THEN point it at the sun and adjust my pipe collector by hand.

I definitely think these troughs are a lot better design than a dish.But fooling around with the dish was a lot of fun.
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(01-03-2012, 04:51 PM)PonderThis Wrote: Well, I know I get sidetracked with deep interests too. But now you have some idea why I'm so intrigued with this non-tracking idea of a concentrating solar collector. There's a lot of potential in the idea, at least seemingly.

For anyone that doubts the power of the sun, here's a solar furnace pic I found on the web, for smelting metals. I don't know anything about it though:

[Image: untitled+2.JPG]

I looked at this thing a long time trying to figure out how the hell it could work with out tracking.
It turns out it does track in a way. There a bunch of mirrors that you can't see in that photo that do track and they keep the sun focused on that parabolic building.

You can see then here...

[Image: mirrors.jpg]











http://pcgladiator.blogspot.com/2009/03/...naces.html
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I couldn't figure how they tracked it either, and guessed they only melted one batch a day. Smiling

I still don't see what's going on even looking at your picture.
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I am guessing that the building has the focusing mirror and that there is another set of mirros on the found that reflect the sun toward the building.
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Here is an interesting site.

You can find Sun path directions for your location
[Image: sunpath.JPG]

http://www.sunearthtools.com/dp/tools/pos_sun.php

The two black lines are the path for summer and winter solstice.
The gold line is today's sun path.
The figure eight is the position of the sun at noon. Note that the sun is not due south at noon, because we are not in the middle of the time zone.
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OK, that makes a pretty chart, and I'll ask the brainy guy up the road if he understands it. I'd post it online but it seems sort of personally identifiable to give out the coordinates that way, especially with what I see pictured. Smiling
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Well, it the coordinates for the covered bridge. Didn't want to give out my location.

If you look due south that is the path you would see the sun take across the sky.
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So what is the squiggly figure 8 showing? Would everyone in the Rogue Valley area within 100 miles or so get a similar squiggle for all practical purposes?

Edit: Obviously not, since my squiggle is farther to the right than your squiggle.
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The figure 8 is the position of the sun at noon. they are showing the path for a years time.

This site has more on the figure 8
http://www.shadowspro.com/en/sundials.html
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OK
I played with some duel parabola designs.
first I looked at the rays from 90 degrees to 82 degrees on a design of 12" wide, a 1" focus with a 1.5" inch pipe two inches off from middle.
see images below
[Image: 82%20degrees.JPG]
[Image: 90%20degrees.JPG]

So I made a design with each parabola tilted 8 degrees.
and plotted.
[Image: fullduel.JPG]

to print this out on a 81/2 X 11 we need to split it in half, each half is the same just mirrored.

[Image: right%20side.JPG]

You may need to play with scaling to get it to print right on your printer.
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