Hacked Solar Collector

Figure I'd post this here.... :) NOTE This was a project from 2016

My parent's had dumped their satellite-provider, and I had a free dish on my hands. At the time, I was getting into stirling-engines and wanted to try to couple one to a solar collector.

Initially I tried bonding a mylar-sheet, against the dish-surface, using the vacuum-pump, from my Vaccuum Forming Machine.

For a bonding-agent, I attempted using the following:

• Epoxy (Loctite QuickSet) Delaminated

• Spray-Adhesive (3M super 77) Delaminated

• Wood-Glue (TiteBond) Delaminated

You can see the mylar being pulled against the dish-suface; I was really hopeful about this. Sadly after letting it sit for up to 24hrs, I'd get gradual delamination.

I eventually got tired of dealing w/ mylar, so I grabbed some silver-foil-tape, and cut-out hexagons. These stuck pretty well. :)

You can see it does focus the sunlight; not as well as a solid-mylar surface-would have.

Sadly I never really got past burning some pieces of lumber.

Nowadays I wonder if roughening up the mylar face and dish-surface would have given me a better outcome. Food for thought.