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Thread: Solar cooker

  1. #1
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    Default Solar cooker

    I've been reading about solar cookers for quite a while now and finally got around to messing about with one.

    Its a basic reflective panel style cooker, with a black tin inside an oven roasting bag. I made it in about 20 minutes with stuff I had lying around- cardboard, tape, a car sunshield, some foil, and a coffee tin that I spray-painted matt black. it was really just a proof-of-concept type experiment I did while my GF was having a nap and I was bored, so it could be made a lot better to give it more efficiency.

    it was a partly cloudy/sunny day with wind moving patches of cloud periodically blocking the sun. I bought a cheap oven thermometer at the Crazy store for about R35 (checked its accuracy in my kitchen oven- seems pretty good)
    and the tin got up to over 100C pretty easily, but mostly stayed around 90C. thats plenty good enough to pasteurise drinking water (72C for 8 minutes is the guideline) and to cook rice, stews, soups, etc...

    basically the foil reflects sunlight from a large area onto the black can which gets hot. the clear bag allows light in, but traps heat, and prevents wind from stripping heat away from the can. simple eh?

    I haven't cooked anything in it yet, will report back when I do, but I think I'm going to make the reflectors a bit more focused to improve performance.

    its a great feeling to actually make one out of readily available cheap materials and see it working. the experience gained and lessons learned are invaluable - these can be lifesavers in emergency situations, as well as being all eco-friendly, zero carbon, blah blah. no gathering firewood or charcoal. once you understand the principles, you can build solar devices to distill/pasteurise water, cook/bake food, heat water, heat homes, and treat human waste (solar toilet)

    there's a ton of info on the web, google is your friend...

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Solar cooker

    Quote Originally Posted by prepare2win View Post
    I've been reading about solar cookers for quite a while now and finally got around to messing about with one.

    Its a basic reflective panel style cooker, with a black tin inside an oven roasting bag. I made it in about 20 minutes with stuff I had lying around- cardboard, tape, a car sunshield, some foil, and a coffee tin that I spray-painted matt black. it was really just a proof-of-concept type experiment I did while my GF was having a nap and I was bored, so it could be made a lot better to give it more efficiency.

    it was a partly cloudy/sunny day with wind moving patches of cloud periodically blocking the sun. I bought a cheap oven thermometer at the Crazy store for about R35 (checked its accuracy in my kitchen oven- seems pretty good)
    and the tin got up to over 100C pretty easily, but mostly stayed around 90C. thats plenty good enough to pasteurise drinking water (72C for 8 minutes is the guideline) and to cook rice, stews, soups, etc...

    basically the foil reflects sunlight from a large area onto the black can which gets hot. the clear bag allows light in, but traps heat, and prevents wind from stripping heat away from the can. simple eh?

    I haven't cooked anything in it yet, will report back when I do, but I think I'm going to make the reflectors a bit more focused to improve performance.

    its a great feeling to actually make one out of readily available cheap materials and see it working. the experience gained and lessons learned are invaluable - these can be lifesavers in emergency situations, as well as being all eco-friendly, zero carbon, blah blah. no gathering firewood or charcoal. once you understand the principles, you can build solar devices to distill/pasteurise water, cook/bake food, heat water, heat homes, and treat human waste (solar toilet)

    there's a ton of info on the web, google is your friend...
    there are also solar air heaters made from coke cans / beer cans etc - just youtube: soda pop can air heater. theres also a water heater using the same concept so you can pre-heat your water before it goes from the supply into your geyser / boiler - you can save bucketloads of money as your water wont need much heating

  3. #3
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    Default Re: Solar cooker

    I am also going to build myself a solar oven over the holidays, one of my new skills for 13skills.com. I'm going to go pretty big on the reflective panels in order to try and get it to bake a bread.

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Solar cooker

    thats fantastic 308FN! please post your results/pics

  5. #5
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    Default Re: Solar cooker

    Will do....going to be a nice little project to keep me busy.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Solar cooker

    hmm, I see the pic I originally uploaded is gone from the first post. I think for bread baking a box cooker will work much better. use a well insulated box, glass, and perhaps even mirrors for max efficiency



    as I said in the OP, it was just a rough first test. the can is elevated slightly on some wire to allow the sunlight to reflect off the foil and hit the bottom of the black can

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Solar cooker

    I have an "Ugly Drum Smoker" I made at home and I do a full sized roast in about 5 hrs at 115 -120 deg c, so if you can get the solar cooker temp up to that you are good to go to cook most things , time will be your friend here though.

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