I Built a Giant Sun Tracking Solar Death Ray..

[@springlink3188]

Building all of this just to be hit with the reality that you live in the Netherlands is very relatable. It's like when me and me dad installed solar panel lights on our house and forgot we get an absurd amount of clouds, so we originally thought we bought defective lights XD

[@christopherd.winnan8701]

Send me a version for testing in SEA. I already have a neighbor with a similar set up who sells solar roasted chicken on the highway. I will send back a cut of the profits for further R&D.

[@wingstrongwingstrong]

The heated aluminium disc should be dark, black (but not catch fire) to use enough of the light that is focused on it (as it's well known, the darker the object, the better it heats up). And, I'm sure you've considered this, but just in case: of course each segment must be the shape of the corresponding part of a parabola, not of the parabola's centre.

[@MrMpakobec]

If the focus point will be few centimetres above aluminium disk, trap for light could be made: second disk with small hole that will be few centimetres above main disk and aluminium wall between two disks. that way almost all light will get through the hole in the first disk and then rereflect many times inside our trap, heating everything up. This also will stop wind from cooling main disk. And of course all walls inside trap should be black - main disk heat resistant paint and other walls of the trap could be painted with black 3.0 to really boost performance.

[@wingstrongwingstrong]

@@MrMpakobec Поддерживаю

[@Atom224]

Not necessarily, if all parabolic mirrors (and their respective focal points) are equidistant to the secondary mirror/heater plate. It's way cheaper and faster to have one mold for all mirrors.

[@SolarCookingGermany]

As someone who builds solar cookers I've never seen anyone at that level of engineering (except industrial projects). Very impressive and I also like the design👍Looking forward to part 2

[@jacobe2995]

The only thing I would have done differently is just make one huge parabolic instead of segmented ones. I also would like to see how it's going to be used because I'm having trouble understanding how other than just heating water what use is it? granted heating water is pretty useful too.

[@daemenoth]

Humanities scientific advancement is pretty much measured by how complicated a way we can devise to boil water.

[@christopherd.winnan8701]

home made solar water heater powered by a fresnel lense kzbin.info/www/bejne/qKOqfpyamMSDbdU

[@unknownhours]

One huge mirror is more difficult to make. That's why the Webb uses that hexagons. Of course, individual mirror segments have their own issues....

[@michaelsorensen7567]

Easier to replace a single failed mirror from an array, rather than having to replace the whole thing. Also easier to make small mirrors than big ones Also easier to correct for flaws etc with small mirrors than one big one. There are some advantages to a solid mirror. There are some advantages to a mirror array. 🤷‍♂️

[@zetahurley7323]

If you point it at a solar panel you can get a lot of power out of it. Most aren't rated for that level of power though so for consumers a heat based generator might be more plausible

[@broniusale5987]

slewing bearing ok, but springs expensive?

[@wingstrongwingstrong]

xD (I'm not American) My salary is less than $100 a month, however I recently allowed myself a set of 200 springs for $5 for the sake of 4 springs :) But the springs can really be replaced with alternatives, and the bearing is specific and very important, I guess it's just the man was choosing what to spend money on and what is not worth it

[@trippstreehouse]

This is insane, can you please include project development and experiment timelines in your videos?

[@3l389]

What is the energy loss of having a 2 mirror system vs having the alumnium plate take the direct reflection of the first mirrors?

[@p529.]

More complicated piping I assume

[@baraBober]

You can use half of a large pipe cut along its length as a mirror. Then, you can place a copper pipe painted black, in the focal point of the large pipe, and just circulate water through it.

[@korishan]

Instead of allowing the water to flow through the collection plate under acrylic, I would of put copper tubing and soldered it into place to make better contact. Better contact allows for more efficient transfer of thermal energy. Also, the water will get very hot and start to build up pressure which can cause the acrylic to start to flex under the pressure, plus the heat making it softer. On my single solar thermal collector I had on a 2ftx4ft panel, the water would start boiling before exiting the system, which led to a lot of a air locking keeping the water from flowing smoothly. The system *had* to run under pressure to keep the water from boiling so easily.

[@Spectre4490]

Why you chose paint insted of space blanket? I think second can be more effective But anyway project looks cool

[@baraBober]

This guy is putting a lot of work in his videos, make sure to leave this video a LIKE!

