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Back when I was in elementary school, my textbook had a picture of a solar grill that would be so eco friendly that everyone would be cooking on them someday. It was basically a 2-3 ft paraboloid piece of aluminum to focus solar rays on a little tray where you would put your meat (or tofu?) to be cooked. Does anyone know where I could find something like that nowadays? because contrary to the predicitons, they seem not to be availible. Not a solar oven (I found a few of those), but a 2-3 foot paraboloid piece of burnished aluminum...
There's a parabolic mirror on ebay right now that might do nicely, but the guy wants $250 for it and I'm hoping for something a little cheaper.
I want to try some home experiments with the article linked by Dag about solar powered stirling engines.
Thanks for any and all help.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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well, some of them are STILL about solar ovens, but that is all I did, just used solar gril...I had to go through a few sites though...
I am sure you could find a company that makes that sort of thing as well, but that site said it was about $215 for teh whole thing...cheaper than the mirror alone on ebay, right? Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Oh, man, I didn't even think about fresnel lenses... conventional lenses would probably be prohibitively expensive, but this should do nicely.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Best solution I found....satilite dishes are parabolic by nature...find a cheap one and cover it with reflective materials. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well, they melted a penny with it... guess I'm going to have to re-think the idea of using copper pot bottoms as the bases for my Stirling engine Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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We used one to cook hot dogs in high school math after calculating the equation of the parabola. The same math teacher also had us calculate the volume of a watermelon using integration.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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My parents-in-law recently cooked dinner and dessert with their solar oven. Turned out pretty good, although they said the temperature only reached about 300°F.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
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