ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ธ.ค. 2024
- READ IMPORTANT UPDATE BELOW:
I built a solar water heating system. In this video I show you how I built the water heating solar panels. My current system of twenty panels have the capability to collect 500,000 BTU per sunny day. typically I collect about 300,000 BTU, Still that is enough to easily heat our house for a day
The panels cost about $450 to $500 each to build. Still that is much cheeper than buying them off the open market.
UPDATE: The second set of solar panels has been plagued with leaks. The joints between the header and the 1/4 I/D tubing keeps springing leaks. I do not know why this set keeps leaking, and the first set (after three years of use), has not. For a DESIGN IMPROVEMENT I now wrap rings of 8 or 10 guage copper house wire around the joints before soldering. This holds a fillet of solder at each of the joints and dramatically decreases the leakage opportunity. I plan to make a video of this improvment when I get time.
![[FINALE] 💸ที่แท้พ่อเป็นผู้ถือหุ้นบริษัทพันล้าน เขากลับใจตอนนี้ก็สายไปแล้ว🙇🏻♂️#ละครคุณธรรม #short](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/yFwgjTFISUI/mqdefault.jpg)
I was a little concerned about the mixed reviews, but I used it last year and hooked it up again this year and it was great th-cam.com/users/postUgkx-izdrK3eF-HMvjzeBOxToD6Fx-4ulJUh . I couldn't get my 10' Intex pool above 76 degrees the year prior and last year I got it to 90 and had to put ice in it. This worked so well! I have just 1 mat hooked up to a 1,000 GPH Intex pump and it makes a significant reduction in the flow rate coming back into the pool, but that is to be expected with how far the water has to travel through the mat.
What jeffpicks said. Your joints at the header are leaking due to the minimal area that you've allowed for your 1/4" tubing to make contact due to your drilling technique. T-drilling, brazing and pressure testing would be more suited to your high temp application.
To keep the tubes from going too far into the header, how about using a narrow dowel or some other narrow, long strip of wood that is as long as the header -- put it in the header when you are inserting the tubes, and they will not go in too far.
Built mine out of four lengths of 8 foot ABS 3 inch diameter pipes. Held just over 11 gallons and gave plenty of hot water for rinsing. Mother had a sink in the yard and wanted some hot water. Not for drinking, just for rinsing things off. Worked nice in Southern California.
Hi Pete
@@HannahRoot55 Hi yourself.
There is a lot of negative comments here, that makes me think it must be worth building
Agreed but there must be a more cost effective way. Copper is very expensive
@@starninja7742 Use aluminum instead of copper. If you can find old radiators from cars, even hold houses, something metal that can be painted black and encased in an airtight enclosure, like you see in this video, it will heat water incredibly well.
Best to use the panel array to heat up a coolant solution, like used in cars. Then pass the hot coolant through a heat exchanger that has the potable water. The coolant will keep the tubing from corroding and will increase the usable temperature range before boiling or freezing.
Good thought t00. I would think the coolant would be able to store more thermal energy than plain water before steaming up and possible causing a vapor lock.
True... but please dont use soft solder
@@starninja7742 glue the beer cans together maybe? But, I don't drink anymore. lol
I think the glass would cut down some hear coming in ... but as in a greenhouse it also traps the heat inside and heats up both pipe and sheet inside the chamber.
Awesome! I made myself an experimantal solar boiler from empty soda cans and some copper tubes in a kinda similar setup, only my copper tubes run through the stagged soda cans that I painted black with heat resistant paint.I used these materials to save on money but it is way less efficient as your design. I have been thinking about this design many times wondering how well it would work and I am glad to see this design in operation and pleasantly surprised that it works so well big thumbs up!
Just watched your video. Very nice. A lot of labor involved. As Homeless said silver solder might be a better choice but you did well. I did this decades ago when I worked at a solar installation company in Virginia Beach. We used, if I remember correctly, one inch hard copper for the headers. When we brazed we put a 3/4 inch copper pipe inside the one inch to get the depth correct on the risers into the headers. 1/2 inch risers and we used extruded aluminum collectors.
Just looked on the internet and the heat transfer panels we used are still being sold as radiant floor heating panels. White fiber glass because pink out-gasses.
Nice job on the collectors. I'm very impressed with what you did.
I did this 25 years ago, Should have used Sil-Braze instead of Solder, it got so hot
that the lead solder melted when I did not have water going thru it.
