Solar Sand Battery Heater New Upgrades
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- I have added a heat powered fan and some fins to the heater assembly to help extract more heat. please feel free to comment! Please visit our eBay store to see our machining and manufacturing products:
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very nice. With a thermal camera you can see the heat better
I tried messing with a thermal battery, but nothing as well designed as this. I love the Peltier for the fan. It'll only blow when there's heat to move around. Efficient.
I saw the Lions jersey on your dog. Guessing we're local, I'm in Redford.
You can just put a piece of black tape or not reflective paint spots in order to get good readings with your temp device.
Hi Michael, that is a common sense solution but not very accurate based on my tests vs a contact thermometer about a 20 to 30f discrepancy
Very interesting project. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for watching!
Maybe some heat pipes threw the fins to transfer the heat.
Hi, thank you for watching and commenting! I have considered making some to fit my design so stay tuned some changes are coming soon.
consider filling those uprights with mineral oil. The heat from the sand base will heat up the mineral oil for added heat.
Hi Eric, thanks for watching and commenting! Oil would not work with this design because I am unable to weld the horizontal fins, they are a tight tolerance press fit, tight enough for sand to not get out but warm oil would go all over. Mineral oil also cannot stand up to the temperature of the heating element.
Great Info!! Love the build and explanation. I've been trying to find solid-state heating so i can get away from the Heat Lamp bulbs with my chicken brooders. I have found a way to transfer from Solar to battery/grid power to lower the heating costs. Not really finding good ways to dissipate the heat from those PTC blocks.
Hi thanks for watching and commenting! I imagine the heat lamp bulbs are costly to operate. I started out at the low end of the power spectrum with this heater to see if it could make meaningful heat knowing I could always increase the power if needed. It is definatly a work in progress and there are a lot of factors that influence how well it works and what applications it will work for. I will keep going with improvements until I am happy with it or rule it out as a failure. More updates will be coming soon, thanks again for watching. Tim
Cool build. 👍🏻
What about antifreeaze in the hollowed out area. It shouldn't evaporate and it would spread the heat evenly... I would think.
Is sand going to get hotter then liquid? I don't know, just a thought. Thanks for sharing.
Hi thank you for watching and commenting! It likely could work but the heating elements I am using would not work because they are not sealed and would short out. Also the chamber would require gaskets. The silica sand used in this prototype is comprised of quarts which is a excellent thermal conductor. It works well but takes a lot longer it seems than a liquid would to heat up but then retains the heat for a good amount of time and acts as a thermal mass. The sand can withstand 3110F and the antifreeze would for sure boil at about 300F and cause the sealed chamber to be a bomb if heated to that point. The elements I am using only heat to 410F but could be an issue with antifreeze as most vehicles run around the boiling point of water and under pressure. Oil has been used in some electric space heaters for a long time but does not act as much as a thermal mass and cools quickly. Just some thing to consider... Tim
@@mvpmachine Good info. Thanks !
good lookin unit ... art. i want to use more sand and electric range top elements.. close to 500 to 1500 watt array... 600 degree sand.? thanks.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I will likely be upping the wattage on this but to me it is fun to experiment with pulling as much as possible from a small amount of power and adjust to make it work better. With 600 watts this unit would put out some impressive heat. I have learned a lot from this about using the silica sand as a thermal conductor and I am impressed by how well it works. Tim
Try some copper in that..
too much efficiency loss just due to all the junctions you asking energy to move from one medium to another. photons>electrons>bbr>sand>alum>air. not to mention mechanical efficiency loss where parts are just touching instead of being welded. radiator dissipator fins are too thick on both main radiator as well as fan radiator, heat risers are too thick and too few. you need to make fan radiator fins way thinner and more of them. also turn them 90 degrees so fan intake airflow cool them by pulling cooler air through them. increase surface area as much as possible everywhere. but honestly 6-steps in energy transition is the biggest loss in your design conceptually. if you want heat out of the sun, you want to do as fewer transitions as possible. IMO you will be far better off if you do reflector based solar concentrator onto copper/alum heating conduit and then push air through/around it to collect heat. only 2-step energy transition - that's 3 times more efficient than your design. and you can still use sand battery attached to a conduit, but i think it's unjustified energy losses. you can run this heater in the shop only when sun shines anyways. and you likely spend time in the shop during the day as well. if you heat air in the shop fast enough high enough you can use all the equipment there as a in-situ heat sink (heat battery) that will re-radiate it back into the shop when sun doesn't shine. no need to over-complicate things with a sand in the device. just my 2 cents.
Hi, thank you for watching and commenting! I totally agree with some of your points. However this is not for the shop it is for a small 8'x 14' "shed" that has a hot tub in it. It only has to heat the area in the shed to help lower the electric bill for the hot tub, it is supplemental heat. I agree with cooling fins being the wrong orientation for the fan and I knew I have work to do for improvements. I work with the materials I have on hand and the materials I have the ability to cut then see what needs improvement and then add the improvements. Some of the inefficiencies are necessary because it is easy to cook the PTC elements without having some thermal loss. They are not really intended to be used in this way. The assembly will be welded as I stated in the video when I am happy with its operation... Tim