I have 30+ years of electronics hobby and repair, I saw this vid and clicked on it coming to it with an attitude of 'oh here we go free energy or something', and a few minutes in I thought 'omg he's onto something' - great respect for you totally 'out of the box' use of diodes! I would never ever have come up with this solution, I would have gone down the road of mppt with feedback loops and mosfets/inductors and its as simple as clamping the voltage with diodes to increase the amps and burn it off as heat, I mean its a total misuse of the components and exactly the opposite of what we do, everything your taught/learn in design is all about reducing heat to extend component life and for efficiency, I would never have come up with this solution its just 'so wrong' that its also 'so right'. a perfect example about how being taught something makes people (me in this case) so dumb. reminds me of a joke my stepdad told me and it fits this perfectly... A team of designers having trouble with a supersonic airplane and the wings ripped off, they added more ribs to the wings, and they still ripped off. they added more ribs and gussets, and they ripped off. the cleaner said to them, that area where they rip off, drill a series of holes all the way down, the designers laughed and said removing material cant make it any stronger and the cleaner was a fool, but they tried it, and the wings stayed on, they asked how he knew this strange fix and what science it was built on, he said none, but in 20 years of working as a cleaner in the toilets i've never once seen paper rip off at the perforations...
@lezbriddon I hear you, it's an extremely obscure topic... definitely not claiming free energy just more efficient extraction of PV watt-hours and thus heat. Some of the worst comments I ever got were on these diode videos, they seem to attract a lot of flak. I am fond of saying "a person with an open mind isn't dumb" :D I don't understand 0.5% of anything but I am ready to learn more and hope to find something new... Diodes getting hot is supposed to be a terrible thing in electronics... MPPT has it's place and I'm sure heaters will someday use it, but I have always had a "make it better, but keep it dirt simple and cheap" perspective. A string of diodes fits perfectly. They cost more than heating wire, but diodes can get more heat by operating in a better way from current limited solar panels. So they must have applications somewhere. That's a pretty funny joke, incidentally every time I get a perforated document, I just tear it by hand or get the scissors... how many times it just tears outside the perforations and has to be taped together, so better just cut them to save on tape lol
I did the same thing a few videos ago, thinking it was another re-tread of a "free energy" idea by someone with an overly simplistic understanding of some basic aspect of physics... but nope! This is true creativity: recombining existing things in new ways to achieve goals. Most excellent!
First video I've watched from you. Just subscribed. I'm heavily into DIY. Building a large house 100% off grid and 100% alone in Ontario Canada.House is heavily insulated and extremely tight. My biggest concern is moisture. Never crossed my mind to use dry electric heat ... until now! Can't wait to review your material.
@Building_the_SHACK Hi, thanks for subscribing! Good point space heaters don't make vapor. Your house build sounds awesome.... we have a "super insulation" project in it's early phases over here, maybe that will end up on video someday...
Fantastic! I'd be interested in your exterior wall/floor/ceiling construction. My approach is not conventional. Controlling during winter will be paramount Using direct solar panel energy (extracting close to mpp) during the day to heat during the winter seems perfect.
@Building_the_SHACK Amateur carpenter/builder here... I hope to post a video about insulation project as soon as humanly possible! Too much work not enough ability to do it...
Question: Aren't solar cells themselves diodes? If so, couldn't you just use a solar panel inside as your heater, and skip the fan because of the much higher area for the heat? This seems to be a great use for one of those pannels with shattered glass that I have been storing up.
@IntenseGrid Hi, true solar panels are semiconductors and diodes are too - which makes this type of tech very ironic on some levels.... solar panels can most certainly be used as heaters - because flowing current into them causes heat production. I think instead of recycling some old solar panels, using them for heaters makes good sense in some cases
You are AWESOME and I Thank You for ALL the Work You have Done thus far, I Have Saved SOOO Much Money and Aggravation Using Your Methods that I think You should be Promoted Everywhere, and Using Full wave Bridge Rectifiers in a Diode Chain = Genius thanks Again and Keep on, Keepin on ...!
@wpgenlighten4truth2 Thank you sir :) I love diodes and never thought they'd work as heaters. Glad the videos are useful to you... feel free to post a link to my work anywhere if someone is interested... I think that helps growth and spreads knowledge. I'll keep plodding along hopefully and upload more stuff as soon as humanly possible!
Some actual $ comparisons would be helpful. In my experience, high current diodes aren't cheap. For those big arrays I would expect an MPPT controller to be cheaper once you have a large enough array. Another thought is to use Peltier junctions, they share some of the nonlinear characteristics of diodes but also provide some extra heat pump power.
@niallparker3655 Hi, diodes range from a few pennies to 80 cents for certain bridge rectifiers. The kW (heating power, array size) is mostly limited by how the DIY'er builds the system, not so much the diodes themselves. This idea is mostly not understood. But in my experience it scales up very well - therefore MPPT is never going to be cheaper than nichrome heaters and power diodes. The simplicity and low cost are clear benefits of nichrome/diodes. The diodes are just there to provide regulation mostly, extracting the last 10-20% of watt-hours. Currently starting a new solar rack and electric heating build, it will be over 10kw for the first test. No problem at all. I may try some larger diodes and a larger heatsink, but that will still be cheaper and simpler than MPPT for sure. FYI there are actually peltiers experimentally integrated underneath the "square" diode heater, to scavenge voltage from the heat. I didn't mention it to avoid making things more confusing. -Dave
Hi. I've been following your work for a while. It's great. I love the fact that you have turned to using Bridge Rectifier Diodes. It would really help if you could include a diagram on how you are connecting these. It's not obvious. Thanks.
@letter2steve Hi thanks for watching, a diode chain literally consists of a lot of diodes in in series, there is nothing more to it; main problem is to keep them cool (get the heat out) or they burn. TO-220 packaged diodes might be easier to work with, I like the bridge rectifiers though. If you want to experiment, try cheap axial diodes in series with a bench power supply or small solar panel. Much easier to see how they connect. I have a video playlist linked in the description where I did that. It's a great way to see how it works on the bench before trying to do a build
@@solarpoweredge Hi. Thanks for the reply. I have already watched your earlier videos. I've even read the Hot Diodes Paper. I'm just curious the wiring of your Bridge Rectifier. It's not clear from this recent video.
@letter2steve NP... everything is rushed over here... maybe will address this in a future video. Quickest fix is to look up the wiring schematic of a full wave AC bridge rectifier. Look for Positive/Negative, that's the connection points. Let me know if you can't find one, but they should be all over google images etc.
Hi there. I really appreciate all the work you have done. Upon looking into this, it looks like a Full Wave Rectifier Bridge will be a waste of 2 diodes as they will never be used. It's great in that it's a simple way to wire in 2 series diodes at the same time. It's also awesome to have a nice heat sink package to boot. I hope I'm seeing that correctly. I think it's a great idea either way :-)
If you get a handful of power transistors on a big heat-sink, you could program an arduino to control the current they draw. It would be a form of active mppt, so possibly not attractive to you, but it could be simple, optimal and under your own control.
@Rich-on6fe True and a good idea... I have an arduino kit but have never got around to opening it. Guaranteed this is one of the first things I'd try :) The main draw of diode chains is they are like nichrome - dirt simple. And yet they behave so intelligently. I find them very intriguing
@solarpoweredge I went so far as to sketch a circuit: Arduino gnd is connected to PV negative. PV positive goes to emitter of a pnp power transistor and also to a 10:1 divider to gnd to provide a PV voltage measurement signal that goes into an Arduino ADC pin. The collector of the pnp power transistor goes through a low value resistor to gnd, providing a current measurement signal that goes into another ADC pin on the Arduino. The base of the pnp power transistor is stimulated by an npn transistor to ground. The base of the npn transistor is driven through a resistor from a voltage signal from a DAC output of the Arduino. You'll need an RC filter if it's a basic Arduino with pwm output and probably also a buffer amplifier (op amp) after the filter. That base resistor will be chosen from experimentation to get it to pull full rated power with full dac (pwm) voltage. Software will multiply the two ADC signals and drive the base to ride the power peak. The gain of the two transistors together might be enough to make it work sensibly - or it might not. Could be a fun little project.
It's worth noting that the current measurement voltage will have to be small compared to the 5V range of the ADC input and DAC output. If it ranges to 1V maximum, the DAC output for the base of the npn can range from about 2V up to 5V. The current measurement signal will therefore be fairly small for the measurement range / resolution and you could either amplify it with an op amp circuit before measurement, or you could use ADC oversampling to make a higher resolution measurement. Oversampling and decimation is a bit like magic.
Isn't running a chain of diodes just a voltage divider @ +.7v for each diode, then the positive solar panel lead to diode chain is handling the voltage drop which would normally be handled by a resistor. Seems like you could the resistance heater as the resistor with diodes in series to limit voltage on resistor.
I have a simple string of 100W incandescent bulbs to utilize my solar excess. It's a 48V system producing up to 75V. Didn't realize I was leaving Wattage on the table. I wonder if I could use relays to vary the number of bulbs in use, to crudely regulate the MPPT. . . .
