Solar Water Heater Steam Parabolic Mirror Trough

[geekycode]

Dan, two questions:

1. How serious was the burn?

2. Did the post get burnt at all? How would you prevent that, by wrapping it in something reflective like al-foil?

[mangyscavenger]

Awesome. Do you think you've got enough heat from that trough to gasify wood? If so, I could see a long gasifier box, loaded with wood chips, in place of that water pipe. Could run a generator or fuel a burner with the wood gas, maybe.

[tyreza79]

please i wanted to know if you can take a shower with this one

i mean if you want considerable amounts of continious hot water,

is that possible?

in other words, will the cool Water throughput beats the sun heat ?

second, i dont have those flexi mirrors where i live , then can a shinny aluminum foil do a good result ?

[advancedintellect]

lol at 3:36 i agree with 1234doc4321 Rojas for president!!

[1234Doc4321]

DAN ROJAS FOR PRESIDENT!!

[anticlementous]

So why don't you circulate water through this thing and see how many gallons of water you can heat up a day and what temperatures you can achieve. I'm curious if this system is more efficient than the box systems you normally see for solar water heaters. Also, if you have multiple pipes parallel to the center one can you still achieve high temperatures.

[d3ly51d]

Very nice setup. As AcidRaZor already said, I too cant wait to see a steam engine and a motor connected to that rig. If you do this, please include info like what type of generator is best for the job as well as some measurements like rpm, temperatures, voltage/current, materials for the tubing, etc. Thanks and keep up the good work.

[WizzleThump]

ROFL

3:37

[social3ngin33rin]

ew that was filthy when i first saw it Lolz btw :P

[ChangeWasALie]

You touched the water?

Wow you're a dumb ass. Solar water heaters a common. Did you think it'd just be lukewarm?

[NewWorldFuels]

Hey Dan nice work

There are alot of folks that would like to know if you could drag this setup back out and Place an orifice aka "pipe cap w/hole drilled " limit flow to a few gal per min and do a temp check for out put?

Thanks Keep up good work

[djdf1980]

i been dying to make this parabolic mirrors and could you please help me out how to make my own??? Making your own looks simple and i need the design setup on how to make my own so i can use my natural resources. it would help me a lot. we dont qualify for energy assistance so i need to make my own due to high electricity bills and heating bills.

[locouk]

If you paint half the pipe mat black (Lighted side) with small heat sink fins, and the other side polished or high gloss white you'll find alot more heat will be generated with a slow but constant water flow. This could be used for a small steam engine and geni... this solar could be really useful to your average bod!

[Shaunt1]

Cheap, clean energy! But how does the pipe get hot enough?

[seventhscience]

Yes you can enlarge the system dan built. At my home in Cape Coral Florida I used a 8 ft by 24 foot trough and produced 6 KW with plenty of preheated water for my hot water heater

[UKBB]

Any ideas on how to deal with snow? It looks like the trough would fill up and brushing it off could scratch up the mirror. Maybe put the whole thing in a glass enclosure like the oven you made?

[positiveauction]

Dan I would love to see some data on steam production, psi, water flow rate.

I would like to build this twice as long. make everything automatic. and produce power through a steam engine to a dc generator then to a grid tie inverter. Can this be done efficiently or am I a dreamer?

[dhymers]

Steam Cannon !

Love your vids Dan.

[DJRockinRob]

im thinking of a hot water heater ... (wonder why:) but in order to heat a sufficient amount of water - would you run multiple pipes or make a presurised single loop with a heat exchanger. similar to the steam generators on my Nuclear Submarine. My next question is how much "heat time" would you get from 1 day? does the focal point follow the arc of the sun or is it fixed and only works at "High Noon"?

[tomalad1]

Hey guys.

After looking this video I think that center point this through mirror is not exactly at the center,.... is near by. And photons from sun will hit this black pipe only hour, maybe two. Is not so easy to create something like this. I konw that because I made the same project half year ago.The curve ( arc ) of mirror you must calculate very exact.Exist appropriate range of curve when center point can stay a long time.Also angel of all contruction is very important. BRDS Tom Poland

[sjh7132]

It's cheating to preheat the pipe then run water through it. The real test is how many degrees can it heat water at a sustained (and measured) flow rate? If you had those numbers we could calculated the watts you are getting.

