Supercharged SOLAR DEHYDRATOR that doubles as a COLD FRAME
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- čas přidán 21. 09. 2020
- When I was thinking about building a solar dehydrator, my unused cold frame caught my eye and I thought, hmm, that would make a great solar dehydrator during the off season. I use a cold frame in the spring to get my starts going early because it's like a mini greenhouse. It gives full natural light early in the season when I start to run out of space under the grow lights.
But once I'm done with starts, the cold frame just takes up space in my backyard until the next season. I thought, why not have it double as a solar dehydrator. With a few modifications, it could become a dehydrator and not only conserve space, but save me the trouble of having to go to the trouble of building a separate dehydrator.
I've been frustrated with the inefficiency of an electric dehydrator since it uses over 600W and seems like just a waste of solar electric power when the sun is right there in the summer. So in this video I design and build a new kind of solar dehydrator that can double as a cold frame.
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#SolarDehydrator #ColdFrame #DehydratedFoods
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Great video, Dan. Multi-purpose and clever.
Most computer places would probably give old scrap case fans to you for free. As long as you know how to splice wires to your preferred way to power it, you should be able to save some money. The fans you are looking for come out of the desktop type computers (not laptops) and either a "case fan" or a "power supply fan" will work. I have gotten many good working fans out of dead power supplies. At my computer store, we used to splice these to USB cords to create some great fans that we could point towards our faces on really hot days. The kids I mentored were pretty creative in finding/making something to mount the fan into.
Yes, that radiator fan was only $15, so it wasn't a big expense. I have a computer fan, but I thought I'd need more than that at first. It might be best just to have the fan I've installed at a really slow speed with a 50W or 25W panel.
Agree, a fan from a junk computer will move plenty of air for this application. They are 12 volt and use very little power. I use them on my rabbit cages in the summer to get a little air flow.
I wire them correctly to a solar panel so the hotter it gets the faster the fan runs.
They can also be powered 24/7 By a small wall wart on 110ac.
They can be run in series if more air flow is desired.
Thanks for the video.
Low tech, efficient and skilfully installed!
Awesome idea to convert the cold frame! Two birds one stone!
So smart! double function !
Love to see cool sustainable things and ideas like this I didn't know we're possible. 💗
I'm glad you liked it!
Love your vids!
first time watching you, my brother told me about you., i am going to get started on that frame today. thank you
Welcome to the channel. Glad you found it. Good luck with the coldframe.
That was really good and informative. I want to try one in Australia where i live.
I'm so glad I found you on youTube. You have shown me some more horse-sense =reality than I have seen for a long time. I am a subscriber now. Keep um coming.
Hey, welcome to the channel and thanks for the compliment. I'm glad you've found my videos useful.
The Larisa Walk - Bob Dahse sooar dehydrator us the optimum design. It also uses black painted screens above the food and below a polycarbonate sheet (for light weight). The black metal converts sunlight into infrared which radiates onto the food below. This preserves maximum nutrients and works more efficiently than direct sunlight.
The whole dryer is modular, as large or small as needed, in 2 ft x 2 ft screens. 8 x 4 is a useful size.
The dryer is set on an angle of about 13° to the sun, to capture max sunlight without having all the food rolling downhill.
It is all built on legs, for waist-high ease of access. The screens can be directly laid on the corrugated roof of e.g. a woodshed.
Below the screens is a base of recycled corrugated iron, with air being thermosyphoned from the lower south side to exit at the higher north side. No holes need to be drilled or covered up, and no fan or solar panel is necessary.
Their plans and PDF of a construction workshop can be found online.
Like you I dislike using so much plastic when freezing. I discovered if I male a bigger vacuum bag than I really need then I can wash it out and reuse it for something smaller.
I came up with exactly the same idea, so now I save a lot of my vacuum bags and reuse them. Some get holes though.
Or makethe solar pannel faace north, east or west to reduce it’s output
Try using a 7Mesh count Plastic Canvas sheets for your trays. You can get them from a craft dept, inexpensive and has larger holes for better circulation.
thanks for the suggestion
I’m personally considering a solar dehydrator for this summer. I personally like the cabinet above and offset from a solar collector. Have you considered putting a metal sheet on the bottom of the converted cold frame dehydrator? I’m thinking a long collector that will vent heat through a not so air tight cabinet.
putting the metal sheet on the bottom of it could work better. It would also help smother any weeds growing up from the soil.
Great work mate, do you think frosted glass (old bathroom window) would work to keep direct sunlight off food?
That would probably help because it would disburse light.
Just what I was looking for; so many dehydrator designs are overly complex.Great how the dehydrator doubles as a hot house. What screening did you finally select for the holes- typical window screen?
Yes, just some regular fiberglass screen, but probably aluminum would be superior.
What temps is it there for wen you do dehydration ? I saw you got 131 in the box. I will be doing the same thing as I plane on starting a garden and would love to dehydrate some stuff and not have to freeze everything. TY for shearing.
Hey, I've been subscribed since the start, and have loved every video!! I was wondering if you could talk a bit about the building permit process at dancing Rabbit... I was looking into what it would take to build a natural building in my area (upstate ny), but it seems impossible from a permit standpoint! They won't even allow composting toilets or passive solar houses.
Keep up the awesome work!