Sil-Braze hmmm thanx for the tip
@@jennieg7094 I fell aslep listeninh to htis infocrap
If you are going to braze the joints... just use 12 AWG copper wire... it melts at a slightly higher temperature than brazing rod... and is way cheaper...
Yeah i didnt have the volume up but could see he was using soft solder. Big no no!!!
Yes. That's the correct procedure.
I worked in Mauritius for some months where this type of water heater is more-or-less standard for most homes. They do get a ton of sunshine but even in Winter when they can have several weeks of cloud, these things were still delivering hot water. I should add that they also employed well insulated hot-water tanks. The government there give pretty generous grants to older homes that have them installed. If you get the sunshine then they certainly do the job.
Well done. I am currently building a much smaller system in the UK, but my design choices are very similar to yours. I have used heavy aluminium sheeting for the collector panel and less tubes in the matrix (Since there is less sunshine here.) and also had to include computer control and drain valves to handle frost. I will let you know how I get on once its finished.
If you use a non-toxic propylene glycol/ distilled water mix (closed circuit) and a super insulated, indirect water heater with a heat exchanger coil inside and only one heating element as a back up, plus a circulator pump you don't need to worry at all about frost
Having been an HVACR tech, I would braze weld those joints. It may seem overkill, but it holds up to vibration and temp changes well. I know, brazing rods are not cheap.
We stopped using lead solder in water pipes long ago, early 1990s, we are already using brazing rods used in refrigeration systems.
I like how you managed to get humans to do most of the work. Impressive setup too.
Since you can create steam on the other end, you can probably connect a little steam turbine also to create a little bit of electricity at the same time. I like the video and the idea of having free hot water without electricity. Thanks!
Now that's darn close to factory made collectors...well done
Just lacks the vacuum inside the case to prevent heat loss on winter time but otherwise awesome build.
I did this years ago exactly like this procedure. I made mine a 4' x 4' panel enclosed in glass. I then mounted the panel to a home made sun tracking device. I rolled it out of the garage into the Florida sun and within minutes the test water was boiling violently. I damn near got a face full of steam.
Current copper prices make this project a luxury item!
In very high climates such as Arizona it is wise to put a pressure relief valve on your equipment. I have seen plenty of the valves opening up due to very high pressures.
Sayles
O my all you people commenting and most of you are really lost find out how a solar hot water heater work before you make comments that just don't make since or ask questions a drain down system would be the best to build so you will need a tank and a few other components do a little research before making a judgement on what some one builds p.s. it would take a 5-7 years for this system to pay for its self but a system like this can be used in way more ways that could shorten this time if you know what you are doing.
I hate drain down systems
@@MrKillanthonyyeah well no one asked you
Hi Sorin, there are many ways to do the same job and you could reduce the number of joints, but remember that this guy said he had some leaks at the joints; even one bad joint is a problem. Whatever you do there will always be issues of thermal expansion that the system has to cope with. A brazed joint will cope with the mechanical forces much much better than a soldered joint. A brazed joint is sometimes referred to as ‘hard soldering’ it requires a higher temperature.
Kind Regards ... Andy
The music makes me feel like I'm watching unsolved mysterys...
What happened to the water? Steam is not water. Next time, on Unsolved Mysteries...
Looks like a great job, why didn't you buy non anealed copper tube? It's straighter and cheaper and would of saved you straightening it out. Also you can buy a flaring tool to make the join from the larger copper to the smaller tube. It would of made the joint stronger.I also like brazing tube instead of soft solder. Do u use it for hot water only or for space heating? what was the total cost of this system? roughly?
wouldn't it need some kind of pressure release valve? you know so it wouldn't become a bomb
You only need it in one place of the loop. and before that there should be also pressure accumulator that can hold the whole amount of water inside the collectors in case it boils when no heat demand. Or another option is run the system at athmospheric pressure with some kind of overflow tank but then it needs maintenance.
Tinning both sides of all joints will guarantee a 100% seal using less heat and if the temperature of the system is melting out holes in the joint use a higher temperature solder or silver solder that I use on AC it has a higher melting point.
Soft solder typically has a melting point range of 90 to 450 °C (190 to 840 °F; 360 to 720 K) and is commonly used in electronics, plumbing, and sheet metal work. Alloys that melt between 180 and 190 °C (360 and 370 °F; 450 and 460 K) are the most commonly used.
