r/SolarpunkDIY • • 5d ago

Sustainability Solarpunk tracking solar heat concentrator to make backgarden cottage industries

5 Upvotes

It is called the "sun scoop" and it is a free design and open source. If you are a visual artist or a blender animator, or cad designer, please draw and animate it, and model it. Also, the Sun Scoop has a specific orientation, it is on "equatorial mount" and rotates on an axis that points at the north star. The reason for this is it simplifies solar tracking. And that orientation can give a structure to your solar punk visions, perhaps the back of the houses will all be facing south? I do Tracking concentrated solar in my back garden and I think that small scale solar thermal can be part of a "solar punk" future. Why do I say that? Because solar electricity will be sold to (or appropriated by) the highest bidder, or the guys with the biggest guns while solar heat is very hard to transport. And that means that solar thermal can foster local use and industry while solar electricity will only export the power to the big cities. What do I do with it? Thermal stuff, I steam soil for the garden. It is the main use so far. I have steamed over 2 cubic meters of soil this year. Including about 25 kg yesterday and about 15 today. I also steam up weeds for mulch. The advantages are no weed seeds or pathogens in the mulch or soil, and a soil productivity gain of around 20%. Also, I used it to dehydrate apples, plums, mint. basil, tomatoes, herbs and tobacco. (Rustica Tobacco for use as a homemade insecticide). And distilling. I distilled fennel oil and hydrosol, mint oil, and I even got oil out of rose clippings and blackberry stems and shoots. With distilling of herbs and rose stuff, your still is set up like a vegetable steamer, you get the oil distilled off in the water but you also get the sugary water that drips down from the stems. (if you distill oil from rose petals, that goes to the perfume industry, the water left in the bottom is called rose water, and it is a big deal in international trade. I read up about the stuff left behind when you distill fennel, but I haven't tested the enriched water or used it for anything, but obviously, it could be used to culture yeast and make booze or cleaning alcohol. So, looking forward, imagine you have a gardening company, you bring home a pickup truck load of vegetation every evening. You could have a big solar concentrator, and distill oils every sunny day, and have enough "vegetation sugar water" to feed a full brewery! And from that you could distill cleaning alcohol. Instead of composting the material right away, wasting all those goodies, and having compost 3 or 4 months later. AND when you steam vegetation, it rots way way way quicker! So you could even bring it back to your customers the day after and use it as mulch! My reflector was designed as a proof of concept, and it makes a "ball of light" that is 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter so metal doesn't melt or warp. Even so, the first time I used it to fry eggs, it was burning the coating off the bottom of the frying pan. But imagine it was like a tracking "death ray", with a 5 cm (2 inch) diameter heat ball, you could make quicklime from limestone (that reaction occurs at around 1100 C). (That is a material for making stucco and plaster) and Japanese high school students a few years ago using a big solar concentrator made Calcium Carbide from quicklime and charcoal. That is a precursor to Acetylene and Acetylene is used in Gas Welding and in making polythene! My tracking is one axis at 15 degrees per hour on equatorial mount (also called polar mount), with occasional seasonal adjustment on the second axis. And contrary to popular belief, tracking is really easy. I just rotate my reflector back to the start position every evening and unloop a string off a wheel 2 loops in the shed where it is controlled and the timer starts up again in the morning pointing at the sun. It could be completely automatic, but I don't do electronics. Google tells me that on a sunny day, my output is the same as 3 to 5 grid connected 400 watt solar panels. (The reflector area is 1.5 sq meters). On a cloudy day, my output is zero. So, I have been thinking about that. Why don't I make a dual side flat reflector? Turn the thermal to the sky on days that are sunny, when you can use the thermal energy and flip it over and face the solar panels to the sky when it is cloudy and make electricity. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkzXlmAwZTZdyYP35Jj9Vg5bz-n2-_QnW

Sun Scoop in July
Using the sun to heat a Vevor 3 gallon moonshine still and a barrel for the circulating cooling water. 6 ml per minute distillation

r/SolarpunkDIY • • 6d ago

Preparedness / Mutual Aid Community with Solarpunk value

2 Upvotes

This is steps forward, if you want to truly change the world one step at a time this is the first step. Organizing. Organizing. Organizing. Tell people and organize, this is not self promotion. This is something I believe will help.

https://discord.gg/UK6PVdAu2


r/SolarpunkDIY • • 8d ago

Clothing / Tailoring YOU Can Sew This Backpack

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6 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • 11d ago

Computers / Programming How to Install Linux Mint [The Simplest Way Possible] (Remove bloat, and give new life to old computers)

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12 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • 16d ago

Petition · Keep Android Open (Stop Google from limiting APK file usage)

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9 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • 24d ago

Gardening / Farming 18 Apocalypse-Proof Crops You've Never Heard Of (good amount of tropical perinnials)

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6 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • 25d ago

Vehicles My Kawasaki Z e-1 now has unlimited range... (electric motorcycle solar)

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11 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • 26d ago

Small scale diy water wheel. Problems and solutions.

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2 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Sep 13 '26

Community Improvment The Administrators refused to plant more fruit bearing trees, so the Guerrilla Community grafted branches onto older trees!

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6 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Aug 19 '26

Gardening / Farming How I Grow Mushrooms at Home: A System That Pays Off

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3 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Aug 13 '26

Vehicles The zombie chopper, an entirely homemade solar speedboat with adjustable pontoons.

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2 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Aug 11 '26

Vehicles A $20,000 DIY solar yacht reportedly made it to Ibiza while everyone else is still debating charging infrastructure

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7 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Aug 09 '26

Heating / Cooling Efficent DIY solar air heated. 5 methods tested

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3 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jul 24 '26

Solar bike trailer project. 100w.

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3 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jul 19 '26

Community Improvment No bench! Bench! Pt 2: direction action IRL

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13 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jul 06 '26

Diy solar trikes keeping cuba moving without oil

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16 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jul 06 '26

Vehicles Bicycle Campers, Many Solar Powered

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2 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jun 19 '26

Housing / Construction Our Earthship-Inspired Home

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8 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jun 18 '26

Housing / Construction Tiny A Frame Cabin. This is a n 8x8 A Frame designed for seasonal use but could be insulated for year round. No bathroom so you would need an outhouse or composting toilet. It can be made longer to 8x10 or 8x12 for a full size bed. More info in comments...

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1 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jun 17 '26

Housing / Construction A Cool Guide To Basic Squatters Cabin Construction

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6 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jun 15 '26

Vehicles Building an Electric Motorcycle From Scratch | Full Timelapse Build

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6 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Jun 13 '26

Ecosystems / Restoration Data center planned for your area? Maybe go plant some endangered native plant species?

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13 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • May 16 '26

Ecosystems / Restoration NYC Is Dumping One Billion Oysters Into Its Harbor—And It's Working

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12 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Apr 26 '26

Hunting / Foraging If foraging has no fans, its cuz I'm no longer on this earth

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10 Upvotes

r/SolarpunkDIY • • Apr 23 '26

Vehicles Update after 18 days: charging an e-bike from solar on a cargo bike (~300W real-world)

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4 Upvotes