Guess, Just Guess

The rains set in Tuesday afternoon and that meant no work for me Wednesday. Even though I needed the hours, it did give me a chance to get some little things done in the shop.

First off I got the return air box done for the little DC fan I found in the back of that guys truck I talked about last time. This will sit under the bench and a flex hose will go through the wall and into the bottom of the Solar Beer Can Heater to increase its efficiency and heat the shop quicker. Now to hook it all up.




Like I said, the rain came in and I had to drain the first flush on the rain water harvesting system. I almost forgot about it because it has been so long since it really rained back to back.

I took a quick video of the process, but decided not to put it on here because I sounded like a dork so I found this frame in the video and snapped a photo of the gunk coming out of the pipe. Technology is amazing.
The photo is right when the cap came off and you can see how nasty the water is. If I didn't have a first flush on my rain water system then all that stuff from the roof would end up in my tanks making it where I would have to take them down once a year and clean it all out. If it was a small system it wouldn't be that bad, but draining and wasting almost 4000 gallons of water and then crawling inside two twelve foot tanks with only an eighteen inch man way would be tough.
Anyway, now you can see how important a first flush is on your Rain Water Harvesting system.

Guess what me and the wife did Tuesday Night. Oh come on, guess......
Nope,
Nope,
I would have liked too, but nope,

We went to a prepper party. Yea no kidding!
Some folks here in town held a quarterly preppers meeting and me and the wife got invited. How exciting is that?
I told myself on the way there to just sit, listen, smile and don't say much. The reason why was because I didn't want to come off as a know-it-all because after all, I don't know it all.

They had two different speakers. The first speaker hit on food storage and bug out bags and the other speaker was on EMP attacks, gun control and how all that ties into Fema camps. Great knowledgeable speakers and it was a wonderful time. I even picked up a couple of useful tips along the way.
See there, you can teach an old dog new tricks.       

After a hour and a half I just could not stand it anymore and had to start asking questions. They were harping on the one year food storage pretty hard at the end and I had to ask, "What will you do after that?"
With blank looks from the crowd the wife and I went on the explain how you have to have a way to restock your shelves when your one year runs out. Of course that led into how to use alternative energy to cook with, which led to water storage from the rain and so on. Before I realized it, me and wife had the rooms attention and questions were getting fired at us right and left about growing your own food, water filtration and so on. 
So now we are scheduled to be the speakers at the next meeting. Look what we went off and done. I really was going to stay quiet.

Got to meet some really nice folks and I look forward to the next one.

Other than that, that's all I got for now.   

Solar Beer Can Heater Results

First I want to say thanks to http://www.prepperwebsite.com/ for linking up this project. They sent over 1300 people to MDR so far.


 I hooked up the heater using a 3" water heater flex tube. The flex was the only way to go because of the pivot motion of the heater.
You can also see the placement where I get the temp readings   

 The other end of the flex goes through the window of the shop. I made a block out for the window and sealed it off to keep the drafts out.
The out flow really needs to be higher, but I did not want to start cutting holes in my new shop until I did some testing first.




It was early in the morning and the ambient temp was around 40 when this picture was taken. The output air was already at 150 degrees.

The high readings for the day were,
Ambient = 55 degrees
Air Output = 180 degrees
 

 I could improve the output temperature a little by insulating the box. I really don't want it getting much hotter because I did not use high temp adhesive.
Right now I am loosing 20 degrees by the time it leaves the box and gets into the shop. The metal tubing is cooling the air back down a little. I will insulate the tubing to try and hold on to the heat a little longer during its travel into the shop.
Another step I plan to do is to attach an additional tube and bring the inflow from the shop instead of the outside. This way the air that is circulated will be from the inside and when the shop starts heating up it will be more efficient by circulating that same air.
Doing that I will have to build a filtered return air box inside and on the floor of the shop and put the outflow pipe at a higher level. The fan will also be placed inside the filtered return air box to increase the efficiency of the fan.
If I am going to go that far I might as well put the heater on a thermostat and go ahead and hook up a battery bank to it as well. That means I will need to increase the solar panel to a higher wattage to charge the batteries.
The one main problem to all this that the square foot of the heater will not heat the shop quickly or keep it at a constant temperature. The cubic foot of the shop is too massive for such a small heater. This design was made as an experiment to see if it would work. This heater would heat a well insulated room of about a 10'X8' with 8' ceilings. I originally designed this to heat the bathhouse.
This means to achieve the desired temperature in the shop at a reasonable rate, I will need to build one 2 1/3 larger than this one. That is a 230 can system. Or I could just build another one like this one and attach them together. I guess I need to call my buddy and have him start collecting cans for me.

