Solar Oven?

[BenjiRidesBoxcar]

anbyone have a good way to make a solar oven or any ideas or thoughts in ways to heat up food with minimal pollution and hazardous materials like gasoline or coal?

 

[absentreferent]

i think this website is your jam for solar cookers:

http://solarcooking.org/plans/

the box cookers look pretty simple....



and here for design principles:

http://solarcooking.org/sbcdes.htm

 

[macks]

There's a place called Aprovecho a ways out of Eugene that designs this sort of thing and writes instructional zines.. http://www.aprovecho.net/pg/pub.htm

There's usually a few copies of the fish camp stove one sitting around in Eugene so I'll make sure to grab one if I'm headed up your way. If you write them and tell them it's for a squat they might hook you up with some free stuff, the people I met from Aprovecho were pretty cool.

 

[anne]

There is an article about solar ovens at cheaprvliving.com:
http://cheaprvliving.com/Solar_Oven.html

 

[anne]

Also, I remember making one in 2nd grade so it should be easy enough for anyone to make one. It's crazy that people sell these things for hundreds of dollars but you can make it out of mostly cardboard boxes, newspaper and foil.

 

[oldmanLee]

Another type can be made with a innertube,black pot,a piece of plyboard,and a piece of clear plycarbonat plastic,like lexan.Put the inflated innertube on the piece of plyboard,put the pot in the middle.Put in your food fixins',put the top on the pot,and the plastic on top of the innertube.Takes a couple three hours,but will cook rice and beans like nobodies business.

 

[anne]

That's really cool. I've never heard of the inflated tube method.

 

[tallhorseman]

Research a fresnel lens(big-ass plastic magnifying glass). Solar heat.

 

[anne]

Do you mean the kind that people use for reading or the bigger ones?

Research a fresnel lens(big-ass plastic magnifying glass). Solar heat.

 

[tallhorseman]

Do you mean the kind that people use for reading or the bigger ones?

The one I saw used was bigger (24"x24"?), but it had a coffee-pot heated up in just six or eight minutes. I felt like a sixteenth century Native American who had just seen a Bic Lighter.

I want to get one of the book-page sized ones, like you're talking about, and experiment with it. Haven't had the time or opportunity yet though. Will post when I do.

E

 

[anne]

Wow, 6-8 minutes? That's awesome!

 

[Pickles]

Saw a decent sized lens in an antique shop in Hillsboro the other day, made of glass and about 6-8 inches across, thick as all hell, probably an inch and a half. Wonder how that would work.

 

[finn]

I like the design for the tracking solar cooker on the http://solarcooking.org/plans/ site- though I wouldn't actually have the actual tracking part, I like the rest of it- it's basically a solar convection cooker. I have an idea to have a thin metal plate to separate the sun-heated air and the cooking compartment, so that any steam from the food won't fog up the glass, which is a big problem for a lot of these cookers.

Also, making a fresnel mirror would be easier than finding or making a large fresnel lens, though it'd be bulkier and heavier. Just remember that in order to cook faster, you need to capture as much sunlight as you can and focus it in one spot. A sheet sized lens will only gather a quarter of the energy of the 2' x 2' lens, so it'll take four times longer- so you're already looking at 24-32 minutes.

Pickles, the glass lens you saw was probably used for a signal lamp, like a smaller version of those you'd find in lighthouses.

 

[JungleBoots]

anther thing i learned watching bill nye was this cooker these kids used out in the desert. rather than making a solar cooker, they took a styrofoam cooler rapped its insides with alluminum foil, and burried it half way under the hot sand. just used the heat of the sand in mid day to cook the food.


i forgot all the important details though. i was like 10 when i saw it.
but carrying a styrofoam cooler around isnt exactly ideal.