15 Watts of Solar Power Boiling Water! induction experiments in my solar workshop
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2024
- Follow up to a previous experiment where I boiled and cooked an egg with just 15 watts of DC power from a tiny 20 watt solar panel. LINK: • Ultra efficient solar ... - here I will try to use the same solar panel with an induction circuit to boil water in a test tube.
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That looked like a lot of fun. I wonder if it would boil a little faster if you had something covering the top of the test tube (like putting a lid on a pot). I'm going to have to go back into your older videos and watch the one on the diode chain. That sounds very interesting too.
@colin8532 Pretty cool setup for tinkering :) I did try covering with a cork but didn't record that part
@colin8532 Hope you like the diode experiments - I think they're pretty fascinating. Whoever thought of cooking food with diodes - strange but it works well
@@solarpoweredge Pew!
@pyrojason Worth pointing out, the diodes are never in contact with the food at any time :)
@@solarpoweredge
I'm vapourising weed with an induction coil watching your video :)
Very well done! I actually use a 120v immersion water heater to make my tea. It comes in at about 285 watts, but wh is only about 23, I am using an Oupes Exodus 600w solar bank.
@177airhead5 Thanks... good setup you have for tea :) here's an old video of my solar tea setup - making hibiscus tea:
th-cam.com/video/mStAPLu8oOE/w-d-xo.html
I look at power the same way I view honey bees.
Ever seen a 500 pound honey bee?
Me neither, but I've seen thousands of little bitty honey bees all working towards the same goal.
I build wind turbines. Each one has three 18 inch Coroflute plastic blades, each sitting on a 6 inch offset, making the radius of my swept area 24".
They're small, but I have lots of them - all pumping air, 6 squirts per revolution using diaphragm pumps - like little individual honey bees.
I store energy as compressed air and build small air engines to use the air to do work.
My air "battery" holds 2,000 gallons of air @ from 40 to 80 psig using an adjustable dump valve.
If I were using electricity from PV sources, like you are, I'd look into some way to use several small applications all working towards a common goal.
Edut: I also use PV panels to run tiny compressors, but one revolution of a windmill compressor does the same amount of pumping as an electric-driven gear box & pump does in about 4 minutes. Hey, I like to tinker.😂
Just a thought.
@WhatDadIsUpTo Good point on the bees. It all adds up. I am slowly gathering parts for a compressed air setup. If I was a millionaire, I'd just go straight to the industrial supply company and get the biggest air setup they had
@@solarpoweredge
Baby steps . . .
@@WhatDadIsUpTo sounds great what you have going on... But please be careful with air tanks, I hope yours are new, there are quite a few videos showing how those handyman air compressors can explode! Really scary stuff! Apparently they sound like a bomb going off and have no trouble blowing windows and doors out!
They should be mounted somewhere out of the way with a tap to release the pressure from a remote location, and for those that plug into the wall, put in a remote location switch away from the compressor!
From what I've seen, there's no rhyme or reason why they explode, I have seen some really old powered compressors being cut open expecting to find a lot of rust and thinning of the walls but not the case.... Yeah I don't know.... But just be careful is all I'm saying....
I haven't put in any research into compressed air storage... Maybe because I have seen too many videos and actual leaking LPG gas cylinders from forklifts.... I will definitely keep it mind, I have too much going on with current experiments to dive into a new field....
just discovered your channel! amazing! I will now proceed to watch all your videos.
@dominictarrsailing I am thankful you found it :) hope the videos are useful :D
Heat pumps move heat from one temperature zone to another which can be more efficient than converting electrical energy into heat through a heating element. Induction heating from solar is not a simple low-cost method, but it works. Thanks for your experiments and ideas.
I heat water in a modified electric water directly from solar panels with DC rated circuit breaker, safety disconnect, and thermostat. 2400 watt off-grid.
@sagecoach Solar electric hot water is awesome
Small heat source works for absorption refrigerators.
@kelimike Absorption fridges are really neat. Been looking for a used one to experiment with
@@solarpoweredge That would be fun to watch too. I hope you find one.