Awesome, you could use parallel diodes chains to extract a few more watts of heat from existing solar panels by tracking a more efficient voltage. perfect use of simple technology :)
I am really leaning toward diodes with a glycol solution in a radiant system. You boiled water so I know with a mixing valve it would just be matter of sizing. Storage in a very large tank for backup during low sunlight periods. Thanks again for sharing.
@timbrown9305 right on.. totally possible! In my workshop at this moment is a cheap HWH tank setup with diode immersion element in early testing... hope to post that if it works well enough
@@solarpoweredge Oh man that is fantastic news. I liked the bulky diodes you were using in this (probably just because I am associating it with the load I am looking at. I need around 500,000 btu for a tool and die shop. 1.5' thick brick walls and insulated metal roof. Unfortunately there are 35' ceilings.
@timbrown9305 That's a big building... talking with a guy in Norway who is using roof mount bifacials to do an experimental solar electric heating install. Smaller building, but I am interested to see what kind of heat he can get from the system.
@@solarpoweredge It belongs to a friend. I told him that we could probably get half a semi of off lease solar panels and easily roof mount on flat roof with 3 foot parapets. My stumbling on to your continued research is fortunate.
Simple yet clever idea to use little solar power at its best! The problem with solar for heating is: when you need the most heating you typically get the least solar power - at least in our area in south Germany. You have plenty of solar energy in summer, but you don't need to heat. But in winter you hardly get any pv-energy and need the most heating. Even with tons of diodes i couldn't change that. But if you have sun in winter of course you can use it for heating. Alternative to diodes you could use an adjustable length ni-cr-wire just with a slider or many connections points so you could adjust it to the power available. Unfortunatly this is a manual task, not working automaticly as your diodes.
@rilosvideos877 The sun gets short here in mid winter. Yet in reality and practice, for the past several years my few solar panels made a significant difference in heating. Every morning I watch my PV heaters turn on and make their contribution, no fuel, repair bills or complex parts. But I want even more heat... for that reason, I am expanding the system. True in winter there is probably never excess power. In summer I will use excess solar power for air conditioning and charging yard equipment :) Good idea using multi-tapped nichrome. Some have suggested using a microcontroller to control the heating resistance (like MPPT) That should work too.
@mikefiatx19 The solution is to attach them to a heat extractor... heat sink etc. and you can push big power through... but if you want to use a small heat sink, just combine them with standard resistance heaters, problem solved
@@solarpoweredge I was just going through one of your older videos where you mentioned that a 40v panel could swing between 36 & 55v. So this diode setup would eliminate that swing and hold the voltage going into the heater at 40v as long as the diodes could dissipate the extra 15v (times amps). Awesome.
@IztokKlanecek Hello, what matters is to cool the diodes properly (getting the heat out and using it) the square metal bridge rectifiers could dissipate 1000w if they don't overheat. I am working on a larger improved version as these were just demonstration prototypes
@@solarpoweredge I am an inventor. In my previously experiments rectifier were overheating due to the way they operated. I think there is a possibility to reduce energy used to heat rectifiers up to five times for same temperature dissipation.
@IztokKlanecek Some of the rectifiers I used started to overheat as well, it is a major challenge keeping them at a good temperature. Right now I am mostly using heat sinks and fans, self powered by the diode chain. After 3 builds, I am working on a better version that will handle over 1000+ watts I hope
@@solarpoweredge Please notify when you achieve heating equal to the 1000W classic electrical heater. Then we will try to improve energy consumption couple a times. I think we are on something real here.
Hi Dave, Glad to see you making use of the "adjustable heat output" feature of the diodes by switching them in and out as we talked about in email. I am still waiting to find a cheap source of copper plate to build my diode tree for burying in my sand battery. I picked up some n.c. thermal cutout switches to mount on the copper along with my diodes so they do not overheat in the sand. Are you using full drop to zero volts at the end of your chain ? I was thinking that several chains in parallel on different heatsinks would likely make more use of available current during peak periods without adversely affecting anything.
@ianball3972 Hi Ian, sounds like an awesome project and the thermostats are a good choice for sand. I built a mini sand battery to experiment. The challenge I am trying to solve is diodes can't get as hot as the sand can. 300C on a diode might not end too well.... The diodes shown do go to zero voltage, and I consider negative as ground and work from there. But in practice you could attach a fan anywhere in the chain for example, it doesn't matter so long as the voltage is correct. Spreading the current out amongst more diodes is a cool way to reduce their workload. Another option is to use Schottky diodes. In electronics I have often heard "don't put diodes in parallel". But some of the heaters shown have parallel diodes. It seems to work fine. However if a diode ever shorts out, that would be a problem. Have not burned a single diode yet. I think finding a bad diode and replacing it would be really easy and cost a dollar or less. Compared to nichrome, I love diodes. Mix the two - even better...
My panels about 22V for their best power. I came up with that diodes idea also and modified a sick aluminum skillet for cooking. I put diodes inside of cooking side and turned skillet up side down. So i can put other skillet on it. Made it 1 year ago and not tested yet, because I came up with a second idea: With PWM, keep the best constant voltage (22V in my case) just on the load side, on a good powerful heater (which power => maximum panel power) rated for that solar panel voltage. Only on good Sun it will be wide PWM close to 100%. On no-Sun weather close to 0%. This way, voltage will be 22V and not changing by diodes temperature. Other plus you can rich much higher temperature for cooking without be afraid of cooking diodes. There are no diodes in that 2nd idea. After cooking done, I will put on it an aluminum heat sink with fins and fan.
@leupcholka3444 Hi, great ideas :) I have thought about making an oven, but so far have only heated air to about 60C and water to 100C which serves most of my current requirements
Dave! Great video, I haven't considered using those bridge rectifiers, I believe that they might be a cheap option for high power diodes, they are ubiquitous and I like that I don't have to solder them together.... Makes it easier to reconfigure.... I'm thinking about the possibility of running a different set of panels in the opposite direction to make use of the other two diodes doing nothing in the bridge rectifier.... Kinda like using two Lab power supplies to get both positive and negative rails... Being two different power supplies which have an isolated output just as you would have with two solar panels, even though the positive of one panel is in contact with the negative of the other, the current flow from each respective panel should be automatically routed through the diodes and you should be able to either double the heat output or use less bridge rectifiers..... And while 17 minutes might feel like a long time, it really isn't.... I thought that it was just me and I was enjoying the videos, I keep finding myself going back to re-watch it because a lot is said throughout and it's very condensed.... I really don't want to miss anything.... But there's a lot more there which I feel isn't getting a mention... Like how did you attach the bridge rectifiers to the heat sink? It looks like you put something down that was blue in colour, I'm guessing that it was a thermal pad? Did you manage to get a thermal image of the diodes and the heatsink below the diodes? Would have loved to see what is getting hot in order to see where and how to make improvements to get the heat transferred to the air..... For me, I don't care if it can't produce the same heat output as a single 2kw electric fan heater, I just need it to be low power consumption and the ability to transfer it's heat to the atmosphere as efficient as possible, if I need to run 4 of them at 100w power consumption each, and it can hold the temperature in the room on the coldest day of the year! Then I'm happy! The lowest temperature setting on my electric fan heater is 1kw.... Having a device that can do the same thing with only 500W.... Now that's what I want...
@PeterMilanovski I am thankful for your interest in these projects :D these metal bridge rectifiers seem "tougher" than other types I tried. Mostly I just like the outer case being all metal. As usual 99% of the detail was omitted to keep things short and to the point... there are several different heaters built like this and I've tried various methods to attach the diodes. Imagine how laborious drilling and tapping 100's of holes is... I should have shown some of that work in progress. I am trying to use ordinary white thermal grease from ebay with metric bolts. Yes I have tried other thermal materials too. But hate to say it, avoiding thermal grease and bolts is difficult. Thermal image, I don't have an IR camera yet, although have been offered one to test by various companies... just humanly not able to do it right now. Hope soon... FYI these heaters main advantage is they can regulate voltage.. solar panels must be at a certain voltage to make their best power. Otherwise, diodes don't exactly have any advantage over nichrome. Since I love using nichrome, the fact diodes can regulate in conjunction is very interesting because I don't have to throw away all those DC heaters I've collected :D
@solarpoweredge Dave, ever thought about cutting open one of those bridge rectifiers? Like what's inside? How are they constructed? Are the diodes inside actually attached to the metal case? I got one of those plug into the phone USB C type thermal cameras which also came with an extra magnetic lens for getting in close proximity to electronics and not having the results being influenced by every other component around what I'm focusing on.... They are great no doubt even if they are expensive, I found out that the counter balance weights for the tilting garage door being made out of some sort of metal glow in the thermal camera long after the sun has gone and it's cooled down considerably.... Had me thinking about putting something like that in an enclosure and fitting some heat pipes to some Peltier devices that feed a bridge rectifier to generate energy while absorbing heat and then while discharging heat... The rectifier automatically routes the current in the correct polarity to a battery.... I have seen someone else try this with just one Peltier device, possibly a bridge rectifier and a joule thief circuit to drive one led from a capacitor, he thought that it was going to work for a day or two but weeks past and the led ran day and night.... Possibly still working today... It's something that I have always wanted to try... But I have yet to... It's still on my mind though....