Cost results,
Total out of pocket using junk on hand = $70.00
If I bought everything new = $200.00

I have seen some of these made using just 1/2 insulation sheets and sealed with duct tape and they work, but I wanted to build a heater that would last. The biggest cost if you have all the building material is the high temp paint and caulking.

That's all I got for now.

Solar Beer Can Heater Update

Just as I thought, I had way too much going on this weekend to complete the solar heater build 100%. I got close, but not all the way done.
Here is a little bit of what I did.

All the cans had to be drilled, cleaned and glues together. I had to make 10 rows of 10 and then painted.  At each end of the row of cans there is a board with holes in it to hold the cans in place and to let the air enter through the bottom and swirl it's way up through and out the top.
Just a note, you want to make sure to clean the cans because of the hot, sour beer smell.

 I designed the frame to have a air collector system powered by a solar fan to draw in the outside air and force it through the cans. The bottom collector chamber is pictured here.

 And another chamber for the hot air to collect and be forced out the exit and into the shop .

I could have left it at that and just leaned the heater up against the outside wall but you know that is not how I roll. I have to go above and beyond. 

I decided I did not want to man handle this heater all day to maximize it's potential by keeping it faced to the sun so I decided to build a swivel frame. With one finger I can turn the heater to face the sun all day long. 

One reason for this is because this heater is independent from any electric. I have seen some built where they use a powered fan to push the air. If I am building a solar heater then it needs to be powered by solar. The solar panel I have on this needs to face the sun to turn the fan on. You can see the cords running down the side of the frame in this picture.

And here you go. A 100% Solar Beer Can Heater. In this picture you can now see the two air collector chambers at the top and bottom and where the solar panel is mounted.

To finish this project I need to run a flex tube from the top of the heater frame to the shop window and that will be that.

If you look close you can see I installed a thermometer just below the air outlet to see how hot this get the air.  Once this is in use I will give feedback on how it works.

All I need now is some sun.   

Project Update

For those keeping up with my latest project, I wanted to give a quick update on the Beer Can Heater build.

Thanks to my friend who is a professional beer drinker, I have collected all 102 cans. It would have taken me months to have enough cans if I did it myself and it took him less than a week. You can see my small contribution to the collection in the back bottom corner. If you priced it all out, that is about $100.00 bucks in beer.

 For the glass I am using an old storm door that measures 63 1/2" tall and 27" wide. The frame is built to where the glass sits on the center of the 2x4s so I can use the hold down clips I took from the door.
If you are wondering what the wood frame is sitting on, that is my roll around work bench I built. It's kinda like a butcher block table so when the top gets all beat up I can sand it down and have a new table again. Genius hu?

Unfortunately work has kept me from doing much more to it this week, but this weekend looks promising. The next step is to drill holes in all the cans, fasten them together in columns of 10 and then paint them black. While that is drying I will finish the frame and air collecting points.
I probably will not get the heater all the way done this weekend because I have some other pressing issues I need to attend to, but I should be able to make a good showing. 

I wanted to say thank you to all the emails I receive on a daily basis. I enjoy reading and responding them.

I also wanted to welcome some new members to the Modern Day Redneck family.
Katidids, Rob68, Katlupe, Susan Ayers, Suerte and Tammy
Thank y'all for hitting the little button. If there is anything I can do for you please let me know. My email is on the right hand side of the blog and I love emails.