The boiling point of a liquid varies according to the applied pressure; the normal boiling point is the temperature at which the vapour pressure is equal to the standard sea-level atmospheric pressure (760 mm [29.92 inches] of mercury). At sea level, water boils at 100° C (212° F).
The strongest of the solders contain moderate amounts of silver and as such is called silver solder.
95-5 tin/antimony solder is a low-temperature lead-free solder with a narrow melting range. It is primarily used for copper plumbing tubes but can be used for other general soldering applications. The rapid melting characteristics require close-fitting connections as it is difficult to “bridge” or fill wide clearances.
If your drill bit is dull and or you press too hard you can make oval holes causing wide clearances.
I always tin all my joints, this video link will show you how to do tinning to sheet copper to let you solder sheet copper to the tubing so you can make two tinned surfaces bond or solder together using less heat because solder to solder transfers heat faster than heating copper to melt the solder.
Even if you only tinned the copper sheet and melt the solder from the tinned sheet up to the tubing will bridge faster transferring the heat from the tinned sheet aiming torch from the side holding solder along with where the tubing meets the sheet should help to use less heat to seal all the sheet to tubing with no ripples.
Best to be tinning both pieces of any joint, hope some of these suggestions help.
Tinning: Soldering Coppers and Sheet Copper:
th-cam.com/video/vDVaO3_CaiA/w-d-xo.html
Instead of cutting those 60 foot spools of soft copper into small pieces and having all the solder joints, wouldn't it be better to leave the coils intact, and run the water through all 60 feet of it? If you have 2 coils of copper, put 2 coils side by side, spreading out the coil as much as you can to fill the space of the panel. Then you only have 4 solder joints at the end, where the ends of the input and output of the coil go into a T. This would avoid the leaks you are seeing, which are caused by expansion/contraction, and not enough surface area to solder.
the problem that you would have is that water running too fast inside the small diameter tubing wont make the heat exchange as effective as the slow motion effect
While it's true that the heat exchange per ft of run is not as much with the water running faster, you have 60 ft of it to do the transfer. In the end, with the same GPM of water flow, both designs should transfer exactly the same amount of heat to the water.
Jose Kawage Regulator to slow it down.
bigman55434 The heat of the sun in evenly distributed over the panels surface. With this current design, one side of the collector will get hotter than the other with a fairly uniform gradient. Using a single length makes sense, but you would want to lay it out on the surface such that it doesn't create hot and cold spots in the panel. Ideally I'd go with two lengths flowing next to each other, but in opposite directs to maximize the temperature differential.
Whit Weber You want the collector to be as cold as possible, and I will explain why. A single narrow pipe will allow less water to flow trough. By reducing the ammount of water by half, you in should double the temperature of the water. If you don't, then you receive less energy. If you run very long tubes, say, zig-zaging across a collector, you will have a lot higher temperature of the water than having 20 parallel tubes at the exit. This is bad, because the higher temperature of the water will make both the collector and the piping going back to your accumulator tank give away a lot more heat. This reduces the efficiency of your solar collector. Now, if you run the water directly to your shower for instance, then the higher temperature would be nice, but you will get at least the same if you just slow down the water in this design.
Very cool. I helped a teacher build some panels for his pool and to preheat water before going into the water heater back in the early seventies. We use copper tubing and sheet metal that a had a every four inches. We tested it also and had superheated water. I like seeing people doing things for themselves. When the EPA starts regulating carbon (and they will soon) output heating your home and driving will get very expensive very fast.
Nice job! I've seen panels built with 3/4 flex pvc in a flat coil. ($50 / 100 Ft.) Probably not as efficient but a hell of a lot cheaper and faster.
Jack Riley
I think those last for about 1 season based on all the stuff I have read.
Gotta like anyone who happily sits on the floor to work.
You can't beat a good floor!
Also, any video with a cat is a great video.
Liked and subscribed.
Wow there is some wonderful ingenuity in this process. Very interesting to watch. But with the price of copper wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy one from a manufacturer?
hello, once did some soldering in hot water line and the regulating system broke down and make it boil, and my soldering melted, after that = brazing! I'll try to do this brazed even if I have to use the oxy bottles, It will be faster anyway. another thing, why you put the tubes behind? they look great and they are heated directly plus the copper sheet in between. Could it be a good idea? Thanks anyway Nik you are a great cat! lots of mice to you!
