Solar cooker made from a satellite dish?

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. Raine

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Not entirely FTA, but has anyone made a solar cooker from a satellite dish before? My daughter is making one for a school science project and I was wondering if anyone has done it before and what the results were if they did. I gave her one of my small 18'' X 22'' Direct TV dishes to use for it and it's looking good, so far.

She took off the LNB arm and turned the mount around on the dish so the piece where the arm mounted to doesn't stick out beyond the edge of the dish anymore and the dish sits lower. Tonight she painted all the pieces flat black and tomorrow she's going to cover the dish part itself with reflective foil tape and then put it all back together. She has an old camera tripod to hold a small cooking pot and the dish mount has skew adjustments, so along with the adjustments on the pole itself and the elevation adjustments, it can move just about any direction needed. tomorrow I'm taking her to Lowes to get some wing nuts so a wrench isn't needed to adjust it.

We watched some videos online of some and I was shocked at how well some of them seemed to work! Her teacher had outlined the project as a cardboard box with foil on it and inside, but my daughter asked her if she could do one with a dish instead and the teacher said ok. Has anyone here ever tried this before?
 
Google it up. been done many times. Want to turn up the heat. Glue mirror fragments to the dish mosaic style and burn water ;)
 
I fried an egg with the 83e
epic_b_ 002.jpg epic_b_ 009.jpg epic_b_ 011.jpgpic_b_ 019.jpg
"Reflectorized" with mylar and spray adhesive.
Dish inverted on the mount with longer bolts to affect the angle higher.
Second pic show the 'coma' of the focus. Could have gotten the pan even hotter is it were placed closer to it. The burnt 2x4 only took a second. It actually 'screamed'.
 
Make the children aware of safety when working with energy concentrators. Hot focal spot can be harmful for curious eyes, maybe even for exposed skin, despite this rather small dish size. C-band dishes lined with reflective mylar can ignite wood in a matter of seconds.
 
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I fried an egg with the 83e
View attachment 105690 View attachment 105691 View attachment 105692View attachment 105693
"Reflectorized" with mylar and spray adhesive.
Dish inverted on the mount with longer bolts to affect the angle higher.
Second pic show the 'coma' of the focus. Could have gotten the pan even hotter is it were placed closer to it. The burnt 2x4 only took a second. It actually 'screamed'.

Hey, Fat Air, what's the dimensions of a 83E? We tried out the cooker today and it didn't work very well, but, it may have been that the ambient temp was only 28 F and we tried it late in the day, around 6 PM. The temp on the ravioli can that we used for a pot, half filled with water, was 46F starting out and within 30 seconds or so it raised it to 74 F, but no higher. Soon as I can find my camera, I going to post some pictures, camera's MIA here somewhere!
 
Make the children aware of safety when working with energy concentrators. Hot focal spot can be harmful for curious eyes, maybe even for exposed skin, despite this rather small dish size. C-band dishes lined with reflective mylar can ignite wood in a matter of seconds.

Yes, most definitely! I didn't realize how powerful they could be until I'd watched a few videos!
 
Hey, Fat Air, what's the dimensions of a 83E?
40x30 The egg was cooked around 1:00 PM IIRR. that's because that's when my 'pan holder' was closest to level. I also painted the bottom of the cast iron fry pan with flat black high temp paint. IIRR i measured the egg side of the fry pan being somewhere near 500° F. ( I have a pic somewhere) Ambient was around 72°F
I didn't realize how powerful they could be until I'd watched a few videos!
My last pic (posted) is a 2x4 that was placed upon the pan holder. Burst into flames immediately and the noise (scream) was very pronounced.
Don't get anything you don't want burnt anywhere near the focal point.
 
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Found my camera, but the batteries were gone out of it!%!#! I used my wife's camera for these pictures, so I hope they aren't real big posted up here or anything like that, I never use her camera. The tripod can extend about 4' more than what it is in the picture. My daughter's gonna try to find some material that's more reflective than the tape and see if it works better.


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How about using the shiny side of aluminum foil? Would probably be a bit tough to get laid down without any wrinkles, but I don't know just how important that would be, as the sun is a pretty big power house (at least here on earth, universe wise, not so).

Keep us updated.
 
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How about using the shiny side of aluminum foil? Would probably be a bit tough to get laid down without any wrinkles, but I don't know just how important that would be, as the sun is a pretty big power house (at least here on earth, universe wise, not so).

Keep us updated.

She actually wrapped aluminum foil on it last night and that looks like it might work, we just have no sun to try it right now, it's pouring out today. Looking like Sunday is when the rain is going to clear up and we can try it again. A co-worker is going to bring in some Mylar sheets for me tomorrow that he says is real shiny, so we have a couple of things to try!
 
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Tried out the new mylar today on my daughter's setup and one other small dish and it worked much better. Couldn't actually get water to really fully boil, but it would get real close to it, around 205 degrees. Measured temps up to 404 degrees on the outside of the can and cardboard placed into the focal point would burst into flames instantly. Ambient temp today was 16.8 F when we started messing with it in the morning, got up into the forties by noon, which was great, melted away most of the two inches or so of snow that we got last night! This cooker is good enough for my daughter's science project, definitely works as a proof of concept that you could cook with a solar cooker of this type. We'll probably post up some pictures of it working when we mess with it some more next weekend.

Next time we send parts out to be chromed from my shop, I think I'll send one of these little dishes along too. Probably be a hundred bucks or so to do it, but I'm real curious how one will work chromed.
 
Tried out the new mylar today on my daughter's setup and one other small dish and it worked much better. Couldn't actually get water to really fully boil, but it would get real close to it, around 205 degrees. Measured temps up to 404 degrees on the outside of the can and cardboard placed into the focal point would burst into flames instantly. Ambient temp today was 16.8 F when we started messing with it in the morning, got up into the forties by noon, which was great, melted away most of the two inches or so of snow that we got last night! This cooker is good enough for my daughter's science project, definitely works as a proof of concept that you could cook with a solar cooker of this type. We'll probably post up some pictures of it working when we mess with it some more next weekend.

Next time we send parts out to be chromed from my shop, I think I'll send one of these little dishes along too. Probably be a hundred bucks or so to do it, but I'm real curious how one will work chromed.
Well it will help shine it up good, this could be better and cheaper Amazon product ASIN B00CYW3WCK
 
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