[@adri1572]

Maybe consider painting the collector plate black?

[@shanegibbens]

I like the mirror segmented, easy to replace if any damaged, allowed fine tuning, and cheap compared to a giant curved mirror. Nicely done

[@korishan]

For your solar mirrors with the painted acrylic plates, I'd suggest using several layers of the paint, and then buffing the paint to give it a nice shine, then clear coat it to seal it. This would get around the dullness of the paint you showed in the video.

[@74Gee]

Some suggestions: Rather than try and bend the mirrors into shape, you could try Mylar and a vacuum to form a perfect parabola and focal point - no screws or heavy mirrors required. You could also make the mirrors a LOT larger. Mylar only reflects about 90% of light but making them larger (maybe to to the same weight) you''ll get a lot more overall energy. I presume the secondary mirror you mentioned (not shown) will be at the focal point and it's to reflect the light back to the heat exchanger. But that secondary mirror will need to handle about 7kw of energy - the same amount as the heat exchanger - it's going to get very hot, very quickly. A single reflector (array of articulated mirrors) will be easier to build and won't melt. So if you created an array of vacuum drum mylar mirrors each with 2 axis articulation and an adjustable vacuum - with some programming to relocate the focal point you will have a death ray.

[@helmholtz817]

That's so cool. I think that the segments should be offset paraboloids. Also i wonder what geometry does the secondary mirror has

[@dougcox835]

This is a cassegrain antenna design. The formulas are all over the antenna design websites. It is very critical though. and actually you usually want to focus in a single point but for this you should try for a focal point past the plate just where the cone of light would evenly cover the plate.

[@mohamedbelafdal6362]

a suggestion for building the mirrors: 1) 3d print a parabolic plate in plastic 2.a) spray it with a reflective paint 2.b) or tape aluminium length wise to cover the parabolic plate 3) cover it in epoxy resin to make it more durable a suggestion for the design: -instead of moving a huge and heavy mirror, focus smaller sized mirrors. (for example if the motor is reliable for 50 kg, instead of using a 75 kg mirror, use 4 smaller 40 kg mirrors) good luck and I hope this was useful

[@MartinMaat]

Did you apply the paint at the front of the acrylic panes? It wasn't clear to me, it would be best to apply it at the back like with any mirror. Then the aluminium core plate must be painted matte black of course, you do not want that to act as a mirror too. I expect some issues with boiling, tubes may burst or come off. You may need to control the water flow based on the plate's temperature, making sure it won't exceed 90 degrees Celcius or so. And using astronomical data tables for your date and location seems more effective than trying to figure out where the sun is in real time. This is how all trackers for solar panels work. Overall I am impressed once again.

[@baraBober]

you can also take a plate of some sort, cover it with reflective plastic, and partially suck the air out from the plate which will create a vacuum and pull the plastic back a little leaving you with a perfect concave mirror

[@mr702s]

You deserve more subs and views, a very fun project and video

[@theoldknowledge6778]

I loved your idea of explaining things projecting on the table 👏🏻

[@Binary_Omlet]

Would love to see a vid on how to build the solar tracker itself to control the larger table. Would be fantastic for small solar arrays.

[@Eidolon1andOnly]

I'd use metal springs as well as mylar applied to the plexiglass after it has been shaped. If that aluminum plate is meant to heat the water then it should be painted, or better yet powder coated, matte black.

[@Atom224]

I would put the mirror foil on the smooth side *after* the molding phase, which doesn't have direct contact with the 3D-printed mold. You need to thinker more with the parameters for the "perfect" parameters of the mold, tiny deviatiations from the plexiglass contracting during cooldown will change the focal distance by a lot, you probably have to "overbend" them a little. I would also put the heating plate directly in front of the mirror array and run the water tubes inside 2 of the 3 pipes that would hold the plate in the focal point.

[@theoldknowledge6778]

This is an amazing content!! Congratulations!! I don’t know how I didn’t find your channel before

[@epicthief]

Your test setup is amazing

[@christopherd.winnan8701]

How many other mainland manufacturers have you tried apart from PCBway? A comparison would make for a great vid. As for the design, can you add a clockwork mechanism to replace the main motor please?

