19y.o. kid covers a satelite dish with mirrors and creates "death ray"

[kcarring]

I have many times thought that solar to electric conversion may be possible using thermal solar and pv along with a vacuum tube, I see it as a large thermionic tube were the mass of the heater element gives slight orange glow so the electrons are emmited across a vacuum. A dipole is set up and is maintained by dc pulse into a hartley oscillator arrangement using bifiliar coil.
.

That is an amazing thought. i know already from experimentation it is WAY more difficult to create steam (of quantity) for even a small steam engine, let alone a turbine, than people think. It's a not a "small scale" thing... at all... yet this idea of yours, might be. Very cool. Thanks

[kcarring]

How to heat your house with a parabolic mirror (or any other shape)?

Have you seen the aluminum can collectors? They are most passive, cool air goes in at the bottom, sun heats it up, hot air exits at the top, back into the building. They actually far better than you'd imagine. You could experiment with using parabolic or even flat mirror to amplify the "effect", concentrate a wider distrubition of sun rays, onto such a device, which is also, again, very cheap to make.

[kcarring]

Some interesting data, whether accurate or not... who knows:

Carbon-Pros Analyst Blog: Solar thermal at utility-scale

[bugler]

Some interesting data, whether accurate or not... who knows:

Hi. Very interesting technology.

Spain has a big company selling these heliostats: Heliostat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What the article doesn't explain is how the heat can be stored for later use.

[kcarring]

MIT Opencourseware Lecture on Solar Thermal Tech

An interesting free lecture is available here.

[kcarring]

Solar Thermal Heat / Steam Engine kW system

Very interesting solar thermal concentration steam engine, working, producing energy in the kilowatt range, in this video:

YouTube - solar steam engine generator 08-10-10.mp4

[kcarring]

What the article doesn't explain is how the heat can be stored for later use.

Molten salt storage

If you have a large Stainless Steel container, and outside of that, is more dry salt, and then outside of that is brick, and then outside of that is blue foam insulation, and then outside of that is dirt...

You can keep it hot for weeks.

[Gdez]

Fluidyne

Here is a way to utilize the death ray. Check out this guys site. It is pretty good and he also sells passive heating panels.

Desoto solar - Fuidyne pumps

DeSoto Solar Stirling Project - Fluidyne Engine

[gravityblock]

Double Cylindrical Point Focus Principle (DCPF)

Below is a description of a video on the "Double Cylindrical Point Focus principle" discovered in 1976.

The parabola has the well-known property of reflecting axis-parallel rays to a point YouTube - Parabola-Focal-Ray-Reflect

If we rotate the parabola around its axis, we create a parabolic disc, which has the well-known property of reflecting parallel rays (= planar wave-fronts) that are incident along the axis direction of the disc to a point. An animation that shows this process is available at YouTube - Parabolic Disc PointFocus

We can avoid the "astronomical costs" associated with creating (= casting) a large parabolic disc, and harness the workpower of the sun by bending two flat mirror sheets in the shape of parabolic cylinders to create an exact point focus. This is due to the

Double Cylindrical Point Focus principle:

If the focal line of the first cylinder is identical to the generating line of the parabola that is the intersection of the second cylinder with a plane perpendicular to its axis, then the incoming rays will be reflected to a perfect point.

For a proof of the DCPF principle, see http://tinyurl.com/595fsf and for an animation see YouTube - Double-Cylindrical PointFocus - animation

The DCPF principle was discovered on November 16, 1976 by Ambjörn Naeve http://tinyurl.com/5gbz8j and is demonstrated in this video by Tomas Elofsson, Gusum, Sweden, in July 1989.

Besides being easier than the ordinary parabolic disc to build in large sizes (avoiding "astronomical costs"), the DCPF has the advantage that the focal point can be placed outside of the solar influx area, where it is freely available to do work.
See http://tinyurl.com/69pusb

The DCPF also has the advantage that the number of planar approximator strips of fixed width grows LINEARLY with the overall size (since one dimension is unaffected) instead of QUADRATICALLY, as with an ordinary parabolic disc. For a comparison, see http://tinyurl.com/6xmpua
and YouTube - The Archimedes Death Ray Lesson

Tuning the primary mirror:
http://tinyurl.com/5eqz3b

Tuning the secondary mirror:
http://tinyurl.com/6qt5ud

Using these DC PointFocusing mirrors, we have melted limestone (2560 deg C) in free air.
See http://tinyurl.com/6jsfd4

A VR-based lecture from October 2000 can be found at YouTube - CyberMath: PointFocus This lecture was created using CyberMath CyberMath and DIVE The Dive Home Page

For more films and interactive material,
see Redirecting...
and for the story behind the DC PointFocus,
see PointFocus



GB

[bugler]

Below is a description of a video on the "Double Cylindrical Point Focus principle" discovered in 1976.

