Characterizing a Death Ray… er, Solar Oven
Many of you will probably at some point have looked at a satellite dish antenna and idly wondered whether it would collect useful amounts of heat if you silvered it and pointed it at the sun. Perhaps you imagine a handy source of solar-cooked hotdogs, or maybe you’re a bit of a pyromaniac.
[Charlie Soeder] didn’t just think about it, he did it. Finding a discarded offset-focus DirecTV dish, he glued a grid of 230 inch-square mirror tiles to it and set to investigating the concentrated solar energy at its focus.
Cotton waste, newspaper, and scraps of fabric char …read more