What kind of solder did you use? Is it like silver solder? if yes, what %?
thanks
How effective would it be to build a steam turbine at the end of the water outlet you'd definitely be able to produce power.
nice job You could flare the header holes to get a better solder bond ... Start with .25" holes
YES, SPENDING MY MONEY ON A SCAM SO YOU MAKE AFFILIATE MONEY IS MUCH BETTER FOR YOU!
Dont use soft solder!!!
Saw a video where they guy uses a flare bit. It's a drill bit that makes a flare in the hole.
The best application I believe is to run antifreeze in these panels, and use a heat exchanger to get the heat to tap water. This way, panel will not freeze, and there is no contaminant going into panels so minimal maintenance is required.
Yes you are correct. Using propylene glycol/distilled water mix in a closed circulation system is the way to go.
the idea is already there
the video does not solve any common problems
for example
the cost of the materials
the resistance that will be made by the tap water over time that will turn tubes like to be like plastic tube
the difficulty of making one
the perfect size for home depends on average temperature or shiny days
---
the leakage is happened because steam inside the tube
steam can happen because the the fraction inside the tubes and the high temperature
more fraction means low pressure means low boiling point
+Hassan ali see this about steam
www.gewater.com/handbook/boiler_water_systems/ch_14_systemfailure.jsp
Great video. When I built mine I made the collector from a full size thin galvo sheet and when soldered it warped terribly and I could only solder every 4" or so due to the warp and a few years later the solder came unstuck from the hot/cold temp cycle. I saw a video where a guy cut strips of galvo sheet and soldered them onto each pipe. What a winning idea. I wish I had done that as it would have been SO much easier to do and there is little warping and you still have the same collector surface area. Keep up the great vids, they're not easy to do.
Why go to all the time and expense of buying copper tube and soldering it when you can get what you need for free by recycling the back of an old fridge?
Why buy glass front when you can massively improve cold weather efficiency by recycling double glazed units from old windows - or better yet doors?
Coppers is really good at heat transfer but you could save some money if you find some aluminum tubing. True you cant solder aluminum but if you can figure out a decent way you could save yourself a lot of money. Also that is the best solar hot water heater plan i have seen on youtube.
A guy builds a beautiful solar panel and some of you guys can only think of spelling?
Didn't their taxes (or their parents' taxes) pay for the 'free' education, a key part of which is to teach people how to spell? (Yes, it is a beautiful panel, and a well made video!)
Roger, bad spelling is really annoying. It makes the person appear as if they didn't finish grade school, let alone high school.
Einstein couldn't spell worth a damn. He must have been a dummy.
BroccoliBeefed. ... And so what? Some very intelligent men and women didnt attend either. So big deal!
Roger Beck It's TH-cam.
really shows how intelligent you are to be judging this man for the way he speaks instead of the knowledge and intellect he presents.
Cost $1biljon in copper
That's brilliant idea, to have a sheet on top of copper tubes to distribute heat evenly and very effectively.
I'm trying to build one to test its effectiveness after evacuating the whole casing as it will reduce the losses through convection.
I was only thinking to have tubes tightly installed directly exposed to the sun.
its funny how he say "one of his mini projects" wow!!!!
When drilling your header pipe use a flaring bit it will give you more surface area for the solder or brazing other than just the thickness of the pipe
Great instructions. Would love to see it looked up to the house heating system
Yes; if you're going to use copper sheet for the backer, you would have a much greater success by gently bending copper pipe back and forth in a serpentine pattern from top to bottom using a plywood form. Then solder the pipe to the backer.
No joints; no leaks.
And while you're at it, you could solder more serpentine copper pipe on the BACK side of the copper sheet. That doubles the amount of water flow and the pipe on the back side will still absorb excess heat from the copper sheet.
We need that to power my turbines! Love it!
The proper way to do this project would be with a t drill to pull tees in the copper headers and then braze with sil-fos to finish the joints. A t drill is an expensive tool that's worth its weight in gold.
Ostrom
Great video... I don't know how you found time to build all those panels when you are so busy as a full time sales director for the copper marketing board !!! LOL I'm not sure what the return on investment would be on such a high initial capital outlay and how easy it would be to solder the crossing sections so perfectly and reliably to avoid periodic leakage. ASIDE from the cost it was a very well made video though so I applaud your concept and construction skills... just seems a little expensive and there are a few issues with material toxicity and potential upkeep that would prevent it from being a fully fledged solution
HAHA lol
+TheComputec They plumb houses with copper...
