Old satellite dish?

[luke carpstalker]

Anyone got an old dish knocking about they don't want?

I want to have a knock about making a solar collector, the ultimate goal being to see if my garden will be good enough for some solar thermal water heating.

ta!

[davebee]

sorry mate no dish
but im interested in what the heck your talking about

[MT NET]

Anyone got an old dish knocking about they don't want?

I want to have a knock about making a solar collector, the ultimate goal being to see if my garden will be good enough for some solar thermal water heating.

ta!

Try a wok,hope this helps

[Mickangler]

Can you elaborate Like,we're all intrigued.

[luke carpstalker]

You know how a sat dish works....the radio waves from space hit the dish over it's entire surface, then because of the dishs' shape, the waves are reflected back out, but focused at a central point away from the dish, this focal point is where the reciever head is mounted.

Solar energy works the same way, I will cover the dish with something reflective, replace the reciever head with another small reflector that will then refocus the solar energy back toward the centre of the dish. Similar to this, although this is a radio antennae:








At the centre of the dish will be a heat absorber ( a water cooled heat plate from a computer fan ) ,though for setting up I will fit a temp probe of some description, absorber something like this:






This heat absorber will then be piped at the rear of the dish to a small water tank with temperature measurement, and a small water pump, perhaps a washer bottle pump from a car at the scrappers.

Initially the whole lot will be dry, and I'll just log the temp on the absorber throughout the day to get the best alignment and position. Then, I'll add water, and measure the time it take to raise the temp of a certain amount of water by a certain temperature. From this I can calculate the energy input from the currant bun per square metre of collector ( sat dish ).

Then, if it looks favourable I'll spend some till and kit out the south facing side of my garage roof with solar thermal panels.

Simples!

[luke carpstalker]

Just incase you thought I was puddled, an example of what sort of temperatures can be reached:

YouTube - Parabolic dish burning some wood

[davebee]

Just incase you thought I was puddled, an example of what sort of temperatures can be reached:

YouTube - Parabolic dish burning some wood

and it works at night as well ?

[fish farmer]

And then he WILL TAKE OVER THE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDDDDDD DD

MWAHHHAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAA :-)

[andrew65]

i have several .biggest is 80cm! I will be in the uk end of the mounth......................

[luke carpstalker]

What kind of power are you seeing from them Andrew, and are you grabbing just heat, or is there any electrical conversion?

Some pics would be interesting!

[andrew65]

sorry luke ! I ment that i could bring them over for u as in old dishes! However i do find what ur trying to do VERY interesting to the point that i might have a go myself ...once again sorry for any confussion LC!

[luke carpstalker]

I see...whereabouts in the UK will you be? Also, what type of dishes are they?

Info here:

Concentrating solar collectors