@PeterMilanovski Thanks for sharing all these ideas :D no I never did open one, but one of these BR will burn out eventually and that's a good excuse to give it a try. Have always been curious about IR cameras... multiple companies have offered to send one for evaluation, but I have zero energy left - dog paddling at this point. When things turn around I plan to use an IR camera on a couple of experiments. There is no substitute for such technology! Amazing. Very interesting observation you made on the door weight. Baking a piece of metal in the sun for peltier generation sounds 100% plausible. I've had a number of ideas related to metal and conduction of heat, still shopping for bar stock. I'd like to use copper but it ain't cheap. If I had a large chunk of metal to work with there has to be 10 different experiments to try. I believe even cheaper steel bar could be used in this way.
@solarpoweredge it's kinda like a sand battery and you use heat pipes to get the heat in when it's hotter outside and the heat out when it's colder outside.... The Peltier device will generate a voltage albeit in reverse polarity depending on what the temperature is but that's what a bridge rectifier is for... Since we are not talking about a lot of current for the sake of an experiment, probably be better to source some diodes that will pass current at a lower voltage drop of 0.6V.... and make your own bridge rectifier.... A large scale experiment would be really interesting.... Could possibly be great for some remote Barron location like the great outback here in Australia where there's nothing but red iron rich dirt, no trees no nothing for as far as the eye can see! Very hot during the day and very cold at night! I don't know what the humidity levels are but if there's any humidity, a dehumidifier could be powered to gather water.... IE an end product with an actual use case.... That's the Holley Grail.... As for the thermal camera, trust me, when you get one, you will have a lot of fun with it, I used it to catch my cat in the act, she had been sleeping on my couch in my spot but she knows that I don't like it so I never see her.... But with the camera, I can see her heat signature... I'm like Ha! I gotcha! But you will learn a few things from it too... It's like you were totally blind to heat all this time and now you can see! Could possibly be a song in that somewhere LoL.... Anyway, all in good time Dave.... You will get there..... Just keep at it buddy.
@PeterMilanovski Australian desert heat during the day, cold at night - doesn't that sound like an opportunity for Peltiers! I'll keep chipping away at these experiments! :D
This is a good update to your explanation. I hope it gets through to more people. I'm not very electronics savvy, but I'm curious why you are using only one half of each rectifier. Is there an efficiency benefit from running more units at a lower temperature than fewer at a higher temperature?
@fxm5715 Thank you... I'm no electronics guru either... a full wave bridge rectifier has 4 diodes, but we certainly don't have to use all of them. The main benefit they deliver is a large, tough metal case that can be mounted directly to a heat sink with a bolt. I'd say it's better to run more units at a lower temperature, BUT diodes seem to take 100C temps just fine. I don't have any data on diode longevity vs. temperature but it surely must have an impact. Therefore I am careful to not overheat and have not lost a single diode yet. I'm sure it will happen eventually though
I think that he is using all 4 diodes, just ignoring the two center taps, i.e. the voltage drop is over a mini chain of two diodes and each rectifier has two mini chains in parallel.
@@MLSgeek Oh, right! I get it. I wasn't thinking of it properly, imagining the two conventional paths for incoming alternating current, but with DC only, the current can simply flow through two parallel paths. Thanks for pointing that out.
did not you try to build serial diodes just to keep the stable voltage with some mAmps and use that stable voltage/current would be used to switch on /off a high power transistor? this way you could use the cheapest diodes like 1n4148 (and and the transistor and some resistors) and you could use your regular space heaters.
@grigory2109 Hahaha! Thanks for support! PS after several prototypes built over the months, there is also a working immersion semiconductor HWH element for PV :D
@HybrydaDrzymaly Hello, with properly configured diodes one can easily extract at least 10-20% more watt-hours than unregulated resistance alone. If interested check out this presentation on the research paper and the related playlist th-cam.com/video/whOXELklxQ4/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/play/PL8a6nRTNyF9PK7SExvQKNhN0t3RUP9pT7.html
@steveadal4735 Greetings sir, your 10 year old is very smart! George the cat sends his regards... he spends most of his time sleeping on a very plush cushion, annoying us, or sleeping in front of a heater - after which he annoys us further :D :)
How did you get the diodes (bridge rectifiers?) to stick to the heat sink? Great work my friend, thank so much for sharing. Wish you had amazon links to the fan and heat sink. I would like to build your exact set up.
@mppforall Hi, thank you and glad you like these project... although I neglected to show it in the video for time constraints, the correct solution is to drill and tap bolts and use thermal compound. I have tried thermal pads or tapes, with mixed results. It is really critical to get the heat out of the diodes somehow or they burn. The heat sink is an old Nippon Chemicon industrial heatsink, the fan is a 200mm. I added links for similar stuff to give people some project ideas, but recommend doing some measurements and planning before buying anything. Those heat sinks ain't cheap!
I've always wondered why you need a compound between the two. Seems it would not help. Again, can't thank you enough for sharing this information and the work you are doing. I'm a huge fan😊@@solarpoweredge
i have an existing resistor heater ran directly on solar. can you provide the formula (or refer to a good website) to determine how many and spec of diodes to run in parallel to get the mpp for the specific resistance, voltage, and current?
I'd like to be able to use solar power during a blackout. I would have to disconnect from the power grid to prevent back feeding. I've been told I need to do something with the excess energy that's generated. You seem like the right person to ask how to manage this. Maybe you've already discussed it? I'm looking for a longer term solution than a battery might cover like a week or longer.
@geniferteal4178 Hello, an unmodified grid tie inverter can't work safely without the presence of grid power. So that leaves us with batteries/inverters in most cases. In my opinion, a potential solution is to build a PV DC powerwall. And make appliances run off of solar direct. I have been working on that for years at a small scale. It's a parallel effort, having multiple power sources (redundancy) is always a good thing. Here's my work-in-progress demonstration: th-cam.com/video/zEZ0ke48awM/w-d-xo.html
@solarpoweredge i've gone two weeks without electricity, so i'm looking for a serious replacement. If i've got enough on the roof I'd like to be able to use it. I don't have any solar at the moment.This is something that's been bugging me and preventing me from getting. The fact that I wouldn't be able to use it if the grid goes down. Seems counterproductive to have the perfect generator on your roof but you're not allowed to use it. I get the need to disconnect, but why isn't that enough?What do I not understand? If there's too much energy being generated, I thought maybe if you had three rows of three panels, they could be wired in three segments and maybe only use as much as you need and switch the other one off? There might still be excess energy to do something with, but is there a safe way to get rid of it? Do I not need to get rid of it? I don't know. I just wish there was a way to make it work.
@geniferteal4178 2 weeks, that doesn't sound fun... do you know anybody in your area that is familiar with solar? It might help to team up with someone. Sounds like you need a small off-electrical-grid solar power system as soon as possible, just to get some basic power for lights, small appliances, etc. Solar panels make DC power. Pretty much the entire world runs on AC. That's why we store the DC in batteries, then have converters (inverters) to make AC on demand for appliances. Grid tie inverter makes AC right away and pushes it backwards into the home wiring and sometimes the power grid itself. But without the grid, that grid tie inverter won't work at all. What's missing is DC / solar powered appliances, which is what I have been working on as much as humanly possible. I feel it's necessary to have small to midsized DC and solar powered appliances, but their availability is often not very good.
@solarpoweredge i'm not looking to change all my appliances. I want to run what I have and keep it running. I could prioritize certain things like fridge, freezer and heating, but I don't really want to think about what I can or can't run if the power's out.I want to just run the same stuff unless of course, i'm not generating enough gy that's a different question. I talk to everyone who bothers me about switching to solar energy or adding solar energy, but they're just the salespeople, and they don't understand they say battery, I say, two weeks, then they say, yeah, I could have someone and i'm like, nope, i'm not giving you my information. When you say without the grid, That inverter wont-work. Is that for safety reasons, or is there a separate necessary reason like where does the extra energy go? I understand the safety concern. But I also feel there's a bit of you can only have energy supplied by us. You can't supply your own kind of mentality. The government kind of doesn't want us living off grid. So which is it does it actually not work?Or do they just not allow it to work for safety?
@geniferteal4178 A grid tie inverter is designed to require grid power for safety reasons. When the power is out, it switches off. Otherwise, people would backfeed high voltage while linemen are working on repairing the power lines, causing them to be injured. It's the same problem with gas generators, that's why the breaker panel is required to have an interlock to prevent accidentally backfeeding onto the grid during a power outage. Off electrical grid power does not connect to the power grid, but instead creates a separate "mini grid" which is independent and supplies power to the house. Basically we don't have good options for no-battery / PVDC-inverters right now. So that means getting batteries, inverter, solar charge controller and solar panels and operating that as a system to power the house. In some years, I kept my grid connection and ran a large solar power system in parallel. So I had more options. In your case, with the power out, any kind of power source would be great. If you know somebody that's into solar (not a salesman) they could probably help you get started in the right direction.