Glow plugs for diesel trucks are very good at boiling water on very small amounts of power.
@SolarSeeker45 I really have to try that
good stuff... thanks for the brain seed...... diode chain you say... I'd never thought about using them as heating elements.... I'm gonna haveta ruminate on that one
@joepeppers1920 Thanks :) food for thought... here's my videos on diode chains / strings
th-cam.com/play/PL8a6nRTNyF9PK7SExvQKNhN0t3RUP9pT7.html
Very interesting. I'd like to know how long it took to boil and how many mL in the test tube. Also, why not cap the test tube?
@IragmanI Don't have any notes for this one, I estimate something like 5-6ml probably 10-20 minutes. I did try putting a cork on the tube but did not record that part
@@solarpoweredge 10~20 minutes is pretty good. I was expecting longer for the limit power but that it boiled at all on ~10Watts is quite a astounding. Good work
@IragmanI Thank you, I found the whole setup pretty surprising. Tried various combinations, it took a few weeks before I was "allowed" to finish this experiment and record it. I want to build something useful with this idea, it's on the list
Wouldn't a metal "test tube" work better?
@Scaliad I don't have one, but certainly worth a try
It's all about surface area when it comes to induction, had the bolt in the test tube been smaller, all the induction energy would be going into something with a smaller surface area which is more difficult to transfer it's heat to the water and will therefore get hotter, in turn it will then be transferring it's hotter heat to the water effectively getting it to boil sooner....
The more mass, the more induction power needed to be useful! That's why you need at least 240V that's capable of plenty of current for an induction range (or stove)... Posts and pans have a lot of surface area and plenty of mass! It would take too long to cook anything with less power, though there's plenty applications for low power induction heaters....
If it snows where you are, and you use an AC heat pump for heating your house, 20 - 60W worth of induction power to a coil wrapped around one of the aluminium pipes going to the outside evaporator/condenser might just be enough to stop it freezing up and causing the AC unit to go into defrosting....
At 60W power consumption, you won't need a huge solar panel plus battery to keep it running day and night.... You will have to figure out how to get it to turn on and off automatically..... That's the challenge... I would probably use an off the shelf temperature controller that will turn on the induction circuit when a hot temperature is reached and measured on the inside of the house where you want the heat to be on a really cold day.... If the AC unit is running, the controller will detect the heat inside and fire up the induction circuit outside to prevent it from icing up!
There! Simples!
Might be a bit how ya doin, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work!
Good job, interesting experiment.
@evil17 Thank you :) 👍
GREAT IDEA KEEP THEM COMING
@anthonymarino4260 Thanks, working on more stuff :) 👍
having good luck with induction hot plate on the camper solar panel. 70 amp 12 volt about 300 watts AC gets 400 degree fry pan.. heats fast. no propane needed!
@solarforfuture Nice! Some months back, I bought a tiny 300w induction plate out of curiosity. It worked extremely well and makes good coffee....
Great video, great topic.
@create54321 Thank you :) 👍
Why did you put insulation over the test tube? I agree you need insulation, but on the outside of the coils, to prevent loss to the air. If anything, you should try to increase conduction between the coils and test tube.
@jodaboda1 To retain heat. After adding the insulation, it boiled quite vigorously
The heat source being inducted is the little metal bolt in the water itself. The coil is only the inductive source, not the heat source.
@@IragmanI In theory, you are correct, but the coil also heats up quite a bit due to the resistance of the wire. It might be worth while to try to capture that heat as well.
@@Guishan_Lingyou definitely! I replaced my coil with copper pipe so that I can run water through it, this way I can preheat the water before it goes through the main pipe to be heated via the coil....
That solid copper coil wire will turn black from how hot it gets! I touched the coil while at 6v and thought wow! So much heat going to waste, I need to get it in circuit and absorb it into the water that I'm trying to heat anyway!
