super sweet videos man you are a true hotrodder! it doesnt just stop with cars figuring out how to heat water in a tube covered with snow! now thats hot rodding!
Groutaone I've seen tubes similar to yours used on a This Old House project. They only used around 8 tubes for the palatable water in the house. Wouldn't 150 tubes be a little overkill? Another question was, are you keeping the stoker boiler to to heat when there isn't enough sun, or were you thinking of using the sun exclusively?
This is really useful so thanks for sharing. All the videos I see are in full sun but in the UK that isn't a regular thing. It's really impressive to see what it can do in the conditions. Just looking at what tubes to buy before doing some modding!
Very nice unit. 140F would be the minimum useful temp to run threw standard fin tube baseboard heater for space heating and obviously more than enough for domestic hot water.
Any chance for a season performance stats on your solar tube system? Do you still use your sunflower husk burning system? What is your projected break even time for the switch? Are you a distributor for the tubes you're using?
I am glad you showed this . I was looking at these. just thinking not a water heater but put fins ( heat sink ) around the top part thingy and blow air around that as a space heater ? I'm thinking a small shop that only I'm in during the day . Air in the shop out to the tube & back in ? small fan & no worry about freezing ? just a thought gonna try when I get a couple
That's most interesting to watch and listen to your observations. It is surprising to me that it is functioning to any extent in such appalling weather of high winds, snow and low light levels. I'm interested in the thought of transferring this heat to a water flow and hence to a storage heat sump, such as under floor heating sounds most interesting. Question: What happens in summer when you don't much, if any heat? -High light intensity and sun temperatures and long hours of exposure?
In the UK the figure used is about 1.1 Kw / hour / sq meter on a reasonable day , but out of that 400 watts is not in the visible spectrum ( it does not have to be a sunny day to give you a good amount of energy , but it helps ) . There is a lot of energy out there , it ' s just travelled 8 light mins from the sun , nearly all the way through a vacuum . Do not confuse energy & heat . The heat is lost by lack of insulation . The jacket ( the glass tube ) is twin walled & there is a vacuum between those walls allows the passage of energy , that impinges on the black metal inner to transmit heat by conduction into the water . So , what is notable , is the effect of insulation , without which the heat would have been lost from the tube and the water would not have near boiled . As the sun has a lower trajectory in the winter than the summer , the tube can be arranged more vertically , to take greater advantage of the winter sun angle over the horizon . But in the summer , this vertical position will be less impinged on by the higher trajectory of the sun . But don ' t waste it / or dump it . use it to heat your swimming pool , or a pond & or just several tonnes of water , and use that for the starter stock of low grade heat for the winter . Take that low grade heat through a heat pump ? 1 watt ( electrical ) in for 3 watts out ........ It ' s all there to be had ........ good insulation , south facing glazing , even screening round building with good planting , to reduce wind chill , it all helps .
Couldn’t you charge a large amount of energy due to the very high temperature you read at over 300 degrees?? Is this way more effective than normal solar panels??
Is the black coating on the inside of the purged section or is it on the inside of the part where the copper heat pipe goes? I am wondering if it would be possible to make up a system that uses water in direct contact with the glass inside the tube.
The inner layer of glass has coatings on both sides of it, the outside layer of glass has no coatings. Your idea would work. If the tube was full of water and if water would slowly flow across the open top of the tube, then the colder flowing water would want to find it's way to the bottom of the tube replacing the hot water
groutaone Yeah, im thinking a manifold feeding a row of 20 tubes or so, there would be long skinny copper pipes that go all the way to the bottom of the tube as feed water, the hot water would rise and exit the top of the tube into the exit side of the manifold, the system would be under low pressure and there would be rubber clamps and gaskets to seal the end of the tubes. i.imgur.com/YrocCd6.png Here's a quick paint drawing of my idea. when you are done playing with that test tube you got can you strength test the coating? Just leave some water in there and see if it starts breaking it down. The clamps would be designed so that if you have a tube that goes bad you can just loosen four screws and swap them out.
The clamps will require some pretty serious custom manufacturing but... I think it could be far more efficient then having sooo many points where the heat has to travel from one material to another glass>heat spreader>heat pipe>bulb socket manifold>final working water. Where with my setup it would just be the glass directly in contact with the working water flow
And you did not have a cover over the end cap before you took the reading ? .... so it was gaining heat & then shedding it & it was still getting to 3 / 4 of boiling point ! And the wind chill factor was what out there ?
groutaone I was impressed that there was enough heat ( on the bright / clear day ) to get the rag to glow . So you did not cover the end bulb itself , so there may have been a few more degrees to be had on the overcast day .
This is not set up for electricity but would heat your building, these systems work best with floor heat or a water storage tank to store hot water for heat when the sun goes down, a hydronic baseboard heater would use the hot water stored in the tank to heat the building
if you knew how much mass of water you had in the tube, and how long it took to heat from ambient to max temp, you could calculate calories per hour pretty easy...that would be interesting stuff to know, in cloudy days, and bright sun...