These are wired in series, + to -? How many of these power rectifiers did you use, and what was the high temperature you operated them at? I'd like to try these with heatsink buried in a sand battery that I mentioned in previous posts.
@canterburyworkshop5631 Correct all diode chains are literally diodes in series, nothing more. I have built a test sand battery, but have not found a satisfactory way to put diodes in the sand. Instead looking at other methods and ideas. Sand can build very high temps. It is said that diodes can go to at least 160C. I am satisfied to keep the diodes around 50-100C, just don't see the point of getting them very hot. Because I am thinking they might burn out much faster. Maybe I'm wrong. "So far" I haven't burned out a single diode.
@@solarpoweredge Thank for the quick reply. This weekend I am testing some PTC's with heatsinks to heat the return line of my hot water boiler to 200F to see if I can mimic an outdoor woodburning boiler that normally uses a plate exchanger to maintain 200F in the boiler. I'm trying to keep heat in the indoor boiler so that it doesn't use as much natural gas. I'll let you know the results.
Pardon my ignorance...... but, people often say " feeding back into the grid" !! How can you send power back into the grid from the excess power you have generated at home ? I thought current is obviously only going to travel From the grid to the consumer ?
@merlin5476 Hi, a grid tie inverter can literally push power back into the grid. To learn about that part, check out this video th-cam.com/video/fFFv2BNhIBs/w-d-xo.html
@solarpoweredge thanks for a swift reply 👍 I shall check out the link. I'm surprised that current can flow both ways at the same time especially at the same frequency ( 50hz). I shall investigate. Many thanks.
I've been researching into making my own MPPT controller using cheap components... not as cheap as your solution, but if you have a use for the power (like computing), then MPPT is your go to and the heat is a bonus. Then again, I never found cheap diodes, I found cheapish MOSFETs but not cheap diodes (or at least not big enough for that use case), so maybe that was my issue. Also I was never aiming to make heat, only to do something else and recoup the heat to keep the shed warm. Still, hat tip to you, if all you want it heat, this is a way to do it. Personally, I would try to find a real use for the power and then use the waste heat like running a computer, powering batteries for powering other things, you name it.
@asificam1 The cheapest diodes are just pennies. Bridge rectifiers are more of premium solution but worth it for their simplicity. For years solar electric heat worked well for us during winter, but without MPPT there is always some waste. It turns out diodes are a simple and cheap way to extract most of that wasted heat, but avoid MPPT altogether. I am certainly not against MPPT but this channel has a grid-down and keep-it-dirt-simple theme in the background (my personal preference for just about everything)
@jussikankinen9409 Hi, sure you could mix diode types, especially if you're just experimenting. So far I have used only cheaper rectifier diodes. To gain experience, I recommend to buy a quantity of power diodes, wire them in series and bench test them with your specific solar panels at the desired temperature etc. There is literally no way I can predict how they will behave for your specific solar configuration. Remember temperature is a factor. Also, it is better to use a bench power supply. Probably best not to hook them up to your panels until testing them at lower power. Especially if there is no heat sink attached, or the diodes might quickly burn up.
Ok so at the risk of asking a "Dumb" question! Just exactly how much more efficient is all of this, vs a quality low frequency inverter and standard solar setup? I'm sure there is some improvement, but given the "Expertise" required vs the stable reliable off the shelf inverters and related solar equipment that has been fully flushed out for civilian use. Plus the ease of use for all the other aspects of daily life that will require the "Standard" 120 v AC power which also means you're still gonna have to have all that equipment any way?? Jest wondering how long it would be before something like this is mass producible for John Q Public use??
@dannydivine7699 Hello, good question... and being open minded, especially asking questions for heartfelt investigation is never dumb :) Efficiency is about cost, ease of use, reliability, level of complexity, and much more. I've been heating my home with simple, cheap solar electric resistance heaters for years. This saves wear and tear on my complicated and expensive inverters and heat pumps. Adding Diode strings solves the problem of extracting that last 20% of solar electric heat, while also avoiding complicated MPPT circuits. More heat, but still cheap and DIY friendly. Times will change! Always good to know the alternatives. And if simple coils of wire and diodes can extract most of the solar electric heat, then it is truly an efficient and affordable alternative to charge controllers, batteries, inverters, heat pumps etc. I don't know when heaters like this would be on the store shelf, but diodes are very much in use in some countries for solar electric cooking. I think few people, if any, are using them for space heating.
@@solarpoweredge Thanks, I will have to do more research to learn more about diode sizes / availability. And honestly more about diodes in general, I as the true redneck, always thought a diodes only purpose was to control direction of current flow. Thanks
better explanation in this video. feel like you could get a 12v dc fridge for around 50 bucks and tear our the compressor (which are all 24v and similar size) and build a heat pump. not sure if heat pump would work where you are, but if you leak the refidgerent out you can add more from canned air duster.
Water to water (or air) heat pump sourcing heat from a diy solar heater, powered by solar panels. I plan to build this and store the heat in thermal batteries.
i have a my big research idea for all worlds .this research change all worlds heating need .this heating element can ran from direct solar power, or after sunset in night this ran to battery power . this element customise in all shape small size. i need patents for this idea .anybody help me for this.
@pramodgehlot8512 Hi, a subscriber told me about this... you can file your patent idea as a "micro entity" on the USPTO website. It costs much less, but you will have to make drawings and documents to file. Also it helps to hire a good patent attorney, although they might charge a lot.
Can you power a 12V mini fan throught the string of diodes? What kind of diodes you are using in this project bro? I already subscribed to your channel using mu other YT account and I also subscribed to your YT channel using my second account.
@argellaguardia9390 Hi, thank you for subscribing!!! yes, that is how all fans shown are being powered. It's like a voltage divider / regulator. These are 50 amp bridge rectifiers. We can use any silicon rectifier diodes though. I plan to try the TO-220 type diode as soon as possible, they could be cheaper.
@@solarpoweredge thanks for the idea. I am considering this kind of set up because I do have big heat sinks and i ant to utilize my solar panels power to get rid of grid power during the day.
@argellaguardia9390 NP, I like the idea of using up excess power for heat... I think a lot of solar panels are under-utilized after the batteries are charged
I have 30+ years of electronics hobby and repair, I saw this vid and clicked on it coming to it with an attitude of 'oh here we go free energy or something', and a few minutes in I thought 'omg he's onto something' - great respect for you totally 'out of the box' use of diodes!
I would never ever have come up with this solution, I would have gone down the road of mppt with feedback loops and mosfets/inductors and its as simple as clamping the voltage with diodes to increase the amps and burn it off as heat, I mean its a total misuse of the components and exactly the opposite of what we do, everything your taught/learn in design is all about reducing heat to extend component life and for efficiency, I would never have come up with this solution its just 'so wrong' that its also 'so right'.
a perfect example about how being taught something makes people (me in this case) so dumb.
reminds me of a joke my stepdad told me and it fits this perfectly...
A team of designers having trouble with a supersonic airplane and the wings ripped off, they added more ribs to the wings, and they still ripped off. they added more ribs and gussets, and they ripped off. the cleaner said to them, that area where they rip off, drill a series of holes all the way down, the designers laughed and said removing material cant make it any stronger and the cleaner was a fool, but they tried it, and the wings stayed on, they asked how he knew this strange fix and what science it was built on, he said none, but in 20 years of working as a cleaner in the toilets i've never once seen paper rip off at the perforations...
@lezbriddon I hear you, it's an extremely obscure topic... definitely not claiming free energy just more efficient extraction of PV watt-hours and thus heat. Some of the worst comments I ever got were on these diode videos, they seem to attract a lot of flak.
I am fond of saying "a person with an open mind isn't dumb" :D I don't understand 0.5% of anything but I am ready to learn more and hope to find something new...
Diodes getting hot is supposed to be a terrible thing in electronics... MPPT has it's place and I'm sure heaters will someday use it, but I have always had a "make it better, but keep it dirt simple and cheap" perspective. A string of diodes fits perfectly. They cost more than heating wire, but diodes can get more heat by operating in a better way from current limited solar panels. So they must have applications somewhere.
That's a pretty funny joke, incidentally every time I get a perforated document, I just tear it by hand or get the scissors... how many times it just tears outside the perforations and has to be taped together, so better just cut them to save on tape lol
I did the same thing a few videos ago, thinking it was another re-tread of a "free energy" idea by someone with an overly simplistic understanding of some basic aspect of physics... but nope! This is true creativity: recombining existing things in new ways to achieve goals. Most excellent!
Excellent video! I'm glad to see people like you doing practical low tech solutions.
@IntenseGrid Thanks a lot!!! :)
This is great research and development.I am going to give this a try.
I have been up against this problem for a while now too.
Thanks
@WeberMachineWorks Great!! NP!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge! I’ll have to watch your other videos.
I played around with this several years ago but never did much with it.
Youre welcome, thanks for watching! :) I think this is fascinating!
- and you can make nearly into any shape you like, and if isolated well - the risk of fire is near 0%
Excellent idea - WOW!
