posted Dec 27th 2008 8:19am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: cons, peripherals hacks, solar hacks
solar
The 25th Chaos Communication Congress is underway in Berlin. One of the
first talks we dropped in on was [script]'s Solar-powering your Geek
Gear. While there are quite a few portable solar products on the market,
we haven't seen much in the way of real world experience until now.
Read the rest of this entry »
* Comments [9]
Build a solar dehydrator
posted Oct 3rd 2008 5:30pm by Kimberly Lau
filed under: home hacks, solar hacks
[Erik Knutzen] and [Kelly Coyne], authors of The Urban Homestead, are
really into all things green and sustainable. In their blog, Homegrown
Evolution, they discuss building their own solar dehydrator using plans
from the February/March 1997 issue of Home Power Magazine. The
dehydrator is designed by Appalachian State University's Appropriate
Technology Program. If interested, you can check out or buy other solar
dehydrator designs. This seems like a great, cheap alternative to buying
an expensive electric dehydrator, and you get some great advantages,
like low-cost dehydrating, solar energy, and beef jerky whenever you
want it. Plus, the authors point out, for most of these designs, if you
remove the top box and you stick it next to a window, you've got a solar
heater. It's now a dual-purpose device.
* Comments [12]
Solar powered ice maker
posted Aug 29th 2008 10:23am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: news, solar hacks
solar powered ice maker
Producing ice without electricity just got a lot easier thanks to these
engineering students from San Jose State University. Their system uses
solar heat to facilitate evaporation of a coolant. When the sun goes
down and the coolant turns back to liquid, its temperature drops
drastically due to extreme pressure differences. The unit can produce 14
pounds of ice per day with zero carbon footprint. It has no moving parts
and an entirely sealed system, this should mean that the only
maintenance necessary would be keeping the unit clean.
[via DVICE]
Read
* Comments [23]
Cheap hack may double solar panel power
posted Jul 10th 2008 6:30pm by Benjamin Eckel
filed under: news, solar hacks
MIT researchers have devised something they call the Solar Concentrator
which is to be placed on top of existing solar cells. Its purpose is to
separate the visible and infrared spectra of light by absorbing the
visible spectrum and routing the energy to specialized cells. They claim
this could lead to doubling the panel's efficiency and greatly reducing
costs.
We have seen many promising advances to solar panel efficiency in the
past few years, but what is special about this one is the amazingly
simple and cheap technique. Essentially, all the team has done is coat a
piece of glass with simple organic dyes. After the organic molecules
absorb the visible light, they remit the energy to the sides of the
glass where it can be routed to their specific cells. The process is
more efficient because the dye absorbs the light rather than something
expensive like silicon. That means less silicon, and thus a better price
range. Also, the fact that this material is just a piece of glass also
opens up the possibility of solar windows.
Read More... See Pics...
http://hackaday.com/category/solar-hacks/
Don
No comments:
Post a Comment