+HTS AutoWorks Still plumb houses with copper in AUS, this country is such a nanny state that if there was any evidence of any issue it would be banned.
For example, tungsten filament light globes were banned here because if broken while switched on a tiny amount of poisonous vapor could be released..
*****
Haven't had any corrosion issue with copper, that being said we use steel water line from the main to our house and the rest is copper from there.
If the feed water is not quite pure or have low pH, copper will slowly dissolve and that can be toxic
I built one 30 years ago using the matrix from a supermarket freezer...it was so efficient that running off a garden hose pipe the outlet pipe at 1/2 flow was just steam!
that must of been expensive ...... better hope no one goes out and steals all that copper
I built a solar pool heater with 1,000 ft of 3/4in black plastic pipe from Home Depot and a 1/4 hp water pump cost for pipe $ 450 , cost for water pump $125.00 the pump just moves the water , temp increase 40f depending on the sun . Cheep cheep and it works just fine in Ontario Canada . Of course after the ice thaws out .
Really
much easier to use a tee fitting unstead if all that drilling.
That would increases the cost and add way more solder joints, affect alignment...plus you have to measure and cut the main tubing dozens of times and clean each edge. If you have a jig setup already, it's much faster to drill.
@@pmgodfrey It would increase the cost by a few 10s of dollars but would save time and would not leak.
I love the idea of this. I have built solar air heaters of similar methods. I have wanted to build something like this for quite some time now, however, living up in Canada, I don't think it is possible. The water would freeze every night when there is no sun, and to have a 'drain valve' so to speak, would be tedious work on a daily basis. I just wish I could think of some way to overcome the cold climate.
Excellent video though :)
Slow drain on valve, tiny cut/leak, would drain it each night to prevent freezing. Can also heatl intake line w electric heater in pipe.
"Hi, this is Nik the cat. I was going to show you how to build something but I'm a cat. I'm going to sleep first so don't wake my up for 17 hours...."
2 of 2
It’s a good idea to avoid ‘straight on’ joints as the thermal expansion is the most powerful that way, have a bit of unsoldered serpentine below the header so the expansion can be accommodated. I’ve made brazing equipment for commercial units, they use friction drilling to create more joint area, (see TH-cam for ‘friction drilling’) Well done on the project, it’s not until you do something like this that you find out all the things that can come back and bit you.
Kind Regards ... Andy
BRAZE this BRAZE BRAZE BRAZE. Solder is way way too weak for long term use without it being a true socket joint.
solder will be sufficient if properly anchored to a stiff backing and remains stationary which it will be
knockout punch
Those panels go through extreme temperature changes, causing a lot of expansion and contraction. those solder joints wont last long in those conditions. im sure they require yearly repairs. should have been brazed.
Tee-drill
The soft solder will work fine. Idiots that don’t know any better are saying to braze
I once built a solar shower using four truck radiators mounted in a
collector frame. Connected them with regular radiator hoses. I think the project cost around $50.
It must of cost a fortune.
Copper is not that expensive yet. Will be, in the future.
@@Fosgen Watch the newspaper for mining commodity prices if you are that concerned about cost; wait till copper drops but waiting will cost you solar savings.
I remember when copper prices soared in the early 1970's and houses were wired with aluminum instead. I worked at an electrical manufacturing plant between terms at Uni; we made AL transformers etc. My grandather was a builder and just shook his head at the folly of so much aluminum being used. Short term savings and long term costs for retrofitting.
AL melts at around 1218 F vs 1981 F for copper. Aluminum is also prone to atmospheric induced corrosion and pitting at normal living temperatures if not anodised or painted. Later I became a real estate agent and saw lots of AL wiring issues, especialy on outer wall circuits from house built in that era.
Last kick - AL has 59% the conductivity of CU - my similar concern for underground or concrete mass storage using pex or CU when you want the heat to be transferred out to the storage medium then back into the pipe and circulating fluid when the temp differential needs to reverse. Copper has been and will remain my preferred medium..
You have to use the same kind of solder for air conditioning silicon bronze it will withstand the heat especially if your panels run out of water for some reason much harder to do but it's a safety feature
wait wait wait wait, using LEAD based solder for WATER pipes? everything BUT that is cool
Lead solder is for electrical. Get plumbing solder.