@EgonSorensen Indeed there are lots of potential ideas! Like heating water... working on that for past several months :)
First video I've watched from you. Just subscribed.
I'm heavily into DIY. Building a large house 100% off grid and 100% alone in Ontario Canada.House is heavily insulated and extremely tight. My biggest concern is moisture. Never crossed my mind to use dry electric heat ... until now! Can't wait to review your material.
@Building_the_SHACK Hi, thanks for subscribing! Good point space heaters don't make vapor. Your house build sounds awesome.... we have a "super insulation" project in it's early phases over here, maybe that will end up on video someday...
Fantastic! I'd be interested in your exterior wall/floor/ceiling construction. My approach is not conventional. Controlling during winter will be paramount
Using direct solar panel energy (extracting close to mpp) during the day to heat during the winter seems perfect.
@Building_the_SHACK Amateur carpenter/builder here... I hope to post a video about insulation project as soon as humanly possible! Too much work not enough ability to do it...
Keep me posted please. Building and fixing things is my passion
@Building_the_SHACK Will do!!
This is cutting edge and totally brilliant, we use diodes for light, lets use them for heat too.
@richardsandwell2285 Right on... heating the work shop with them right now :D
The diode wizard is at it again :) . Hmm, heating some kind of water tank could be handy.
@Voidsworn Haha... "The Diode Channel". I have a few hot water heater elements based on semiconductor diode chains, I will upload as soon as possible
or a sand thermal battery ;-)
@mikehamby9723 Right on :D a few weeks ago, a mysterious plastic container appeared on the workbench containing sand-like particles...
Question: Aren't solar cells themselves diodes? If so, couldn't you just use a solar panel inside as your heater, and skip the fan because of the much higher area for the heat? This seems to be a great use for one of those pannels with shattered glass that I have been storing up.
@IntenseGrid Hi, true solar panels are semiconductors and diodes are too - which makes this type of tech very ironic on some levels.... solar panels can most certainly be used as heaters - because flowing current into them causes heat production. I think instead of recycling some old solar panels, using them for heaters makes good sense in some cases
You are AWESOME and I Thank You for ALL the Work You have Done thus far, I Have Saved SOOO Much Money and Aggravation Using Your Methods that I think You should be Promoted Everywhere, and Using Full wave Bridge Rectifiers in a Diode Chain = Genius
thanks Again and Keep on, Keepin on ...!
@wpgenlighten4truth2 Thank you sir :) I love diodes and never thought they'd work as heaters. Glad the videos are useful to you... feel free to post a link to my work anywhere if someone is interested... I think that helps growth and spreads knowledge.
I'll keep plodding along hopefully and upload more stuff as soon as humanly possible!
Some actual $ comparisons would be helpful. In my experience, high current diodes aren't cheap. For those big arrays I would expect an MPPT controller to be cheaper once you have a large enough array.
Another thought is to use Peltier junctions, they share some of the nonlinear characteristics of diodes but also provide some extra heat pump power.
@niallparker3655 Hi, diodes range from a few pennies to 80 cents for certain bridge rectifiers. The kW (heating power, array size) is mostly limited by how the DIY'er builds the system, not so much the diodes themselves.
This idea is mostly not understood. But in my experience it scales up very well - therefore MPPT is never going to be cheaper than nichrome heaters and power diodes. The simplicity and low cost are clear benefits of nichrome/diodes. The diodes are just there to provide regulation mostly, extracting the last 10-20% of watt-hours.
Currently starting a new solar rack and electric heating build, it will be over 10kw for the first test. No problem at all. I may try some larger diodes and a larger heatsink, but that will still be cheaper and simpler than MPPT for sure.
FYI there are actually peltiers experimentally integrated underneath the "square" diode heater, to scavenge voltage from the heat. I didn't mention it to avoid making things more confusing. -Dave
Hi. I've been following your work for a while. It's great. I love the fact that you have turned to using Bridge Rectifier Diodes. It would really help if you could include a diagram on how you are connecting these. It's not obvious. Thanks.
@letter2steve Hi thanks for watching, a diode chain literally consists of a lot of diodes in in series, there is nothing more to it; main problem is to keep them cool (get the heat out) or they burn. TO-220 packaged diodes might be easier to work with, I like the bridge rectifiers though. If you want to experiment, try cheap axial diodes in series with a bench power supply or small solar panel. Much easier to see how they connect. I have a video playlist linked in the description where I did that. It's a great way to see how it works on the bench before trying to do a build
@@solarpoweredge Hi. Thanks for the reply. I have already watched your earlier videos. I've even read the Hot Diodes Paper. I'm just curious the wiring of your Bridge Rectifier. It's not clear from this recent video.
@letter2steve NP... everything is rushed over here... maybe will address this in a future video. Quickest fix is to look up the wiring schematic of a full wave AC bridge rectifier. Look for Positive/Negative, that's the connection points. Let me know if you can't find one, but they should be all over google images etc.
@@solarpoweredge Cool, I'm on it. Thanks.
Hi there. I really appreciate all the work you have done. Upon looking into this, it looks like a Full Wave Rectifier Bridge will be a waste of 2 diodes as they will never be used. It's great in that it's a simple way to wire in 2 series diodes at the same time. It's also awesome to have a nice heat sink package to boot. I hope I'm seeing that correctly. I think it's a great idea either way :-)
Great practical experimentation ! Kindly share to us the temperatures reached at the heatsink. Thanks.
@PeriodArmourer Hi and thanks :) depending on the speed of the 2 fans, ~50-60C.
@@solarpoweredge Thanks much for the PV2L ideas .
@PeriodArmourer Welcome :) 👍
If you get a handful of power transistors on a big heat-sink, you could program an arduino to control the current they draw. It would be a form of active mppt, so possibly not attractive to you, but it could be simple, optimal and under your own control.
@Rich-on6fe True and a good idea... I have an arduino kit but have never got around to opening it. Guaranteed this is one of the first things I'd try :)
The main draw of diode chains is they are like nichrome - dirt simple. And yet they behave so intelligently. I find them very intriguing
@solarpoweredge I went so far as to sketch a circuit: Arduino gnd is connected to PV negative. PV positive goes to emitter of a pnp power transistor and also to a 10:1 divider to gnd to provide a PV voltage measurement signal that goes into an Arduino ADC pin. The collector of the pnp power transistor goes through a low value resistor to gnd, providing a current measurement signal that goes into another ADC pin on the Arduino. The base of the pnp power transistor is stimulated by an npn transistor to ground. The base of the npn transistor is driven through a resistor from a voltage signal from a DAC output of the Arduino. You'll need an RC filter if it's a basic Arduino with pwm output and probably also a buffer amplifier (op amp) after the filter. That base resistor will be chosen from experimentation to get it to pull full rated power with full dac (pwm) voltage. Software will multiply the two ADC signals and drive the base to ride the power peak. The gain of the two transistors together might be enough to make it work sensibly - or it might not. Could be a fun little project.
It's worth noting that the current measurement voltage will have to be small compared to the 5V range of the ADC input and DAC output. If it ranges to 1V maximum, the DAC output for the base of the npn can range from about 2V up to 5V. The current measurement signal will therefore be fairly small for the measurement range / resolution and you could either amplify it with an op amp circuit before measurement, or you could use ADC oversampling to make a higher resolution measurement. Oversampling and decimation is a bit like magic.
@Rich-on6fe This is all good information, thanks a lot!
Keeping lithium batteries from freezing seems like a good application for this….
@nunyabidness9257 Good idea!!
Isn't running a chain of diodes just a voltage divider @ +.7v for each diode, then the positive solar panel lead to diode chain is handling the voltage drop which would normally be handled by a resistor. Seems like you could the resistance heater as the resistor with diodes in series to limit voltage on resistor.
@miken7629 That is a potential option, but the regulation in parallel with nichrome tends to be very good
Cool, I mean hot, no I meant excellent video and information! Thanks again for these informative videos!
@stevegill866 You are welcome :D yes they're hot! hopefully I don't burn out the diodes with experiments...
A thermal camera would help convey your message and give you more data for your experimentation.
@IntenseGrid Good idea.. planning to review one as soon as humanly possible, they are super useful
I have a simple string of 100W incandescent bulbs to utilize my solar excess. It's a 48V system producing up to 75V. Didn't realize I was leaving Wattage on the table. I wonder if I could use relays to vary the number of bulbs in use, to crudely regulate the MPPT. . . .
Awesome, you could use parallel diodes chains to extract a few more watts of heat from existing solar panels by tracking a more efficient voltage. perfect use of simple technology :)
I am really leaning toward diodes with a glycol solution in a radiant system. You boiled water so I know with a mixing valve it would just be matter of sizing. Storage in a very large tank for backup during low sunlight periods. Thanks again for sharing.
@timbrown9305 right on.. totally possible! In my workshop at this moment is a cheap HWH tank setup with diode immersion element in early testing... hope to post that if it works well enough
@@solarpoweredge Oh man that is fantastic news. I liked the bulky diodes you were using in this (probably just because I am associating it with the load I am looking at. I need around 500,000 btu for a tool and die shop. 1.5' thick brick walls and insulated metal roof. Unfortunately there are 35' ceilings.