[@1chumley1]

I think you should create a solar tracker that only requires grid coordinates and a calendar to operate. With those two pieces of information, one should be able to create a platform for solar collectors that is 100% accurate without worrying about it being exposed to the sun.

[@stratos2]

try to cover the heat plate in something extremely dark. Maybe soot for a simple solution, or vantablack (or similar) if they can withstand the heat. That should absorb nearly all the light energy

[@melsh9]

I love your videos. Always so informative.

[@shanegibbens]

Just finished the video I think the only thing that I would comment on is that for the mirrors if you need to get more reflective index we would use mylar sheets over the mirrors surface. My other concern is the aluminum heat plate, aluminum acts as a great heat sink so worry it may not be as efficient at keeping heat like steal would or another metal.

[@leifhietala8074]

Since you're trying to catch the light on the big plate, the parabolic shape on your primary mirrors is unnecessary. Each petal or mirror segment can be flat and the secondary mirror can be flat; the parabolic effect will come from how each segment is focused on the secondary. Rather than throw a tiny hot spot onto the receiver, let it be bigger and heat the whole thing more-or-less evenly. Lower deltas are less lossy. Also: you really want a dark receiver. Shiny silver will reflect a lot of the incident energy, shiny black will absorb it without re-radiating it so readily. Your ideal surface should be black chrome.

[@dougcox835]

Your tracking system looks good and it's probably easy to do it digitally but it could actually all be done with a few op amps. One thing though about the heat collection. Your plate should be black to absorb as much heat as possible using black chrome or black nickel. And it should be a very heat conductive metal such as copper as well. Those tubes should be copper to transfer as much heat as possible. I even considered iron but that's not as good a heat conductor as copper or aluminum. I think it would be funny to grab an old iron frying pan (your plate looks about that size) and cut off the handle and braze the copper tubing to that. Solder might actually melt if your machine works. I've seen much smaller solar cookers and they get amazingly hot. A recessed collector or a semi-spherical collector is more efficient because it traps light and minimizes heat loss. Ask Chat GPT about this. I did and it gave me a lot more than I put here. Everything about this is subject to cost and ability to actually do it. I think since you already have an nice aluminum plate you should just keep that and coat it black and replace the tubing with copper. One thing that popped into my head is, how do you make aluminum black? Then it occurred to me that all you need is a cantle to coat it with soot. That's plenty black. Or paint it with black stove or BBQ paint.

[@boltzbrain3039]

Amazing project, choosing foil on Plexiglas with foil as reflectors....well its cost effective. The bigger problem i see is with using Plexiglas as the back cover for the heat collector. Years ago i tryed to build watercooling blocks from Plexiglas and found out it gets very soft around 60C already, making the seals leak because the skews loose pressure cuz they sink into the plexi.

[@link12313]

The collector plate needs to be all aluminum with a sealing gasket. The near boiling water will deform the acrylic backplate and cause leaks.

[@anthonyanglim7147]

Great Idea! For the Parabolic Curve. . . You could just Keep the Mirrors Flat Since they already Follow a parabolic curve. Otherwise Each Mirror would have to Have the Individual Corresponding Curve for that Segment of the Overall Parabola of the Dish. Without that Exact Arrangement you will loose Light Density, I personally believe Flat Mirrors Arranged along the Parabolic Curve would Give an Overall Higher Density of Reflected Light though not 100 percent.

[@baileescott401]

test the springs at different temps, cause they might lose their strength when hot from the mirrors

[@artyomshegeda]

What is the paint did you use for gold mirror test?

[@tikhiy]

My first thought was to use math to calculate sun position at the sky and then target the thing on in... but I have to agree your decision is better since it would work on other planets with no modifications in code.

[@arnaudmosse6894]

Great! what mirror film did you use? as it look transparent from behind. Did you try the mirror film used to grow weed indoor? may be it is more reflective. Impatient to see the efficiency measurements !

[@eduardostapenko6808]

lucky not to get asleep before such a fabulous vid.

[@danielbender4327]

Are your mirror segments identical? For best performance, they shouldn’t be - they should each be formed to match the segment of the paraboloid they occupy. If I’m not mistaken, though, I think for eighteen (18) segments you only have to have three (3) uniques shapes - one for the inner ring, one for the outer corners, and one for the outer midsides. I couldn’t tell from the clips whether you did such a thing and just glossed over it, or if you formed all of them on the same mold.