Nice system. It might be a little to rich for my personal use, but I do like it. I hope your upgrade on the joints worked well. Thanks for the video.
So expensive and so meny working hours. Lithuanians use old radiator and wood box with glass :D
+Saulatis and i bet it works like a charm
Right, i'm copying that idea, thanx!
Saulatis, I agree, expensive and time consuming, i have a house in Eastern Mozambique, Electricity is none existent apart from the generator. I took a 30m section of 80mm black pipe and attached it to the water feed with reducers. Then i attached it to the hot water feed to the house, i promise you will not stand under the shower without adding the cold, holds good temp over night, Cost me less than 50 dollars and took about 2 hours to build.
Sounds interesting. Is the black pipe inside a enclosure or just laying on the ground by itself. What kind of pipe. Steel? Plastic?
What a great idea. Can I use any old radiator? Like one from a vehicle? Or a radiator from a building?
Energy self sufficient is money well spent! Every dollar we/you spend filling up the gas tank, heating or air conditioning the house is a dollar that stays in this country!
Way more complicated than it should have been.. Too much cutting and soldering. Making a loop configuration would have been much easier.
+desertsun100 that's right, besides the water doesn't benefits from the layout of the panels, the panels should have been connected not from the bottom but top to bottom on a serial array to take advantage of the heat convection
If You want the output to steam, not boiling water, Yes.
This way it can be drained. A very important thing if you live in a place where it may freeze
"Making a loop configuration would have been much easier." Yes, it would have been easier, but far less efficient.
Seymour Sunshine I agree! Parallell is better, not a serial loop
What about circulation and air pockets? Why not have one continuous loop instead of cutting the roll? That way you allow for contraction and expansion and eliminate trapped air. What is this water for? Is it for cooking, bathing or hydronic heating? What about a safety relief valve if you are getting steam? More details please.
Thumbs up for the creepy music!
For when the bank comes after you.
Cool! Building a water heating solar panel can be very useful for those who wants to save money and electricity.
Commercial Solar Panels are Expensive.
If you want to power your house cheaply
Simply Go to *Google* and *Search* for:
*Top DIY Solar Panels Research By John Sommer*
It has the plans and explanation there.
Thank You Alister. If you have more information please send me at nejoviro@gmail.com
Lovely piece of work ... As you heated the thin copper sheet to solder it to the tubing & it oxidised to black .., think I would have ignored the painting & just " washed " over the back of the sheet with the blow torch to ensure all was oxidised black ...
And it only uses a half ton of copper! It's not like copper is expensive or anything. Solar technology is a load of crap. There is no way everyone could afford to have this installed, therefore it is impractical. might work for this guy, but it will not provide 24/7. It depends on the weather damn it!!
It seems this would be better made of cheaper and thinner aluminum! This is an amazing quantity of copper!
Do you know how much electricity an aluminum foundry uses? It is truly staggering. And one thing is for sure, that electricity does not come from wind and solar! So before this would produce and viable ammount of energy, it must first make up for that energy used to produce the metal. Imagine you are 100 dollars in debt. In order to have 100 dollars, you must make 200 dollars. But if you only make 100 dollars, you have NO dollars. Solar has so many problems it's almost funny.
pex
Ilir Kumi Who cares about the foundry? Use scavenged aluminum (or copper I guess). Its already made, it was going to be made anyway, so you may as well keep it out of a land fill or the ocean. Theres never going to be a "no cost, net everything" solution to any energy needs.
The reason electricty is cheap is because coal is cheap. I did not say that aluminum is expensive, infact it is extremely abundant. The problem is that in order to get pure alumium metal from it's ore, you must refine it. This takes energy, energy that does not and can not come from renewable resources. Refining aluminum uses tons upon tons of fossil fuels, no way around that.
I would be interested to know if the copper foil (as shown) is thick enough to transfer much heat. How about flattening out galvanized (steel) roofing panels and clamping the copper to it?
Stewart
Solar is a great form of free energy. I advise anyone interested in going solar to consult with an engineer first to determine if the solar system will work for your building design and location. Consulting with an engineer first may help you save substantial time and money. I can't tell you how many times I inspect homes with solar that are cold and homeowners are upset.