@timbrown9305 That's a big building... talking with a guy in Norway who is using roof mount bifacials to do an experimental solar electric heating install. Smaller building, but I am interested to see what kind of heat he can get from the system.
@@solarpoweredge It belongs to a friend. I told him that we could probably get half a semi of off lease solar panels and easily roof mount on flat roof with 3 foot parapets.
My stumbling on to your continued research is fortunate.
Simple yet clever idea to use little solar power at its best! The problem with solar for heating is: when you need the most heating you typically get the least solar power - at least in our area in south Germany. You have plenty of solar energy in summer, but you don't need to heat. But in winter you hardly get any pv-energy and need the most heating. Even with tons of diodes i couldn't change that. But if you have sun in winter of course you can use it for heating. Alternative to diodes you could use an adjustable length ni-cr-wire just with a slider or many connections points so you could adjust it to the power available. Unfortunatly this is a manual task, not working automaticly as your diodes.
@rilosvideos877 The sun gets short here in mid winter. Yet in reality and practice, for the past several years my few solar panels made a significant difference in heating. Every morning I watch my PV heaters turn on and make their contribution, no fuel, repair bills or complex parts.
But I want even more heat... for that reason, I am expanding the system.
True in winter there is probably never excess power. In summer I will use excess solar power for air conditioning and charging yard equipment :)
Good idea using multi-tapped nichrome. Some have suggested using a microcontroller to control the heating resistance (like MPPT) That should work too.
Very good video. My panels are 450W at around 39v so it would be really hard to find diodes that would survive that amount of heat.
@mikefiatx19 The solution is to attach them to a heat extractor... heat sink etc. and you can push big power through... but if you want to use a small heat sink, just combine them with standard resistance heaters, problem solved
@@solarpoweredge I was just going through one of your older videos where you mentioned that a 40v panel could swing between 36 & 55v. So this diode setup would eliminate that swing and hold the voltage going into the heater at 40v as long as the diodes could dissipate the extra 15v (times amps). Awesome.
@mikefiatx19 Yes they act very much like a regulator, but with no intelligent circuits required. It's amazing how simple, cheap and effective this is
1. How many Greatz rectifiers will be needed to get heating equal to the 1000W classic heater?
2. Would you like to improve rectifiers heating?
@IztokKlanecek Hello, what matters is to cool the diodes properly (getting the heat out and using it) the square metal bridge rectifiers could dissipate 1000w if they don't overheat. I am working on a larger improved version as these were just demonstration prototypes
@@solarpoweredge I am an inventor. In my previously experiments rectifier were overheating due to the way they operated. I think there is a possibility to reduce energy used to heat rectifiers up to five times for same temperature dissipation.
@IztokKlanecek Some of the rectifiers I used started to overheat as well, it is a major challenge keeping them at a good temperature. Right now I am mostly using heat sinks and fans, self powered by the diode chain. After 3 builds, I am working on a better version that will handle over 1000+ watts I hope
@@solarpoweredge Please notify when you achieve heating equal to the 1000W classic electrical heater. Then we will try to improve energy consumption couple a times. I think we are on something real here.
@IztokKlanecek Yes sir, I hope to share the updates on this work as soon as humanly possible!
Hi Dave, Glad to see you making use of the "adjustable heat output" feature of the diodes by switching them in and out as we talked about in email. I am still waiting to find a cheap source of copper plate to build my diode tree for burying in my sand battery. I picked up some n.c. thermal cutout switches to mount on the copper along with my diodes so they do not overheat in the sand.
Are you using full drop to zero volts at the end of your chain ?
I was thinking that several chains in parallel on different heatsinks would likely make more use of available current during peak periods without adversely affecting anything.
@ianball3972 Hi Ian, sounds like an awesome project and the thermostats are a good choice for sand. I built a mini sand battery to experiment. The challenge I am trying to solve is diodes can't get as hot as the sand can. 300C on a diode might not end too well....
The diodes shown do go to zero voltage, and I consider negative as ground and work from there. But in practice you could attach a fan anywhere in the chain for example, it doesn't matter so long as the voltage is correct.
Spreading the current out amongst more diodes is a cool way to reduce their workload. Another option is to use Schottky diodes. In electronics I have often heard "don't put diodes in parallel". But some of the heaters shown have parallel diodes. It seems to work fine. However if a diode ever shorts out, that would be a problem. Have not burned a single diode yet. I think finding a bad diode and replacing it would be really easy and cost a dollar or less. Compared to nichrome, I love diodes. Mix the two - even better...
My panels about 22V for their best power. I came up with that diodes idea also and modified a sick aluminum skillet for cooking. I put diodes inside of cooking side and turned skillet up side down. So i can put other skillet on it. Made it 1 year ago and not tested yet, because I came up with a second idea:
With PWM, keep the best constant voltage (22V in my case) just on the load side, on a good powerful heater (which power => maximum panel power) rated for that solar panel voltage. Only on good Sun it will be wide PWM close to 100%. On no-Sun weather close to 0%. This way, voltage will be 22V and not changing by diodes temperature. Other plus you can rich much higher temperature for cooking without be afraid of cooking diodes. There are no diodes in that 2nd idea.
After cooking done, I will put on it an aluminum heat sink with fins and fan.
@leupcholka3444 Hi, great ideas :) I have thought about making an oven, but so far have only heated air to about 60C and water to 100C which serves most of my current requirements
Dave! Great video, I haven't considered using those bridge rectifiers, I believe that they might be a cheap option for high power diodes, they are ubiquitous and I like that I don't have to solder them together.... Makes it easier to reconfigure....
I'm thinking about the possibility of running a different set of panels in the opposite direction to make use of the other two diodes doing nothing in the bridge rectifier.... Kinda like using two Lab power supplies to get both positive and negative rails... Being two different power supplies which have an isolated output just as you would have with two solar panels, even though the positive of one panel is in contact with the negative of the other, the current flow from each respective panel should be automatically routed through the diodes and you should be able to either double the heat output or use less bridge rectifiers.....
And while 17 minutes might feel like a long time, it really isn't.... I thought that it was just me and I was enjoying the videos, I keep finding myself going back to re-watch it because a lot is said throughout and it's very condensed.... I really don't want to miss anything.... But there's a lot more there which I feel isn't getting a mention... Like how did you attach the bridge rectifiers to the heat sink? It looks like you put something down that was blue in colour, I'm guessing that it was a thermal pad?
Did you manage to get a thermal image of the diodes and the heatsink below the diodes? Would have loved to see what is getting hot in order to see where and how to make improvements to get the heat transferred to the air.....
For me, I don't care if it can't produce the same heat output as a single 2kw electric fan heater, I just need it to be low power consumption and the ability to transfer it's heat to the atmosphere as efficient as possible, if I need to run 4 of them at 100w power consumption each, and it can hold the temperature in the room on the coldest day of the year! Then I'm happy!
The lowest temperature setting on my electric fan heater is 1kw.... Having a device that can do the same thing with only 500W.... Now that's what I want...
@PeterMilanovski I am thankful for your interest in these projects :D these metal bridge rectifiers seem "tougher" than other types I tried. Mostly I just like the outer case being all metal. As usual 99% of the detail was omitted to keep things short and to the point... there are several different heaters built like this and I've tried various methods to attach the diodes. Imagine how laborious drilling and tapping 100's of holes is... I should have shown some of that work in progress. I am trying to use ordinary white thermal grease from ebay with metric bolts. Yes I have tried other thermal materials too. But hate to say it, avoiding thermal grease and bolts is difficult.
Thermal image, I don't have an IR camera yet, although have been offered one to test by various companies... just humanly not able to do it right now. Hope soon...
FYI these heaters main advantage is they can regulate voltage.. solar panels must be at a certain voltage to make their best power. Otherwise, diodes don't exactly have any advantage over nichrome. Since I love using nichrome, the fact diodes can regulate in conjunction is very interesting because I don't have to throw away all those DC heaters I've collected :D
@solarpoweredge Dave, ever thought about cutting open one of those bridge rectifiers? Like what's inside? How are they constructed? Are the diodes inside actually attached to the metal case?
I got one of those plug into the phone USB C type thermal cameras which also came with an extra magnetic lens for getting in close proximity to electronics and not having the results being influenced by every other component around what I'm focusing on....
They are great no doubt even if they are expensive, I found out that the counter balance weights for the tilting garage door being made out of some sort of metal glow in the thermal camera long after the sun has gone and it's cooled down considerably.... Had me thinking about putting something like that in an enclosure and fitting some heat pipes to some Peltier devices that feed a bridge rectifier to generate energy while absorbing heat and then while discharging heat... The rectifier automatically routes the current in the correct polarity to a battery.... I have seen someone else try this with just one Peltier device, possibly a bridge rectifier and a joule thief circuit to drive one led from a capacitor, he thought that it was going to work for a day or two but weeks past and the led ran day and night.... Possibly still working today... It's something that I have always wanted to try... But I have yet to... It's still on my mind though....