Wow! This is getting very interesting.

If we rotate the parabola around its axis, we create a parabolic disc, which has the well-known property of reflecting parallel rays (= planar wave-fronts) that are incident along the axis direction of the disc to a point.

What type of mirrors can be bended?

what about the dimensions of both mirrors. Is there any formula to knmow how many degrees must both mirrors be bended and what must be the dimension of the second mirror once we know the dimensions of the 1st one?

thank you very much for the information.

On a second thought it would be enough a single curved mirror if we apply the reflexion to a tube instead of to a point. It would be much easier and I have seen photos of heat being extracted that way somewhere.


We also need some open source code for a sun tracker software. Anyone knows about this?
I recently bought an arduino controller that could be used to rotate the device as the Sun moves around. I am right now learning to program it. This could be an amazing project to get hands-on experience generating energy from the Sun.

[gravityblock]

We also need some open source code for a sun tracker software. Anyone knows about this?
I recently bought an arduino controller that could be used to rotate the device as the Sun moves around. I am right now learning to program it. This could be an amazing project to get hands-on experience generating energy from the Sun.

Visual Basic Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program with source code

GB

[gravityblock]

Wow! This is getting very interesting.

What type of mirrors can be bended?

what about the dimensions of both mirrors. Is there any formula to knmow how many degrees must both mirrors be bended and what must be the dimension of the second mirror once we know the dimensions of the 1st one?

Here's a detailed PDF publication on the "Double Cylindrical Point Focus Principle" which may help with the proper dimensions of the two mirrors. MirrorPlex, mirrored plexi-glass, or thin plastic mirror sheets can bend. Also, any material which can bend could be covered with reflective tape, mylar foil, etc.

GB

[gravityblock]

I've chosen the Double Cylindrical Point Focus Principal to replicate. I'm now in the process of obtaining the appropriate materials for this project. I'll keep all updated. Feedback is more than welcomed. If this is successful, then I'll extend this idea to include splitting the focal point into two light beams which each will travel on a waveguide of a different length to create a repulsive force. The more out of phase with each other, the stronger the repulsive force.

Thanks,

GB

[SuperCaviTationIstic]

I personally would use the beam to run an open air photomultiplier tube with lots of dynodes to make a nice DC system.

Direct radiant energy converter! Make the reflective dish and the dynodes out of a material that is highly photoelectric, (and/or thermionic?) and reflective to use all the UV. Ground and the dish, and the dynodes, with diodes allowing current to only flow away from ground.

Take current from an array of anodes at the end of the dynodes, back to ground or into the atmosphere?

What kind of anode material could tolerate the heat?

[gravityblock]

I've been holding back information on my waveguide for the solar death ray due to a lack of interest. I'll release this information now, since I'm in the planning process for building this project. Optical waveguiding using thermal gradients across homogeneous liquids in microfluidic channels.

The above publication describes the design and operation of a liquid-core liquid-cladding (L2) optical waveguide composed of a thermal gradient across a compositionally homogeneous liquid flowing in a microfluidic channel at low Reynolds number. Two streams of liquid at a higher temperature (the cladding) sandwich a stream of liquid at a lower temperature (the core). This temperature difference results in a contrast in refractive index across the width of the channel that is sufficient to guide light. The use of a single homogeneous liquid in this L2 system simplifies recycling, and facilitates closed-loop operation. Furthermore, with radiative and inline heating of the liquids, it should be possible to reconfigure this optical system with considerable flexibility.

Liquids, such as water, can be used as a waveguide for light. The solar death ray can do the heating of the liquids needed for this optical thermal gradient waveguide. By using two waveguides of a different length, then the two light beams will become out-of-phase with each other to create a repulsive force that can be controlled. Hopefully the repulsive force will also be proportional to the intensity of the light so that this force can be used on the macro-scale. With the right setup, this can be made into a very powerful system.

Thanks,

GB