Great video, I am building a solar water still for good clean drinking water and have started with a similar header system, it is about 18 inches wide and has 13 1/2 inch stub tubes of copper soldered into the top and bottom header. The stubs stick out about 2 inches. I can make any length of poly pipe and put it in a box with insulation. That is as far as I have
gone with it. Another seperate box will contain the hot water condenser to collect H20 like a batch solar still with a hot water+
How you connect this panels to the hot-water heating system of a house? Water must circle around. But you haven't soldered pipes in coil. Show how you construct the heat exchanger please.
Oil typically has a lower specific heat than water. Additionally, if you use oil, you have to be careful about springing leaks due to the environmental impact of letting oil go. If your application is seeing temperatures less than 212F/100C then water will do just fine.
I wonder if the thermodynamics could make it so the water self pumps like the wood stove hot water heaters
I wonder if it would be easier (and ultimately stronger as well) to use flexible copper tubing and just zig-zag it back and forth with u-bends. Seems like the more soldering you could avoid the better.
Ti faccio i miei complimenti per questo lavoro,I congratulate you for this job
Nice video.
A better way of making those “T” unions, is by using a tool called a “T-maker”, that will create the lips on the manifold to which the other tubes can be solder in a more secure way. Otherwise, without the proper support, the unions tend to break very easily, but it can be made a little stronger by soldering with a harder material like silver. The soldering to the copper sheet also helps reinforce it by immobilizing it.
Also, they now sell many types of solar water heater, that tend to be very superior to those old designs, by incorporating many solutions like being freezing resistant, better insulated, much cheaper, and some times even more efficient.
If you want to keep it simple, and do it your self, I suggest making one by creating a coil with a black silicone hose (will not break if it freezes), and put it into a greenhouse box. This should cost around $250/m2.
Cheapest way of having hot water!
Air conditioning with this set-up is no problem.
Simply run a seperate circuit of fluid thru the same piping at night.
Outside temp may be 60-70 deg F but using this same arrangement makes a damn good black body radiator and will wick the heat out of 60 deg water and get it down to 40-50 deg F.
So, a couple hundred gallons of super hot fluid and a seperate couple hundred gallon tank for cold.
Next is exploiting the Seabourg effect...
Holy cow this design would be extremely expensive with all that copper. It would be less expensive to buy a commercial solar collector, which would also have features like selective emissivity absorber coating, brazed or welded joints, and materials tested for durability and performance. I applaud the DIY mentality but if the DIY method is more expensive and less efficient than store bought, what is the benefit.
To be fair, solar heat collection panels like this are kind of a bad idea in any situation where they'd be worth building. In really cold climates, these things would freeze up and get covered in snow, meaning these are only good in mild climates.... where the amount of heat you need to say warm is low enough that you'll never repay the cost of building one of these.
Bill Juhasz, you make very good points, if looking for the most economical solution. I will add that some activities such as hobbies or schooling are not optimized for immediate economics, more for an experience of being involved or learning.
MrTechnophile Yeah, cause everybody is here because building stupid shit out of copper and wood is their hobby.
MrTechnophile So you think that some people want an expensive solution to making energy? As an experiment I test all sorts of not cost effective solutions but simply repeating a not cost effective design doesn't seem very useful. I suppose if the idea of the OP was to show people how a solar collector works, that could be useful, but the OP seems to be more about making your own solar collector that is very expensive and not particularly efficient (not how actual modern solar thermal collectors are made).
Bill Juhasz expensive and inefficient is NOT the point. It's the experience and skills. Ever take a vacation trip somewhere then go back home with a few souvenirs? "Gee, you could have just stayed home and ordered the souvenirs online, saved the time and money." Or does that miss the point?
Try making connections in series. In refrigeration we use pressurized gases . So doesn't make different in parallel tubing but in solar heating it makes lots of difference because we use principles of hot water lighter than cold water and always needs to be extracted from top only.
It was hard to tell, but I thought each 3/8 copper tube was soldered full length to the copper sheet, so the path of heat transmission to each tube is actually quite large. I think having the glass in front would cut out a lot of the heat being taken in by the panel, depending on the glass, of course. One upside I can see to having the copper face the sky is that the panel would be more hail resistant - which would be a big bonus in hail prone areas.
Hi Nick:
An interesting presentation but I have one comment about fastening and leaks. I'm a plumber and years ago we used what is called 50/50 ( 50% lead and 50% tin) for soldering hot and cold copper water pipes ; for hydronic (hot water ) heating systems we used 95/5 (95% tin and 5% antimony) because the higher water temperature in a closed system could reach 185 F to 220F without boiling because of the increase in pressure in the system. Using 50/50 solder in a hydronic system causes the solder to soften and the pressure pushes out the water because the temperature in a domestic hot water system functions at a much lower temperature. This has become academic because the new solder is lead free and melts at a much higher temperature than 50/50.