@PeterMilanovski Thanks for sharing all these ideas :D no I never did open one, but one of these BR will burn out eventually and that's a good excuse to give it a try.
Have always been curious about IR cameras... multiple companies have offered to send one for evaluation, but I have zero energy left - dog paddling at this point. When things turn around I plan to use an IR camera on a couple of experiments. There is no substitute for such technology! Amazing.
Very interesting observation you made on the door weight. Baking a piece of metal in the sun for peltier generation sounds 100% plausible. I've had a number of ideas related to metal and conduction of heat, still shopping for bar stock. I'd like to use copper but it ain't cheap. If I had a large chunk of metal to work with there has to be 10 different experiments to try. I believe even cheaper steel bar could be used in this way.
@solarpoweredge it's kinda like a sand battery and you use heat pipes to get the heat in when it's hotter outside and the heat out when it's colder outside.... The Peltier device will generate a voltage albeit in reverse polarity depending on what the temperature is but that's what a bridge rectifier is for... Since we are not talking about a lot of current for the sake of an experiment, probably be better to source some diodes that will pass current at a lower voltage drop of 0.6V.... and make your own bridge rectifier....
A large scale experiment would be really interesting.... Could possibly be great for some remote Barron location like the great outback here in Australia where there's nothing but red iron rich dirt, no trees no nothing for as far as the eye can see! Very hot during the day and very cold at night! I don't know what the humidity levels are but if there's any humidity, a dehumidifier could be powered to gather water.... IE an end product with an actual use case.... That's the Holley Grail....
As for the thermal camera, trust me, when you get one, you will have a lot of fun with it, I used it to catch my cat in the act, she had been sleeping on my couch in my spot but she knows that I don't like it so I never see her.... But with the camera, I can see her heat signature... I'm like Ha! I gotcha! But you will learn a few things from it too... It's like you were totally blind to heat all this time and now you can see! Could possibly be a song in that somewhere LoL.... Anyway, all in good time Dave.... You will get there..... Just keep at it buddy.
@PeterMilanovski Australian desert heat during the day, cold at night - doesn't that sound like an opportunity for Peltiers! I'll keep chipping away at these experiments! :D
This is a good update to your explanation. I hope it gets through to more people. I'm not very electronics savvy, but I'm curious why you are using only one half of each rectifier. Is there an efficiency benefit from running more units at a lower temperature than fewer at a higher temperature?
@fxm5715 Thank you... I'm no electronics guru either... a full wave bridge rectifier has 4 diodes, but we certainly don't have to use all of them. The main benefit they deliver is a large, tough metal case that can be mounted directly to a heat sink with a bolt. I'd say it's better to run more units at a lower temperature, BUT diodes seem to take 100C temps just fine. I don't have any data on diode longevity vs. temperature but it surely must have an impact. Therefore I am careful to not overheat and have not lost a single diode yet. I'm sure it will happen eventually though
I think that he is using all 4 diodes, just ignoring the two center taps, i.e. the voltage drop is over a mini chain of two diodes and each rectifier has two mini chains in parallel.
@MLSgeek Right!!
@@MLSgeek Oh, right! I get it. I wasn't thinking of it properly, imagining the two conventional paths for incoming alternating current, but with DC only, the current can simply flow through two parallel paths. Thanks for pointing that out.
Great content/presentation 👍
@colinmcdonagh4705 Thanks a lot :) :D
did not you try to build serial diodes just to keep the stable voltage with some mAmps and use that stable voltage/current would be used to switch on /off a high power transistor? this way you could use the cheapest diodes like 1n4148 (and and the transistor and some resistors) and you could use your regular space heaters.
@almaspite1234 Good idea, have not tried it but should work
Looking at the preview I thought it was another Indian fake-DIY video...
Damn i was wrong!
This tec really usefull working thing! Keep going! 💪
@grigory2109 Hahaha! Thanks for support! PS after several prototypes built over the months, there is also a working immersion semiconductor HWH element for PV :D
What is the efficiency of the panels with and without your diodes? Best regards form Poland
@HybrydaDrzymaly Hello, with properly configured diodes one can easily extract at least 10-20% more watt-hours than unregulated resistance alone. If interested check out this presentation on the research paper and the related playlist
th-cam.com/video/whOXELklxQ4/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/play/PL8a6nRTNyF9PK7SExvQKNhN0t3RUP9pT7.html
Hi Sir love the Advancements my 10 year old Troy wants diods now he luvs your cat ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤🎉🎉
@steveadal4735 Greetings sir, your 10 year old is very smart! George the cat sends his regards... he spends most of his time sleeping on a very plush cushion, annoying us, or sleeping in front of a heater - after which he annoys us further :D :)
I just saw one of your videos, Do you have any videos using a sand battery?
@rbo350 Hello, I built a test sand battery a few weeks ago, will upload results as soon as humanly possible :)
Interesting symmetry in this project: solar panels are essentially diode arrays run in reverse.
@jamesphillips2285 It is an unusual arrangement... semiconductors to semiconductors!
How did you get the diodes (bridge rectifiers?) to stick to the heat sink?
Great work my friend, thank so much for sharing. Wish you had amazon links to the fan and heat sink. I would like to build your exact set up.
@mppforall Hi, thank you and glad you like these project... although I neglected to show it in the video for time constraints, the correct solution is to drill and tap bolts and use thermal compound. I have tried thermal pads or tapes, with mixed results. It is really critical to get the heat out of the diodes somehow or they burn. The heat sink is an old Nippon Chemicon industrial heatsink, the fan is a 200mm. I added links for similar stuff to give people some project ideas, but recommend doing some measurements and planning before buying anything. Those heat sinks ain't cheap!
I've always wondered why you need a compound between the two. Seems it would not help. Again, can't thank you enough for sharing this information and the work you are doing. I'm a huge fan😊@@solarpoweredge
@mppforall You're welcome, your support is greatly appreciated :D :) 👍
Ask any PC tech about the importance of thermal compound! It’s life or death for processors.
i have an existing resistor heater ran directly on solar. can you provide the formula (or refer to a good website) to determine how many and spec of diodes to run in parallel to get the mpp for the specific resistance, voltage, and current?
@JShiezo Hello, I'd reccomend checking out the "hot diodes" research paper, that's the best resource so far th-cam.com/video/whOXELklxQ4/w-d-xo.html
I couldn't find the link in the description to how you built your power wall. Did I miss something?
@mppforall I'm upset with myself for not including it... thanks for letting me know.. updated. Too much going on and I forgot.
No worries, you got a lot going on. I love what you're doing. Can't get enough! 😊@@solarpoweredge
@mppforall Thankful to hear that :D and thanks for watching :)
I'd like to be able to use solar power during a blackout. I would have to disconnect from the power grid to prevent back feeding. I've been told I need to do something with the excess energy that's generated. You seem like the right person to ask how to manage this. Maybe you've already discussed it? I'm looking for a longer term solution than a battery might cover like a week or longer.
@geniferteal4178 Hello, an unmodified grid tie inverter can't work safely without the presence of grid power. So that leaves us with batteries/inverters in most cases.
In my opinion, a potential solution is to build a PV DC powerwall. And make appliances run off of solar direct. I have been working on that for years at a small scale. It's a parallel effort, having multiple power sources (redundancy) is always a good thing.
Here's my work-in-progress demonstration:
th-cam.com/video/zEZ0ke48awM/w-d-xo.html
@solarpoweredge i've gone two weeks without electricity, so i'm looking for a serious replacement. If i've got enough on the roof I'd like to be able to use it. I don't have any solar at the moment.This is something that's been bugging me and preventing me from getting. The fact that I wouldn't be able to use it if the grid goes down. Seems counterproductive to have the perfect generator on your roof but you're not allowed to use it. I get the need to disconnect, but why isn't that enough?What do I not understand? If there's too much energy being generated, I thought maybe if you had three rows of three panels, they could be wired in three segments and maybe only use as much as you need and switch the other one off? There might still be excess energy to do something with, but is there a safe way to get rid of it? Do I not need to get rid of it? I don't know. I just wish there was a way to make it work.
@geniferteal4178 2 weeks, that doesn't sound fun... do you know anybody in your area that is familiar with solar? It might help to team up with someone. Sounds like you need a small off-electrical-grid solar power system as soon as possible, just to get some basic power for lights, small appliances, etc.
Solar panels make DC power. Pretty much the entire world runs on AC. That's why we store the DC in batteries, then have converters (inverters) to make AC on demand for appliances.
Grid tie inverter makes AC right away and pushes it backwards into the home wiring and sometimes the power grid itself. But without the grid, that grid tie inverter won't work at all.
What's missing is DC / solar powered appliances, which is what I have been working on as much as humanly possible. I feel it's necessary to have small to midsized DC and solar powered appliances, but their availability is often not very good.
@solarpoweredge i'm not looking to change all my appliances. I want to run what I have and keep it running. I could prioritize certain things like fridge, freezer and heating, but I don't really want to think about what I can or can't run if the power's out.I want to just run the same stuff unless of course, i'm not generating enough gy that's a different question.
