Subject: Mother Earth News: $300 heliostat-no steam engine plans

From: [email-masked] (dsg)
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 07:47:30 GMT

Went to the library and was suprised they had Mother Earth News in
stock back twenty years. Never know what you'll find till you look.

Plumbing the Solar Furnace was ok. One can build such a device
for a pittence. Get about 4-6 kW thermal apparently from 100 sqft
reflective. Not too shabby. Very vague reference to "building the
steam engine will be in future issues". Does anyone know if that ever
happened???

Build a Solar Tracker was excellento. $65 or less to build one
for this heliostat. I definately plan to utilyze somewhat this design.
Don't have to design one myself, pretty much...

One person said they built one, and ran a converted air compressor/
generator to get 4 kWe. Does ANYBODY have any information
on how to do this conversion or another type...?

Check out my site at  http://www.chatlink.com/~soltherm/

I'm doing inexpensive solar thermal electric systems, except using
solar troughs..

cheers,
dsg

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From: [email-masked] (Stephen Rosenthal)
Date: 25 Jul 1996 09:48:01 -0700

>dsg 

All plans are contained in issues 55,56 and 57. First article was in
issue 52.

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From: [email-masked] (Stephen Rosenthal)
Date: 25 Jul 1996 10:02:02 -0700

>on how to do this conversion or another type...?
Lindsay had a book regarding conversions of compressors and engines
to steam, don't know if the still do though.
I have a catalog from 
Steam Power Products
P.O. Box 5982
Tallahassee, FL 32301
They did produce three models of steam turbines 
1 3/4 hp      295.00
5  hp            495.00
10 hp           695.00
The postmark is 1986, so don't know if they're still around, but it's
worth a shot, also might try
http://www.fotec.co.uk/mehs/reeves/books.htm

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From: "Duane C. Johnson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 19:53:19 -0700

-- 
CUL8ER

Duane C. Johnson
WA0VBE
Red Rock Energy
1825 Florence St.
White Bear Lake, MN, USA 55110-3364
[email-masked]
[email-masked]
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/3027/

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From: "Duane C. Johnson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 20:34:35 -0700

Stephen Rosenthal wrote:
> >for this heliostat.

The articles in Mother Earth News are not describing "Heliostats".
They are describing concentrating solar collectors. The 100 square
foot of mirrors reflect light to a receiver that is directly
inline with the mirrors and the sun. Heliostat collector systems
can reflect light to receivers that are not inline with the sun.

The main advantage of the heliostat collectors is the receiver can be
placed in almost any location even locations quite remote from the
location of the mirrors.

With this ability to reflect light to remote locations there is a
price to pay. The tracker for heliostats is considerably more
complicated than the simple tracker used for normal concentrating
collectors even if you track in two axis.
 
> >I definately plan to utilyze somewhat this design.

I think this design is one of the best I have ever seen. It is easy
to build. It uses mirrors that are inexpensive (less than $1.00).
The design is highly scaleable. 

The mirrors are easily adjustable individually using the special tool
that is described. The adjustment tool and the mirror stalk is elegant
in its simplisity.

This design was the one that got me started in high performance
solar collector systems.

-- 
CUL8ER

Duane C. Johnson
WA0VBE
Red Rock Energy
1825 Florence St.

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From: Ron Thompson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 09:45:32 -0400

Stephen Rosenthal wrote:
> worth a shot, also might try<snip>
They are not listed in the current Tallahassee phone book....I never 
even knew they were here !

-- 
Ron Thompson
http://mailer.fsu.edu/~rthompso/ron-page.html
Psychology Dept.                | Voice 904-644-4718  fax 904-644-7739
Florida State University        | Amateur Radio N4FHO
Tallahassee,  FL 32306-1051     | member Florida Flywheelers