[@coffeefish4743]

Color isn't really a good indicator for reflectance of infrared light. Actual gold like the stuff used on the telescope would reflect much more light, because the spray paint uses stuff that looks like gold, but isn't, it probably reflects much less light.

[@3l389]

Nice! Very interesting !

[@runowood6810]

have you thought about using a "black body box" collector instead of the plate?

[@ThreeAngrySquirrels]

Will your mirrors or frame distort as it heats up and then defocus? If the mirrors distort you could try forming them like normal, and then push them into a thin base disc of wet plaster of paris which has very low thermal expansion once cured. Also could try applying the film after they're formed and set.

[@SterbeinSiamion]

Cool build, it would be useful to increase the rigidity of the contraption.

[@74Gee]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="352">5:52</a> Metal springs aren't exactly cheap. What ?!!! They're like 7 cents each on eBay

[@matteonicoli]

I love love this! Thank you! Would love to see how this works with a water cooled solar panel in the middle. Wish I could be your volunteer helper. I can program but I wish I had more knowledge of electronics or arduinos (would love to be able to design my own pcb’s/arduinos for sensors and small windmill management. Any case thanks a lot for these cool videos! Personally only interested in green energy projects.

[@bllu]

Apply the reflective film after shaping the plastic....

[@link12313]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="145">2:25</a> the gold chrome paint looks to be bronze or brass based. So you are really comparing silver chrome to copper.

[@arcanealchemist3190]

as an artist, i think it would look much better if you redid the few plates that are all crinkly. im sure the defects are superficial but the mirror finish would be much cooler looking without them!

[@FlakeyPM]

Watch it again! He did.

[@gaevsprivs]

Why you apply the film before heating the plexiglass??? would not be better to heat and shape de plexiglass, then apply the film with a hairdryer to bend it well? (but not enough to affect the shape of the hexagonal parabolic mirrors [HPM]), also, make sure you isolate the heat center from the rest of the frame, or it will melt the frame by proximity (even with the pump working)

[@Nyall_dreamshake]

This guy should meet with Mark Rober

[@Sixotoo]

Nice heliostat.

[@richardepps8500]

Springs aren't cheep?!? Wft!?!

[@brainmuffins6052]

I hear someone knocking on your door… just say you aren’t home!

[@Adventures_EC]

man, make the central plate as black as possible. You are losing too much for keeping it reflextive

[@kennethbellotte8678]

Is this the guy tjat started a fire in California...on accident...from accross the country

[@lynnwilliam]

Your plastic screws won't do well in the heat

[@LACHIVA1969]

Check this guy Sergiy Yurko. I guess you can better his system since you have more resources.

[@Cyber_Chriis]

Hope he’s not based in California 💀

[@marcus-b4x3h]

Nine project

[@jaydenblain3599]

So many weird choices? Springs are not expensive, why not heat the acrylic and form it to shape before you paint it? Why use paint at all when making a mirror is trivial. You have 3 arms for the secondary mirror. But why not but 2 on the bottom, that's where the weight will be. Also that screw for the tilt adjust is under a huge load. If you instead put it on the opposite side of the mirror, it would have way more leverage and be exposed to less force. Also that aluminum plate is weird. You are going to go blind as soon as some sun hits that, it should be black. Also you better have a radiator in the water loop, I hope you're not just recirculating it. Since this is an outdoor thing anyway you should have just made it screw onto a water hose. Infinite cold water. Also I think it would have been better if the aluminum plate wasn't mounted to mirror, but instead mounted on the wood ring. It would stay flat and it would be far easier to put your test items on. How do you suppose you'll attach something to your aluminum plate at such an angle?

[@jaydenblain3599]

I just checked. Since the Netherlands are pretty north, the absolute best case scenario, is on June 21st, at 1:41 pm the summer solstice, the sun will still be 30 degrees off from directly up. So your aluminum plate will always be 30 or more degrees angled

[@hoyschelsilversteinberg4521]

Your channel is criminally under subscribed to. If I could I'd transfer every react channel's views/subscribers to you if justice was a thing.