There's a lot of other videos that talk about induction heaters but not many of them mention that the coil also gets hot! You can tell when someone post's comments about something and hasn't actually played around with it.... You really need more than just book's.... Get a couple of these cheap things and blow one up so that you will know what it can't do! Besides, it's a lot of fun....
I was thinking of this for pool heater, but then saw magnet induction. Get your panel to spin the wheel of magnets under copper pipe to induce heat. I would love to see your results to that.
@rubixrj7074 The spinning magnets machine is on the list, it's too fascinating to ignore :)
There's plenty of other videos that have already done this, but by all means.... It should be tried! Everyone else is doing it differently.... Someone is bound to take it to the next level...
Nice video! The power required to boil water is determined by the heat loss, so with perfect insulation (which isn't practically possible) the power input would just dictate how fast a given amount of water would boil, and any amount of power would make water boil, in theory.
Have you tried using high temperature peltier modules for boiling water? They're technically better at heating than cooling as the power they use turns into heat. And when used for heating it should be possible to increase efficiency by stacking them, as the efficiency improves the smaller temperature difference they have to create, and the heat generated by their own power consumption adds to the overall heating. Most cheap peltier modules aren't designed to tolerate more than 70 °C, so for long term use any stage that gets hotter than that should be modules that are designed for high temperatures.
@fishyerik Good info, ty. I am testing all aspects of peltiers, including thermoelectric power generation and heating. It's a huge task, hope to make more video soon
Nice job. Did the mosfet or mosfets get hot on your buck converter?
@mr.makeit4037 They warmed up some, a small fan kept them from getting too hot. I don't think the buck converter was designed for anything boiling :D
@solarpoweredge i believe your right. With all of the experimentation, my thoughts not only go to it's success but longterm viability and reliability of the tech.
I'm almost sure, that your "screw" is not ideal induction power receiver, not all kinds of steel work equal.
To bring 100 mililters of water from 25C to 100c you need about 9Wh of energy (if it is fully isolated), so with 10 W it should take about 1 hour.
@AK-vx4dy Was a bit curious to try that type of metal. Last test it took less than an hour to boil. The footage is a bit random, as it took several weeks to get all this done and recorded - lots of interruptions
Instead of insulating the induction coil, why not put the induction coil into something that will absorb and trap the heat, then use that heat to further heat the water?
The most simple solution that comes to mind is to, put the coil into water, then drop the test tube in the coil, the water in the tube is still isolated from the water used for cooling but the water from the coil will trap the coil heat and further heat the water in the tube.
@xxpr0nag3xx92 Good idea to extract heat from the coil. It was getting too hot to touch, lots of wasted power
I have two of those induction circuits, I wanted to test if I could heat water going through a copper pipe, I got up to 6v on my lab power supply which wasn't quite enough power to heat running water... There was about 60W going in and I wanted to take it to it's maximum of 12v but I noticed that the induction coil was already quite hot at 6v and it dawned on me why all the coils in the videos that I have watched (and I have seen a lot of videos) were black!
I wasn't expecting a huge difference in temperature but was hoping for at least 2°c difference which would take a considerable amount of time to heat water in a large tank but I would be happy with that result...
I have ordered and received new induction coils made of copper pipe which I plan to route the water through first and then pass through the pipe through the coil to absorb the coil heat and get some more efficiency out of the system instead of letting the heat from the coil evaporate....
Even if it can't heat a 100L boiler tank of water, if I set up the system in series before the main boiler tank, pre warmed water will take less time to heat to 60°c than the current situation of cold water going straight in.
I already have two boilers in series, the original gas unit and the new heat pump boiler which is doing all the work since it was installed, the original gas unit gets its water already heated and just sits there waiting for the temperature to drop, it's kinda like a backup....
That induction circuit is good for 120W.... I'm interested in how much water can it heat in between hot water usage (showers, dishwashing). The heat pump boiler runs for 2.5hrs after a long shower, if this kit can reduce the run time by even half an hour, then I'm happy! Might even consider hydronic heating and going up to a 600W induction circuit....
It can build up hot water when I'm not home or overnight if I'm not using it so it doesn't need to be fast, you won't need a huge battery to keep it running overnight....