Have you thought about creating an array of these to boil water and power a turbine for electricity? Then after the turbine, run the steam through a condenser and store up the heat in about 1,000 gallons of water in insulated barrels. There you have electricity, as well as hot water. You could also use such a large amount of hot water to keep your house warm overnight. (Maybe not in -30c, you might need more)
I am actually in the process of coupling these with TEG generators, a fresnel lens and selective coating. Im going to affix the end of the copper heat pipe to polished copper tubing which i will make contact with a conductive surface that the tegs will be on, after which i will spray pain that surface over with the selective coating (2 fold heat collection), then cool the other side with a aluminum water block. (water will be cooled with radiator).
Another great video on the crazy's out there, keep 'em coming. When I saw the thumbnail I thought Creaky used a wayback to dig up an archive on a long dead conspiracy, WRONG. I can't believe this manure is still out there. "Hairy Hominid"? I heard Harry and the Hendersons. Ahahaha Is this fool is a Canadian, like me? That makes me almost ashamed,, almost. Creaky- decided to stop trying to scroll your Patreons? Couldn't get it to work eh, at least you remembered the links and a link to the original in the description this time.. Yeah I'm being a jackass but what the hell ;-) Keep up the good work, I'm enjoying the laughs.
Interesting stuff, that is impressive, given the conditions.
super sweet videos man you are a true hotrodder! it doesnt just stop with cars figuring out how to heat water in a tube covered with snow! now thats hot rodding!
Groutaone I've seen tubes similar to yours used on a This Old House project. They only used around 8 tubes for the palatable water in the house. Wouldn't 150 tubes be a little overkill? Another question was, are you keeping the stoker boiler to to heat when there isn't enough sun, or were you thinking of using the sun exclusively?
This is really useful so thanks for sharing. All the videos I see are in full sun but in the UK that isn't a regular thing. It's really impressive to see what it can do in the conditions. Just looking at what tubes to buy before doing some modding!
Very nice unit. 140F would be the minimum useful temp to run threw standard fin tube baseboard heater for space heating and obviously more than enough for domestic hot water.
Amazing. Perfect for off grid. Hopefully leaving AB for Saskatchewan this year to start preparing.
May I ask what your prep plans are?
Any chance for a season performance stats on your solar tube system? Do you still use your sunflower husk burning system? What is your projected break even time for the switch? Are you a distributor for the tubes you're using?
I am glad you showed this . I was looking at these.
just thinking not a water heater but put fins ( heat sink ) around the top part thingy and blow air around that as a space heater ?
I'm thinking a small shop that only I'm in during the day . Air in the shop out to the tube & back in ? small fan & no worry about freezing ? just a thought gonna try when I get a couple
Best thing is to convert to water heat, need about 120-150 tubes to heat a 30-40 shop for a cold winter
So Fantastic! is it still working?
Keep them coming, this thing is cool.
Very interesting!! Those would work well for heating my barn. Snow buildup could be a problem, though.
So who sells these (MSC, Northern tool, Harbor Freight?) & how much $ do they go for?
That's still dam good heat considering the conditions.
Good lord that looks bleak there, stay safe and stay warm buddy.
Thanks, will do, today it's melting outside a bit, I'm happy about that, been a cold cold winter
Where can I buy this tube or something like it??
What is a solar vacuum tube and how does it do that
That's most interesting to watch and listen to your observations. It is surprising to me that it is functioning to any extent in such appalling weather of high winds, snow and low light levels.
I'm interested in the thought of transferring this heat to a water flow and hence to a storage heat sump, such as under floor heating sounds most interesting.
Question: What happens in summer when you don't much, if any heat?
-High light intensity and sun temperatures and long hours of exposure?
In summer if no heat is needed it's best to cover them up to stop the heat
In the UK the figure used is about 1.1 Kw / hour / sq meter on a reasonable day , but out of that 400 watts is not in the visible spectrum ( it does not have to be a sunny day to give you a good amount of energy , but it helps ) . There is a lot of energy out there , it ' s just travelled 8 light mins from the sun , nearly all the way through a vacuum . Do not confuse energy & heat . The heat is lost by lack of insulation . The jacket ( the glass tube ) is twin walled & there is a vacuum between those walls allows the passage of energy , that impinges on the black metal inner to transmit heat by conduction into the water . So , what is notable , is the effect of insulation , without which the heat would have been lost from the tube and the water would not have near boiled .