[muddymuddymuddmann]

By the way the wooden pipe holders might get a little hot if the sun shifts to the side a little. maybe not.

MUDDy

[GREENPOWERSCIENCE]

One already got toasted, great observation MUDDy:-)

[muddymuddymuddmann]

Hey Dan , Great coffee maker.

I'll bring the donuts, you make the mudd.

MUDDy

[jokidder]

Could you attach a small fan and some ducting to make a solar convection oven?

[themanyone]

Good job, guys. That looks hot! I only had $5 for my solar experiment, but maybe that's a good thing. We need cheap power, too... I'll post what I got. 'Keep em comin'!

[luisgarciaalanis]

So flowing watter how hot it gets?

[Davetech23]

I don't think it takes much imagination to extropolate this into "usefullness".

Great vid Dan.

[Konicava]

GREENPOWERSCIENCE really worship the sun...

I hope someday they make a usefull use of it...

[luc59457]

All you need to do now is seal both ends, have a pressure guage on the outlet with a release valve based on specific adjustable psi.. Have water in pipe no more than half.. As the steam builds up it will make pressure in the pipe.. Make sure all fittings are properly soldered LOL. You need a lot of steam pressure but I think with that you could get it in little time. You'll need a valve for the inlet to send water every once in a while.

[luc59457]

This is good for hot water but I think it will cool off at the end fast enough when high pressure.. I think I will use a mirror like that one day because it makes a longer beam, than a round or oval mirror. I still like my oil and pyrex idea=) I just need to go bigger. what's great about the oil is it will heat all around the pipe instead of just the bottom, but you got some intense heat with that!! I think This is More usefull for Canada because we get the coolers temps. - more to heat.

[CSSRage]

Best video yet, now get that steam to power a engine!

[ricande]

How about putting the pipe inside a vacuumetube.. ? Overkill???

[doug2877]

love the music makes me wanna salsa great video

[shane0000ice]

Hi Dan How do I get the Acrylic sheeting to Australia as the potential to make my own desalination plant using salt water for agriculture use and the pressure as Electricity for home and farm use as we are right on the water. Great potential and the temperatures you are showing validates what I have started to do here. On another note why do you always use your hand to get burned it's as if you don't trust the digital read out. Love your videos Thank you

Shane

[matrixm777]

Nice work, Dan. That's alot of energy...

[WorldStove]

golly! a true green monotube boiler! well done

[zws1922]

that steam continuously exiting the pipe was awesome.

@ dobberdoss: don't give them any ideas :)

[wjj4832]

Dan, Nice design! Can you tell me where to get the reflective material you used in your trough? Thanks!

[pjharro]

No offense Dan, but touching that water was super stupid lol.

[anyonefindAMERICA]

At least he didn't pay the power company to get burned! LOL

[energysteven]

@pjharro when I saw that it really took the cake. Why a little knowledge is dangerous. Now c'mon Dan, do something real with this!

[AcidRaZor]

I'm excited to see what else you can do with this. Would you be able to generate steam at a constant pace for a steam driving engine of some kind to be powered and generate electricity?

[dobberdoss]

these sort on simple things make you wonder why anyone pays for water heating with electricity. Don't you just love the sun? they can't tax it or make us pay for it EVER!

[cptnsmelly]

Until the government installs a giant metal umbrella that they charge you to open a piece of to get some sunlight. It'll be an hourly charge of 50 bucks lets say. Lol.

[XavierHolland]

I think you could install a flow valve on there for pressure regulating, just make sure it seals firm and wear gloves even when its cooling down to be safe.

[dtmbcorp]

Have you considered painting the tube black?

[pinballrobbie]

off subject I know but can anyone tell me the name of this Samba music?

[pubtor]

steaming!!!

3:36

[shreddlord]

oh man this is so cool... a cheapest way to the clean energy

[VidKingz]

Nice ! :)

[Intransitman]

Leaping lizards!

[GetMeThere1]

Really cool!!

[jazz61021]

Inline with the water heater suggestion from superbee1970, use a PV circulating pump, or engineer gravity feed without any active pumping to heat a water tank, radiant heating flooring, or a geothermal vault mass, or radiant heated mass wall.

[yusufer5000]

that is pretty great, but man, you hurt on nearly every video you put up.

[Mzinterested1]

Very interesting!