I have yet to test the new coils, I also received new water pumps but one wasn't glued together properly and has a leak, I'm in the process of getting some glue to fix it before I put together a new test circuit.... Hopefully this time I can ramp up the voltage to 12v... I also got two inline flow metre with built in temperature sensor... So I can see what sort of temperature difference I will be able to get... If not quite there, I have a second induction circuit for twice the power....
I also need to invest in another lab power supply, I need to control the speed of the water pumps and control the induction circuit independently... If the water is running to fast, I might not be able to see a difference in temperature... I have a spare 12V SMPS that I can use, maybe I might have to manually switch the SMPS on and off to move the water a bit at a time? Don't know yet, I'm always thinking and looking ahead trying to preempt anything that I can foresee taking place.....
Actually, I have plenty DC to DC converters.... I will use one with the SMPS! Ahhh! Excellent, thank you for that!
And just before I go digging out a suitable converter, I wanted to ask for your opinion about the series diode heater you made, is the diode setup more efficient than resistive ie nichrome wire?
Like which one do you think could heat and equal amount of water faster? If you put in a bit more power into that induction circuit, that water in the test tube would have boiled so much faster, I believe that there are these things called magnetic stirrers, used in chemistry.... They are wrapped in plastic and could possibly be able to withstand 100°c (not sure at what temperature water boils in freedom units LoL). And I'm not sure if the actual magnet is the stirrers on in the base of the stirring contraption.... It probably has a name for which I haven't had the need to know yet LoL.
You would prefer to have something in the water other than metal... Although stainless steel might be okay....
There is a flat pancake induction coil that I also plan on getting, I have had a good flat bottom stove top kettle for some time now waiting to be used in an induction circuit... Ohhhh I just remembered, the kettle is stainless steel and apparently doesn't work with induction circuits..... Hmmm need to find a new kettle, perhaps with a copper or aluminium base.....
Actually, was that just a steal bolt in the test tube? It looked shiny like stainless steel..... I would be very interested to know, going to re-watch the video to see if you mentioned it....
Anyway, great video, as always to short! I don't mind seeing stuff being put together and listening to whatever you have to say along the way.... Sometimes it's educational and others can be funny.... Either way, keep up the great work! See you in the next video..
@PeterMilanovski Those experiments you're doing sound very interesting, keep up the good work :)
I figured a lot of power would be wasted in this circuit, but just had to try it. Sure enough... coil gets pretty hot. Who knows how much power is wasted. But that's OK I love the idea of heating a piece of metal with no wires going to it!
Matched diode strings, *****when driven by a solar panel***** are significantly more efficient than standard resistance heating elements. The resistance element is linear, diodes are exponential/logarithmic. I made a few videos here but hope to expand further on it: th-cam.com/play/PL8a6nRTNyF9PK7SExvQKNhN0t3RUP9pT7.html
There are no guarantees, but I have had some success using stainless pots on induction cooktops. The bolt is stainless steel - the idea being it cannot corrode or hopefully impart harmful substances into the clean water. Obviously other metals are better for induction, but they would probably rust too...
Due to the high pressure to keep people watching, I tend to cut videos short and move along quickly. This has definitely ruined a lot of my work. If the channel ever gets to 100k (how many decades will that take?), I'll slow down and make longer more detailed videos with explanations, stats, spec sheets, etc. That's truly what I always wanted to create :)
@@solarpoweredge Hey! Thanks for the info!
Okay, stainless steel somewhat works and now my induction heated stainless steel kettle idea is back on the drawing board! Thank you!
I have already seen the video's with the diodes, it was the first time I was thinking how come I have never seen this before? A brilliant idea! Einstein level of intelligence right there! Possibly beyond Einstein..... He couldn't figure out what gravity is....
Anyway, you might have mentioned that the diodes were more efficient than going with resistive solutions but I think that I was to impressed that I may have missed that bit of information....