As the sun has a lower trajectory in the winter than the summer , the tube can be arranged more vertically , to take greater advantage of the winter sun angle over the horizon . But in the summer , this vertical position will be less impinged on by the higher trajectory of the sun . But don ' t waste it / or dump it . use it to heat your swimming pool , or a pond & or just several tonnes of water , and use that for the starter stock of low grade heat for the winter . Take that low grade heat through a heat pump ? 1 watt ( electrical ) in for 3 watts out ........ It ' s all there to be had ........ good insulation , south facing glazing , even screening round building with good planting , to reduce wind chill , it all helps .
Couldn’t you charge a large amount of energy due to the very high temperature you read at over 300 degrees?? Is this way more effective than normal solar panels??
Very cool stuff have you looked into a Gasifier? some interesting videos on the tube about them. I would love to hear your opinion on them!
Interesting test, thanks for sharing :)
Is the black coating on the inside of the purged section or is it on the inside of the part where the copper heat pipe goes? I am wondering if it would be possible to make up a system that uses water in direct contact with the glass inside the tube.
The inner layer of glass has coatings on both sides of it, the outside layer of glass has no coatings. Your idea would work. If the tube was full of water and if water would slowly flow across the open top of the tube, then the colder flowing water would want to find it's way to the bottom of the tube replacing the hot water
groutaone Yeah, im thinking a manifold feeding a row of 20 tubes or so, there would be long skinny copper pipes that go all the way to the bottom of the tube as feed water, the hot water would rise and exit the top of the tube into the exit side of the manifold, the system would be under low pressure and there would be rubber clamps and gaskets to seal the end of the tubes.
i.imgur.com/YrocCd6.png Here's a quick paint drawing of my idea. when you are done playing with that test tube you got can you strength test the coating? Just leave some water in there and see if it starts breaking it down.
The clamps would be designed so that if you have a tube that goes bad you can just loosen four screws and swap them out.
The clamps will require some pretty serious custom manufacturing but... I think it could be far more efficient then having sooo many points where the heat has to travel from one material to another glass>heat spreader>heat pipe>bulb socket manifold>final working water. Where with my setup it would just be the glass directly in contact with the working water flow
Haven't seen you in years. Still doing yer thing?
Where are you thinking about going with this, free hot potable water perhaps?
I may heat the shop and house with this type of solar, not sure if I will yet, just a little research here
And you did not have a cover over the end cap before you took the reading ? .... so it was gaining heat & then shedding it & it was still getting to 3 / 4 of boiling point ! And the wind chill factor was what out there ?
I did have a rag in the end, I don't know what the wind chill factor was, amazing heat for the conditions though
groutaone I was impressed that there was enough heat ( on the bright / clear day ) to get the rag to glow . So you did not cover the end bulb itself , so there may have been a few more degrees to be had on the overcast day .
Yep it's amazing, no cover for the heat bulb itself so some heat is lost but still makes good energy
I would not have guessed that much heat. IR energy I guess.
question is... how do you get this too heat a small cottage or use as electricity? I'm interested in converting a cottage into a ecological energy.
This is not set up for electricity but would heat your building, these systems work best with floor heat or a water storage tank to store hot water for heat when the sun goes down, a hydronic baseboard heater would use the hot water stored in the tank to heat the building
if you knew how much mass of water you had in the tube, and how long it took to heat from ambient to max temp, you could calculate calories per hour pretty easy...that would be interesting stuff to know, in cloudy days, and bright sun...
Have you thought about creating an array of these to boil water and power a turbine for electricity? Then after the turbine, run the steam through a condenser and store up the heat in about 1,000 gallons of water in insulated barrels. There you have electricity, as well as hot water. You could also use such a large amount of hot water to keep your house warm overnight. (Maybe not in -30c, you might need more)
I am actually in the process of coupling these with TEG generators, a fresnel lens and selective coating. Im going to affix the end of the copper heat pipe to polished copper tubing which i will make contact with a conductive surface that the tegs will be on, after which i will spray pain that surface over with the selective coating (2 fold heat collection), then cool the other side with a aluminum water block. (water will be cooled with radiator).
Thank you
still not bad heat!
good video.
when is the next long travel buggy vid?!?
160! in a cloudy snowy day!
Why the hell doesn't every single house ever built have these on their roofs?!?
Another great video on the crazy's out there, keep 'em coming.
When I saw the thumbnail I thought Creaky used a wayback to dig up an archive on a long dead conspiracy, WRONG. I can't believe this manure is still out there.
"Hairy Hominid"? I heard Harry and the Hendersons. Ahahaha
Is this fool is a Canadian, like me? That makes me almost ashamed,, almost.
Creaky- decided to stop trying to scroll your Patreons? Couldn't get it to work eh, at least you remembered the links and a link to the original in the description this time.. Yeah I'm being a jackass but what the hell ;-)
Keep up the good work, I'm enjoying the laughs.
nice
Grouta, this is no offense to you i promiss. But we really dont wanna see boring water heater stuff. MORE CR500 and long travel!!
I do. this is cool.