Really clear. Thank you.
With that music, I kept thinking the guy from Unsolved Mysteries would start narrating at any moment. Awesome vid, great mind.
The Spastic Mind Of A Stoned Guy hry you are using the symbol of Illuminati
Wow the amount of time and effort to build one let alone 7!
Nice, but I made my panels with "T" connections and rigid copper pipes instead. It's much faster and when purchased in bulk pretty cheap. There is also no chance of any leaks and the panels can be made much longer. I used black painted corrugated tin on pressure treated plywood instead of copper sheathing without having to attach the pipes to it. Everything was much faster to build and it cost less than $100 to build each panel.
One common simple variant of this is to use copper pipe and coil it up flat, forming a spiral. Then there's little or no soldering. Also, this design would be improved if the visible insulation were black. It would absorb more heat that way. Finally, the demonstration shows steam, but it doesn't show about flow over time. Water sitting in a black pipe not moving will get hot, but how long does it take? We kinda wanna know how many panels would be sufficient to take a 10 minute shower, assuming a sunny day in such-and-such-degree weather. It looks awesome, but I wanna know this extra information. Nik, it's been 10 years, but if you ever decide to revisit this project, we'd love to get an updated video!
this IS the kind of thinking we need NOW, and in the NEAR future
I know it gets hot, but hot enough to bust the seams in the pipes? It's possible, but how likely?
I've left regular hoses out in the sun for hours at a time during heatwaves and they never burst or leak from their joints. And we sometimes pour pots of boiling water down our PVC drains and they don't leak. I think it's at least plausible that ABS tubing could do the trick.
do we have to use a circulation electric pump for that panels???or water runing by means of gravity???
Other than a couple of details involving jigs and fixtures for the manufacturing process. This is well done. Frequently, particularly with modern lighting, electricity is not as valuable as heat. Addicting storage in the form of a large insulated tank, say a 5,000 gal (40,000 pound) septic tank surrounded with insulation or just dry gravel, would store enough heat to be useful all day and night.
In addition to providing hot water, this system, if the water is hot enough (check with a HVAC engineer), provide refrigeration. That is the major electric load in the South. Add a stand by generator and this system becomes independant of the utility electricity.
Hi Warner !
Would it be better to mount the panels so the sun hits the side with all the copper tubes and heat more surface instead of the side with the flat sheet of copper?
inside the header pipe it looks like a lot of drag and turbulence inside. is that a problem?
it also seems to me just intuitively, probably wrong, that the copper foil sinking heat to the heat elements is not efficient ... did you just try or experiment with turning that assembly around so the pipes themselves face the sun?
does look hot enough though, but i think it would be hotter the other way . maybe not, but also uglier too.
That is a really Herculean project! Fantastic ... you could almost run a steam turbine off that and get power. I have so many questions though. I understand if you cannot answer them, but I sure would like to do something like this.
1. How much did this cost?
2. What do you do with the water/heat after you generate it?
3. Can you generate explosive pressures or heat from this and how do you protect yourself and others from that?
4. This looks so big an efficient that it appears that it would work even on cloudy or rainy days ... does it?
I want to create a solar panel like this to heat the water is a very large reservoir in order to preheat hot water for residential use, and also to draw heat from for radiant heating. Do you think it would work for that ... and how would one size it?
Thanks for a very inspirational video.
Just a suggestion. If you stretch soft copper tube with a cheap come-a-long it will anneal and harden straight as an arrow.
how much is this in cost?...how much time,...can you buy this?....efficiency?...how about a refrigerant coil..or radiatior?
Ive thought about solar water heating but in a cold climate the water would freeze when cloudy or at night.Id like to know what that copper sheet cost now. I know the pipe is not cheap. I think a black hose coiled on the roof would be as good and cheaper. Drain it in the winter. Not sure its worth the effort. I could always be wrong though.
So, why make a lattice work? Why not have one continuous copper tube going through the panel?
+WarBerJr02 it makes sense to do what you are talking about in terms of heating it up, but one single pipe will cause too much of a pressure drop and your output would be limited. thats why he has headers for his exchangers. his design has flow capacity.