I'm currently looking for a cheap avenue for diodes in TO220 packages because they have mounting tabs and I can screw them to a heatsink for a bit more surface area and better temperature transfer!
Not much luck with eBay and AliExpress, most parts on there are probably counterfeit, so I'm looking at the major electronic components suppliers for something that is quality and able to do the job....
I feel like I have a lot going on and I really need to pick something and dedicate as much time as possible! I need to finish at least one project! Could really use a boost in morale from a win ...
@PeterMilanovski Welcome :D those TO220 diodes should be great, easy to screw onto a heat sink. The axial ones are tedious to work with. Usually requiring some kind of thermal cement to attach. I know what you mean... there are 10,000 projects and only a single human (or in my case probably 1/4th) to do them. So I try to focus on no more than 2-3 things at one time. Right now I'm building a small peltier fridge prototype using some promising new ideas, it's taken months to get there :)
@@solarpoweredge I'm also in the process of doing Peltier devices, looking into diodes, the weather is slowly getting better here in Melbourne so I will be up on the roof installing panels to take advantage of the afternoon sun....
I'm also working on an idea that I can't really talk about, but if it works, it will break the second law of thermodynamics.... I have heard too many people say that it can't be done but I'm going to try something different that I haven't seen anyone else do, I have built it up in my mind and have seen it working so I'm 99.9% sure that it could work... Fingers crossed that it does... And if it works, I should be able to upscale it to provide me with all the energy I need.... But until then, it's going to be a secret... But in the meantime I have to develop an efficient solar powered personal space heater because the wife prefers to have hot air blowing directly at her even though the house has a gas central heating unit which runs day and night... Something that I really want to get away from... Which is why I'm looking at every different way to heat! To220 diodes mounted on aluminium slats with a fan from behind like a traditional fan heater might work.... It's something that I want to try... I have also thought about induction for space heating and even Peltier devices for heating which should be really good but I just need to work out how to send the cold side outside!
It's a working progress.... When I get stuck on one idea I move on to the next....
It is what it is and we do what we must!
It's the people like you and me who work in their garage that eventually end up turning into Apple or Hewlett Packard.... Started in a garage and had to move to a bigger garage and so on...
@PeterMilanovski If they say it can't be done, I'm all for working on it! That's how things get invented... thermodynamics is just a model, a very useful one. I am sure there are phenomenon that operate outside its boundaries...
if I saw correctly only water is inside, but if you put some chunk of metal (small cylinder) inside that is solid it will quickly create Eddy currents and water should boil faster, have you tried it ?
@aleksandar7393 Right, that's actually what I did. There is a piece of metal in the test tube to accept the induction power
@@solarpoweredge I think what he meant was to place a metallic ring like a piece of pipe inside the test tube, the eddie currents should be able to get it hotter faster.... If I haven't misunderstood....
If anything, any metal object placed within the induction coil, if it performs better, it will draw more current....
You can see in the video when the test tube is lifted out of the coil, the current drops! It's kinda awesome how it can feel that something metal is getting closer to its coil....
I'm wondering how many watts is going to be needed to bring two cups of water to 90°c and keep it there.....
I have a cordless Kettle from Amazon, it's only rated for 800W (a far cry from the 2200w models we normally have here in Australia), but I had a 3kw inverter and needed a kettle that didn't need so much power regardless of how long it takes to boil water, so I got this thing from Amazon, its a glass kettle with a metal plate, the base station has many options! Including the ability to run at different power levels... Has a temperature display! And when it gets to 90°c, it drops off the power level, once it gets 100°c it goes into hold at 100°c mode for 4 hours! Not a bad kettle, looks nice and works surprisingly good.... The glass doesn't like to hold onto its heat! Anything at 4 inches distance will feel warm...
Even though it does this pwm thing, it still pulls a few hundred watts for two cups of water!
I will be working on an induction kettle.... One that I can put more water in and leave it running at low power (with a temperature controller of course for safety) so that I have hot water ready for coffee at any point in time, we have available a separate hot water tap which can be installed in the kitchen sink and have coffee water ready 24/7 but they are resistive heated and could possibly use a lot of energy than I'm prepared to give for such a luxury..... Yet LoL 😂. Maybe induction can be better at it? I will find out....
