Homemade Cola Panel

[Rhea View]

Who said being green isn't easy?

[billi]

 

i like home made  solarpanels , mine you can even grow food in    upto 60° in winter and warm air pumped into the house through a vent  or into the soil

Billi

[Rhea View]

That's brilliant! This one, the missus is going to turn into a fruit drier. Larger Mark II version will dry wood chips for the boiler - still trying to drink our way through the hundreds of cans needed! 

Just looked at your picture again - it's a homemade panel on a massive scale! How is it supported?

[billi]

still trying to drink our way through the hundreds of cans needed!

I can help on this one 

Anyhow ours is basically a greenhouse attached to the dark house wall , but reduced our heating costs this winter significant

i am always thinking of how do built  a huge solar collector  as a heating system and a seasonal store

my idea is using tar as an absorber on a insulation board  and glass on top ( or that polytunnel foil)  and run the pipes (air or water) trough the 2 inch of tar .... have to do an experiment first

You see we are helping on your design of a collector with the cans inside our Greenhouse 

Billi

[dhaslam]

Nice idea for the collector Billi  but any more ideas on the materials for a seasonal store?   Polycarbonate would be durable and a better insulator for the panels.

[Rhea View]

Talk about recycling! Empty cans have never been so popular in our household. Nowadays it’s not just the amber nectar that’s desirable!

Like your idea for a collector! Air may be better - you can use an old car or computer fan to direct the heat where you want it.

[billi]

dhaslam

I have a 20 m3 stainless  cooling container with 2 inch insulation , that could be lined with a rubber liner and buried with extra external insulation . I always  liked your straw bale idea

Sure for a stone/ soil store you could save the money on the liner and have the panels as an air collector   with a water heat exchanger for the underfloor heating

But thats all  only thinking , cause have to built the house first and find out how much heat we will need

But several options in my head how to heat our house  the grid tie option of Photovoltaic here in Ireland and get the 20 cents per unit in summer and use a heat pump in winter is an idea as well ( but not too pushed to connect to the grid at all)

The 2500 kwh "overproduction " after  our 2100 kwh we need for electricity per annum  would perhaps do us when used with an efficient heatpump  ( talking of a 5 kw PV)

Billi

[Rhea View]

Billi

Years ago I used to buy old APV plate heat exchangers (pasteurisers/milk coolers) from the dairy industry. If you could find one of these, it would be a thousand times better than the small heat exchangers you can get for boilers/swimming pools. The advantage is that, apart from being super efficient, they are designed to be opened up for cleaning etc. As you're in Ireland, and there used to be (still may be???) a big dairy industry there, it may be worth knocking on a few doors and seeing what's available in their 'scrap piles'.

The smallest dairy plate exchanger I've seen was about 6 inches x 8 inches with about 20 plates, and the largest was about 8 foot high and weighed about 10 tonnes!!!! I'm sure you'd find one to fit your house!     Also - dairies have a big selection of stainless steel insulated tanks for using as thermal stores. Just as aside - why were you thinking of lining your tank in rubber if it's S/S?

RV

[billi]

Cheers

I guess the heatexchanger is just long coils of Pipe    and i would have to make the container waterproof if  i use a water solar panel and a water based store  (so then the liner )  , not needed in a stone soil  air-collector setup

Billi

[Rhea View]

The dairy type plate heat exchangers tend to be loads more efficient than the coiled pipe types. I'll try to load the APV link - am cr4p at this!

http://www.apv.com/us/products/heatexchangers/Heat+exchangers.asp

Then again, if you want to go down the air heat exchanger route - an old heat recovery unit from a commercial building, if you can find a scrap one, would be ideal.

[Other-Power]

I concur, these panels are worth the effort.

Mine with testing, made from 144 'red bull' style cans.



Basic box



Can cutting jig, well worth the effort of making one, I used a very good bi-metal hole saw.



Basic set up



Finished and ready for testing on a south facing wall



Use of standard ducting and fan.

And the results can be found here:

http://www.otherpower.co.uk/costings%20for%20can%20solar%20www,cansol,co,uk.pdf

Jonathan

[Rhea View]

Jonathan

A few of your pics didn't load. Am particularly interested in the one of the can cutting jig. I had fingers like mincemeat after doing mine! Kept threatening to make a jig but never quite got round to it.

Just had a look at your site - interesting stuff.

[Other-Power]

Hey,

all pics seem to be fine for me...

I love making jigs and the can cutting one was great fun, so hard to hold a can, cut it and not crunch it up cause ali is so graby. 

It is real easy to make if you stick to the red bull style cans as the hole saw are perfect fits.

let me know if you want some more pics of it/explaining how it works.

Jonathan

[Other-Power]

If you have trouble seeing the pictures then:

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Otherpower/CanSolar#

[Rhea View]

Got the pics - thanks.

Also liked your idea of ducting for the manifold. I just used ply but was going to use aluminium on the next one to try to gain efficiency. I used a modified 3 speed car heater fan to vary the air flow and experiment with different air volumes. Being a centrifugal fan, it also increases the air pressure - this because I want to use it to dry wood chips to test in the log/pellet/woodchip boiler.

I did also have to increase the size of the little PV panel (now 40w), as it wasn't keeping the battery charged. This week I'm going to try installing a hot water cylinder thermostat into the top manifold to maintain a more constant air temp. This will be useful if I vary the fan speeds.