Solar cooker expermentation.

[catprog]

Over the weekend I built a simple solar cooker to try and boil water.

I managed to get steam coming off the water with a cardboard box,alfoil a glass jar and a drink bottle.

Has anyone else had any success with DIY solar things? (Not PB but building the collectors from simple materials. )

[BTDretire]

I saw one today that used a discarded satellite dish antenna.
 It was an offset feed which most of the small 18" or 22" are.
 That means the cooking utensil is not blocking the sun.
 The dish was pointing almost straight up and the builder fried
an egg in butter in a pan hung from a support at the focus.
 The dish was covered with foil tape, I may have used spray
glue and covered it with tin foil.
  When my son was in high school, they a solar day, and everyone built
some type of solar cooker. I had a large Fresnel lens I removed from a
projection TV and put in a frame. I was melting pennies to show the heat it would produce.
 The teacher was a little afraid.

[Tom Bri]

We have used a solar heater daily for the last several years, during the warm months. It is just a few cardboard boxes one inside the next, some black paint and aluminum foil and a plastic lid. It does not quite reach boiling temp. The pans get way too hot to touch. After heating the water we bring it inside and bring it to a boil on the stovetop. We also pre-heat frying pans etc.
I think with just a little added effort it would easily boil water, but have not gotten around to it yet.
We cook at home for all meals, so I think this saves a significant amount of electricity.

[sillysassy]

hey, any blog links or youtube to recommend for solar cooking?
sounds like a cool idea to cook food and save electricity

[catprog]

Over the weekend I built a simple solar cooker to try and boil water.

I managed to get steam coming off the water with a cardboard box,alfoil a glass jar and a drink bottle.

Has anyone else had any success with DIY solar things? (Not PB but building the collectors from simple materials. )

This is quite impressive. Can you share how you did it?

Here is my instrutables for my soiler boiler V3.

Materials:
1 Cardboard box.
1 Stainless steel drink bottle(single walled)
1 Glass jar.
1 Roll of Al-foil
1 Glue stick.

1)Cut the cardboard box into 4 parts (the wall and flaps I think for each.)
2)Take one piece and form a curve from the center to the opposite corner(scoring helps the fold)
2a)You may need to cut a flap to make it fit. Keep this piece.
3)Do the same with another piece to make the curve on the other side.

This should give you an outline of the shape.

4)Take the two offcuts and stick them to the front of the bottom piece.



You should have something that looks like the attachment.

5)Now cover the inside of each piece with the al-foil and stick it all together.


6)Take your drink bottle and paint it black.

Place the drink bottle in the glass jar and the glass jar around the focal point of the curves. (you may need to cover the glass jar with a lid to get the temperature up)