@PeterMilanovski I see, I should find a solid metal ring or pipe that fits in a test tube.
That kettle base sounds nice. Most have no settings or control. I have no idea how much power to hit 90c but you are headed in the right direction!
If you’re powering that fan as well with the solar panel you might be losing another potential 2-3 watts maybe .
Thanks for the nice video !
@swrekcfest You're welcome :) that's true, I could unplug the fan to see what difference it makes
@@solarpoweredge love the experiments by the way . I’m also doing some myself with solar panels and other methods trying to recover energy at a small scale , so this is right up my alley 😁👌
@swrekcfest Glad you like this stuff, I'm grateful for positive feedback. Hopefully will catch more projects on camera in the coming months, I'll keep chipping away at it :) :D
or use a battery to buffer power. yep you can charge a battery very long at low input power.
@gsestream Good idea
Isn't it more efficient to simply short a coil directly from the solar panel?
By that i mean a submersion heater style coil
@cjdelphi Direct solar electric diode chains are more efficient than standard resistance heating elements or induction, but all 3 techniques bring different advantages to the table. Another way to look at it, we have induction cooktops and microwave ovens - both waste power, but are very capable and unique systems with different pros vs. cons
you need to warm water up in a kettle for tea or coffee
@colingreene7359 Will have to work on that!
A very interesting project. I have wondered about this myself, this video answers a lot of my questions. I look forward to seeing what else you're hacking on 👑. Sincerely however, if you have sunlight available and are without a battery bank, wouldn't a solar reflector be a more efficient way to accomplish this?
To calculate the amount of solar energy needed to boil water in an 8-inch length of a 2-inch diameter iron pipe, we first need to determine the volume of the cylindrical vessel:
Volume = π * r^2 * h
V = π * (1)² * 8
V = 25.13 cubic inches
Assuming that you have a water boiler with an energy efficiency of around 90% and you need approximately 1 kWh to boil 6 gallons of water, we can determine the amount of solar energy required:
Energy to heat 1 gallon of water by 1°F = 8.34 Btu/hour
1 kWh = 1000 watt-hours
1 gallon = 231 cubic inches (approx.)
Energy needed for 1 gallon of water to boil (assuming an initial temperature of 60°F, a final temperature of 212°F, and considering the energy efficiency):
Energy = (212-60) * 8.34 / (0.9 * 231) = 576.7 Btu/hour
Convert Btu to watts:
1 Btu = 0.293 watt-hours
Energy = 576.7 * 0.293 = 168.4 watts
So, approximately 168.4 watts of solar energy are needed to boil water in the given cylindrical vessel.
To determine the size (area) of a parabolic trough solar reflector made from mylar that would provide this amount of energy during winter at a latitude of 40°, we first need to consider the amount of sunlight available at that location and time of year. For instance, you can use the following data:
Average daily horizontal insolation (DHI) for a 40° latitude in winter: 2 kWh/m²/day
Insolation concentration factor for a parabolic trough solar reflector (assuming optimal design and orientation): ~5
Calculate the required area of the mylar solar reflector:
Required area = Energy / (DHI * Concentration Factor)
Required area = 168.4 watts / (2 kWh/m²/day * 5) = 168.4 watts / 10 kWh/m²/day = 0.01684 m² or approximately 0.17 square meters
So, a parabolic trough solar reflector made from mylar with an area of around 0.17 square meters would provide the required 168.4 watts of solar energy to boil water in the given cylindrical vessel during winter at a latitude of 40°. Assuming that nothing was missed here, this could be a very small system and could optionally be made collapsible with a tandem trough configuration or an articulating frame.
@resist_or_die I am not against solar thermal and will surely experiment in that direction. However a pair of wires with DC brings cooking indoors out of the bugs, weather and elements, a civilization-preserving advantage in grid down conditions :)
@@solarpoweredge that's what she said!