I talk to everyone who bothers me about switching to solar energy or adding solar energy, but they're just the salespeople, and they don't understand they say battery, I say, two weeks, then they say, yeah, I could have someone and i'm like, nope, i'm not giving you my information.
When you say without the grid, That inverter wont-work. Is that for safety reasons, or is there a separate necessary reason like where does the extra energy go? I understand the safety concern. But I also feel there's a bit of you can only have energy supplied by us. You can't supply your own kind of mentality. The government kind of doesn't want us living off grid. So which is it does it actually not work?Or do they just not allow it to work for safety?
@geniferteal4178 A grid tie inverter is designed to require grid power for safety reasons. When the power is out, it switches off. Otherwise, people would backfeed high voltage while linemen are working on repairing the power lines, causing them to be injured. It's the same problem with gas generators, that's why the breaker panel is required to have an interlock to prevent accidentally backfeeding onto the grid during a power outage.
Off electrical grid power does not connect to the power grid, but instead creates a separate "mini grid" which is independent and supplies power to the house. Basically we don't have good options for no-battery / PVDC-inverters right now. So that means getting batteries, inverter, solar charge controller and solar panels and operating that as a system to power the house.
In some years, I kept my grid connection and ran a large solar power system in parallel. So I had more options. In your case, with the power out, any kind of power source would be great. If you know somebody that's into solar (not a salesman) they could probably help you get started in the right direction.
Mind Blowing
@trevortrevortsr2 :D
what's the benefit of using the rectifiers over standard diodes ?
@jackabal5392 They are very tough and can handle higher power dissipation
These are wired in series, + to -? How many of these power rectifiers did you use, and what was the high temperature you operated them at? I'd like to try these with heatsink buried in a sand battery that I mentioned in previous posts.
@canterburyworkshop5631 Correct all diode chains are literally diodes in series, nothing more. I have built a test sand battery, but have not found a satisfactory way to put diodes in the sand. Instead looking at other methods and ideas. Sand can build very high temps. It is said that diodes can go to at least 160C. I am satisfied to keep the diodes around 50-100C, just don't see the point of getting them very hot. Because I am thinking they might burn out much faster. Maybe I'm wrong. "So far" I haven't burned out a single diode.
@@solarpoweredge Thank for the quick reply. This weekend I am testing some PTC's with heatsinks to heat the return line of my hot water boiler to 200F to see if I can mimic an outdoor woodburning boiler that normally uses a plate exchanger to maintain 200F in the boiler. I'm trying to keep heat in the indoor boiler so that it doesn't use as much natural gas. I'll let you know the results.
@canterburyworkshop5631 Welcome! sounds good, I am very curious about that kind of setup
@@solarpoweredge have you considered PCM (Phase Change Material) as alternative to sand?.
@ZeusChingon I'm very interested in PCMs! Fascinating stuff
Pardon my ignorance...... but, people often say " feeding back into the grid" !! How can you send power back into the grid from the excess power you have generated at home ? I thought current is obviously only going to travel From the grid to the consumer ?
@merlin5476 Hi, a grid tie inverter can literally push power back into the grid. To learn about that part, check out this video th-cam.com/video/fFFv2BNhIBs/w-d-xo.html
@solarpoweredge thanks for a swift reply 👍
I shall check out the link.
I'm surprised that current can flow both ways at the same time especially at the same frequency ( 50hz).
I shall investigate. Many thanks.
@merlin5476 Welcome! :)
@@merlin5476 Grid tie inverters are specifically designed to not work if that 50Hz signal goes away.
This is needed for safety reasons.
I've been researching into making my own MPPT controller using cheap components... not as cheap as your solution, but if you have a use for the power (like computing), then MPPT is your go to and the heat is a bonus. Then again, I never found cheap diodes, I found cheapish MOSFETs but not cheap diodes (or at least not big enough for that use case), so maybe that was my issue. Also I was never aiming to make heat, only to do something else and recoup the heat to keep the shed warm. Still, hat tip to you, if all you want it heat, this is a way to do it. Personally, I would try to find a real use for the power and then use the waste heat like running a computer, powering batteries for powering other things, you name it.
@asificam1 The cheapest diodes are just pennies. Bridge rectifiers are more of premium solution but worth it for their simplicity. For years solar electric heat worked well for us during winter, but without MPPT there is always some waste. It turns out diodes are a simple and cheap way to extract most of that wasted heat, but avoid MPPT altogether. I am certainly not against MPPT but this channel has a grid-down and keep-it-dirt-simple theme in the background (my personal preference for just about everything)
can we use wires? if so what awg? also once gain Congrats on the 16,000 Subscribers !
fyi just found same ones on temu for $8.77 and already ordered them for testing
@vrrevolution9183 Thanks a lot! Sure, we can use any wires as long as they can handle the amps
How many diodes if 80v, can u mix different type diodes
@jussikankinen9409 Hi, sure you could mix diode types, especially if you're just experimenting. So far I have used only cheaper rectifier diodes. To gain experience, I recommend to buy a quantity of power diodes, wire them in series and bench test them with your specific solar panels at the desired temperature etc. There is literally no way I can predict how they will behave for your specific solar configuration. Remember temperature is a factor. Also, it is better to use a bench power supply. Probably best not to hook them up to your panels until testing them at lower power. Especially if there is no heat sink attached, or the diodes might quickly burn up.
Ok so at the risk of asking a "Dumb" question!
Just exactly how much more efficient is all of this, vs a quality low frequency inverter and standard solar setup?
I'm sure there is some improvement, but given the "Expertise" required vs the stable reliable off the shelf inverters and related solar equipment that has been fully flushed out for civilian use. Plus the ease of use for all the other aspects of daily life that will require the "Standard" 120 v AC power which also means you're still gonna have to have all that equipment any way??
Jest wondering how long it would be before something like this is mass producible for John Q Public use??
@dannydivine7699 Hello, good question... and being open minded, especially asking questions for heartfelt investigation is never dumb :)
Efficiency is about cost, ease of use, reliability, level of complexity, and much more. I've been heating my home with simple, cheap solar electric resistance heaters for years. This saves wear and tear on my complicated and expensive inverters and heat pumps. Adding Diode strings solves the problem of extracting that last 20% of solar electric heat, while also avoiding complicated MPPT circuits. More heat, but still cheap and DIY friendly.
Times will change! Always good to know the alternatives. And if simple coils of wire and diodes can extract most of the solar electric heat, then it is truly an efficient and affordable alternative to charge controllers, batteries, inverters, heat pumps etc.
I don't know when heaters like this would be on the store shelf, but diodes are very much in use in some countries for solar electric cooking. I think few people, if any, are using them for space heating.
@@solarpoweredge Thanks, I will have to do more research to learn more about diode sizes / availability. And honestly more about diodes in general, I as the true redneck, always thought a diodes only purpose was to control direction of current flow. Thanks
@dannydivine7699 Welcome - I always thought of them that way too, but it's amazing what diodes can do!
awesome.
:D 👍
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
@TheSuperChannel :D 👍
Should be mining crypto to make excess heat
@rickdsanchez6452 While crypto is not for me, it's certainly a valid point. Either that or run a datacenter server farm...
better explanation in this video. feel like you could get a 12v dc fridge for around 50 bucks and tear our the compressor (which are all 24v and similar size) and build a heat pump. not sure if heat pump would work where you are, but if you leak the refidgerent out you can add more from canned air duster.
@vevenaneathna DIY heat pump would sure be interesting!
Water to water (or air) heat pump sourcing heat from a diy solar heater, powered by solar panels. I plan to build this and store the heat in thermal batteries.
Not me seeing this like rocket science.
@ekeretteekpo3004 :D
@@solarpoweredge 🤦♂️
i have a my big research idea for all worlds .this research change all worlds heating need .this heating element can ran from direct solar power, or after sunset in night this ran to battery power . this element customise in all shape small size.
i need patents for this idea .anybody help me for this.
@pramodgehlot8512 Hi, a subscriber told me about this... you can file your patent idea as a "micro entity" on the USPTO website. It costs much less, but you will have to make drawings and documents to file. Also it helps to hire a good patent attorney, although they might charge a lot.
Clean your panals you get a lot more energy
@johannes3-16 True statement... I need to get out there and clean them
This is Tesla Ingenuity!
@dr123hall It's pretty awesome :D 👍 working on a HWH tank too
Can you power a 12V mini fan throught the string of diodes? What kind of diodes you are using in this project bro?
I already subscribed to your channel using mu other YT account and I also subscribed to your YT channel using my second account.
@argellaguardia9390 Hi, thank you for subscribing!!!
yes, that is how all fans shown are being powered. It's like a voltage divider / regulator.
These are 50 amp bridge rectifiers. We can use any silicon rectifier diodes though. I plan to try the TO-220 type diode as soon as possible, they could be cheaper.
@@solarpoweredge thanks for the idea. I am considering this kind of set up because I do have big heat sinks and i ant to utilize my solar panels power to get rid of grid power during the day.
@argellaguardia9390 NP, I like the idea of using up excess power for heat... I think a lot of solar panels are under-utilized after the batteries are charged