25 Responses

1. This guy is like an evil scientist out of Austin Powers but he just doesn’t know it yet

2. that was a good video

3. @culturalmut :-) Thank you!

4. dude, you’re my hero

5. @Alexgone You made a great point there about gratitude, but then you spelled the word ‘grammar’ incorrectly. Why do I see this same spelling mistake occur whenever two Youtubers begin arguing about their “education levels”? Wouldn’t it make sense to proof-read your reply before posting a criticism? Btw, ‘generosity’ doesn’t have a ‘u’ in it either. I try my best to resist dumbing myself down by reading and replying to user comments… I’ll try again tomorrow. :(

6. ok them emergency blanket are mylar. to make a sun tracker get 2 big soda bottles 2 pullys on the back side right and left at top put a pully try a string to the middle 2 of them going over thr pully then down to bottle tie on full with water one has a pin hole at bottom as it empty the heavy will pull the dish to flower the sun will need a lady sueson that thing in your carboard that turns lol

7. wondering just how many uses, (average home uses) does this thing have. I mean; other than the sterling motor, can I use it for? I guess I cant directly point this thing at my solar can heater??? It’d be too hot, corect?

8. Very good video

9. Dan, did you ever get this large parabolic mirror finished? It certainly would be almost dangerous to use. With part A and part B mirror, you could weld metals!

10. @MrAfroSheen
    Since you made this post have you seen the sterling engines that they are driving small generators with. They seem to be doing pretty well. I can find the site if you are interested.
    AfroSheen Wow that takes me back, remember the commercials?
    “Wantu wazury use Afro sheen”

11. I WONDER IF THIS WOULD FRY A SATTELITE

12. Dan, love your stuff. Just a note on safety though. I have a friend that did a lot of solar experiments in the early 80’s and he has some significant loss in vision because of damage done by looking at various solar experiments he was working on. I have seen you use goggles before (and assume you use them pretty regularly) but I didn’t see any in this video and I worry because I want you to keep up the great work.

13. could a peltier cooler be used with one of these or would it burn up?

14. the airports gonna get pissed at you. lol

15. There’s a very cool iPhone app called Satellite Augmented Reality. It has a database of over 370 geo sats and lets you view where they are in the sky. It also calculates the azimuth and elevation angles for you based on your location. In addition, it lets you enter a virtual location in order to see what the satellite view would be in, say China, if you are in the US.

16. Actually, you place the steam generator ( boiler, coil, whatever )at the focal point of the dish connected by a flexible coupling ( stainless reinforces high pressure hose) then to you turbine or sterling engine. The “cost ” would be maintenance on the system, plus just a bit to power the tracking motors). If you live in a climate with enough clear sunny days, go for it, the payback may be long, but properly designed it will work.

17. Difficult. The parabolic dish needs to track the sun, and do to the nature of fresnel lenses I believe that this beam would be sent along the axis of the dish, right back toward the sun . therefore you would need a series of tracking mirrors to aim this beam to you stove ( As the dish is tracking the sun, the “aim” of this beam would be constantly moving)

18. What if, by using a fresnel lens, you channel the light just off the focal point into a straight beam. I was thinking of taking that beam down a solar chimney of a sort to use for indoor cooking. if the diameter of the parabolic mirror is 5m(16.4ft), can i then take that light channeled down, and split it into 4 parts and still have enough light to heat 4 stoves?(The stoves using either the solar cooker method or fresnel lenses reflected up onto a large pan). *the chimney = 5m height max.

19. I wish I could have that in my house greetings from Mexico City!

20. you wouldnt have to rig a way for the dishes to track the sun, the only moving part would be the steam engine and coil (generator).

21. death rays are the furtherest thing from my mind. what i’m thking is, with reflective points, fixed… mounted in say a hill side, all focused at a single point, then all one would have to do would be to put a closed water source at that point also, then hook that up to a steam turbine, or even an old steam locomotive engine (piston), hooked to a generator and have a steady, virtualy free source of electricity.

22. Why would you want to? Are you thinking of a d”death Ray” device. Other than creating a straight beam of light (energy) ( To create a truly straight beam that would hold together for any distance you would need an array of lenses, very precisely calculated and mounted, probably easier to build a laser), The dish has a focal point, hard to improve on a pt.

23. i guess its cool, but he’s acting like a scientist. i’m just a realist. and what grammar did i use incorrectly bro? i said 3 words.

24. i wonder if, one could place a fresnel lens at a certain vector along the arc of focal points, that would focus the light, even more so than the reflectors did by themselves?

25. yes; parabolic dishes, have always been my tendency. I was thinking arrange them in an arc that follows the sun, say in a hillside, mounted in concrete, such that at a certain place, for the better part of the day, you had that one or two k fahrenheit temp. no need to devise a tracking mechanism, once everything was in place, if the sun was shining, you have the energy there in that place.