[Hopefl1]

Cool. The curve is for sun movement right?

[599891]

You rig that baby up right and you could make a lot of fresh water from salt water. You should always include the "queen of green" in your video's

[GREENPOWERSCIENCE]

We are working on a video for solar panels due by the end of the week:-) She is in it.

[JULYINJULY]

You are having way too much fun now:-) Wow that is some steam. This HD stuff is AMAZING. Great work.

[danz409]

hope that lizzard dosn't find its way up there..

[dmontoya699]

This is awesome. On a large scale this could work like Geothermal water heating. Try testing this in a snowstorm and see if the sun's concentrated rays could still heat the water.

[hoser4]

Let's see this hooked up to your Tesla turbine experiment to see what kind of useful motive power you get from it.

[superbee1970]

Awesome, 1st thing I thought of is that it would make some OUT OF THIS WORLD ESPRESSO's!! YUMMY!

Woudl ike to see this thing in a loop to a water heater and see how long and how hot it can make a full sized water heater full of hot water... Coffee at Star butts is at 160 degrees when they give it to ya n that'll burn your tongue! GREAT vid!

[triforcelink]

Dan, you should put all these mini projects into a big project, set up a whole water heating system for your house :D i would love to watch something like that!

[lvecsey]

Do you think a project like this would work for a 12 story NYC apartment complex? Perhaps you could be a remote consultant of sorts, and have the project go through stages where it is first approved by the Co-Op board, then a section of the roof is reserved (with video documentary), and so on.

Maybe you have some other ideas too. I think capturing over-the-air HDTV is a cool idea too but who knows, maybe there are capitalist forces keeping the triple-play broadband contracts going.

[Demoman42]

so now try to connect steam engine to it :) and show us results! Great Job Btw...

[godsend420]

could you make a steam room using ur hurricane shelter u showed in a different vid w/ this and several pipes j/w cuz im getting sick and have heard the term sweat it out i could be way off

any who instant free hot water would be good for a pool who doesnt like a pool party 5*

[8DoverNJ]

This definitely shows the enormous potential of this type of solar technology. Great job, keep them coming! Cheers!

[tukysman]

CAn you make electricity with that steam!!!?????

[insAneTunA]

WOW that is a lot of heat. I can't wait to see more experiments with this one.

Awesome job Dan. 5 *

Greets from the Netherlands, iT

[andruha11234]

steam cannon!

[joelito101]

Right away it made me think of a steam engine.

[madjimms]

As always, 5 stars for cool science & a cool video!

[motters2001]

I suppose the next thing would be to add some mechanism to allow the trough to track the sun.

[web4deb]

Back in the 70's, my neighbor had one of these on their roof to heat their domestic water. It was tied to a motor so it could track the sun rising/falling. It's a bit easier to track with these than a dish.... Nice job!

[CTOL1]

WOOT The "Mad" scientist is rock'n and a roll'n

Awesome man your a loose cannon on the deck of the ship to new adventurers in green power

In this case that is a good thing ! ! !

Keep these videos coming much appreciated

[2LateIWon]

You could actually make the pipe zig zag like a radiator ( or could you use an old radiator to go backwards and radiate the heat to the water passing through it? You have more of a surface area to heat up) The radiator idea might be to wide and block the sun. Crap never mind LOL

[martijnpc]

How did you get it so dirty :D

[GREENPOWERSCIENCE]

Under a tree for 2 weeks of rain.

[599891]

Now we're getting somewhere. What if you took say a 4 inch black pipe over your 1 inch pipe and pack sand in between them for even more surface area to heat up. You could have the rig laying in Y's instead of going through holes in the wood.

[GREENPOWERSCIENCE]

:-)

I Have GE Quartz Fused glass tubes on the way.

[UKBB]

I was thinking of putting an evacuated glass tube around the pipe.

[lokj4519]

What was the cost on that mirror?

[truthteller1967]

hook that up to a steam powered generator and we got free God given electricity, i guess God did place every thing under our feet !

[piestrak]

amazing stuff man always like your vids

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

I wonder how much more efficient it could be if you had a tube that snaked back and forth a couple times in the focal point.

[brt5470]

Such cute and uplifting music.

[jdcmusicman]

looking good man ...Do you have to adjust this to the sun like a regular parabolic dish?