-Henry
We don't have local building codes here in our county, but there are some requirements for insulation and efficiency at DR specifically. Most states and their counties are not like this. This is part of the reason DR was located here. I can't believe you can't have composting toilets. They'd rather have you contaminate the water supply than compost your waste. It's crazy because most municipalities just flush raw sewage into local waterways during heavy rains. So they have all these zoning requirements supposedly for health reasons, but then they do that. And I can't imagine why they'd be against passive solar houses. Probably all for aesthetics. I'm surprised they'd even let people build their own homes.
I brought this up to a city official in St Pete, FL at a talk when she tried to say there were reasons for this kind of zoning code, but she couldn't argue against my point. A few years ago they flushed millions of gallons of raw sewage into Tampa Bay when it rained a lot, and it killed tons of fish and wildlife. Anyways, it always upsets me that so much zoning code is pointless and mostly for "aesthetics" and not real valid reasons.
No passive solar houses ?
That is nuts. Bureaucrats.......smh
@@s.leemccauley7302 I'm all for good government, but a lot of local codes have no rhyme or reason. They are purely for aesthetics, or they just reject anything that doesn't fit exactly into them. It's mostly a matter of a lot of the building methods not being included or understood. I don't see what could be a safety or health concern with building a passive solar house, and composting toilets are not a health risk anymore than any other toilet. The passive solar thing is probably aesthetics. It is stupid. They want cookie cutter houses.
I would have to build mine up off the ground to have any chance of keeping the ants out of it.
thanks for the info and inspiration. i would like to live at Rabbit but the climate in the midwest is not compatible with a health condition that i have. does anyone in Rabbit think about other locations to start a satelite village. in particular i have snooped out a place in Peru called Arequippa. the temp. is roughly 75 degrees year round and humidity is approx 10. the interesting thing is there are 3 volcanos(extinct) surrounding the area and streams form from snow cap run off throughout the area even though it is basically desert terrain. i wonder if you have any idea what are the pitfalls for starting an eco village in a foreign county?. i think it may be likely that locals would not be happy about it but i dont know. i have written to a blog called the Fandrich Expedition but even though they are a very helpful and active site they have never responded to my questions regarding eco villages. its is odd because one of them is into alternative energy. i wonder if you had time to write and ask what they know on the subject if you could get some info? not having to fight the climate extremes seems like a very attractive reason to find out more. sorry for the long message!
czcams.com/channels/Z20n5XeWS6v-DA32ShK3CQ.html
that does sound like a nice area for an ecovillage. I would guess there could be some issues with starting an ecovillage in a foreign country. I know that in some areas they don't like foreigners buying up land, but people do it all the time. I have heard about several ecovillages in Latin America. I can look into that blog. I doubt they would be more likely to respond to me though.
People with bad allergies have struggled here. Lots of pollen and humidity in the season. Fortunately I don't currently suffer from allergies. I've thought of a Dancing Rabbit south as a place people here could migrate to during the winter to burn less fuel in heating and to get away from the cold. I was looking at Florida though. But that's humid.
Did you sort out the solar panel and the fan??
Yes, I did. I think it actually works fine without the fan and just having some ventilation for the dehydrator.
Have you come across the technique for vacuum sealing in recycled jars? It's completely plastic free! It's been a game changer for me. I don't want to spam your channel by posting links, but I have a few videos on it. One is called "How to vacuum seal virtually anything without using any single use plastics.".
Thanks for the info! I'll definitely check it out. I didn't know there was such a thing.
@@HardcoreSustainable I was shocked when I came across it a couple of years ago, it was one of those "where has this been all my life?" moments. I vacuum seal everything from seeds to rubber bands, now. No plastics, no waste, it uses jars that would otherwise get trashed or recycled.
Great idea however with the dehydrator however using the plastic n paint in high heat to while drying your food might be toxic for your food so I’ll omit that part
It's not super hot. It can't be or it would affect the nutrients of the food. I usually leave it cracked these days to allow ventilation and reduce the temps inside. The plastic is food safe and much better than sitting on the hardware cloth, which is not food safe.
your hardware cloth is likely coated in zinc. try making trays using window screen. not the metal kind.
That's why I put the plastic mesh on top of it.
Galvanized hardware cloth?
yes.
Are you worried about vitamin loss from the fruits being directly in the sun?
Yes that could be an issue. This is why I put the black covers on over the fruit. If you watch the video all the way through, you see I talk about the loss of nutrients from direct exposure to sunlight. The black metal pieces will collect the sun's heat and reflect it into the space. The fruit takes longer to dry that way though. I'm pretty sure that people have been making raisins and other sundried fruit for millennia in direct sun.
I would only protect from uv green or other delicate things like maybe chamolille or other medicinals. Chunky fruits, tomatoes, etc benefit from solarizing, heating up and uv zapping bad bacteria, to prevent molding also. Just my experience at home for personal use and tradition
Saving on electricity bill.
It makes a huge difference
You mentioned power from your micro-grid cost $.67 per kwh. Can you explain this high cost compared to a national average of about $.15 kwh?
We don't have the economies of scale that are possible with installing a large fossil fuel generating system. Except for wind, renewable energy is more expensive than coal and gas. We are implementing solar on a small scale with our microgrid. And part of the reason the price was raised recently from 37 cents/kWhr to 67 was to deter people wasting power. I do think it's too high and was arbitrarily chosen as a price. The rates were also raised to pay for installation of a new array and to cover insurance costs. Still I think it's artificially high and should be lowered.
@@HardcoreSustainable A good topic for a future video: Describing how DR micro-grid works. Its physical configuration and its economics. Thanks in advance.
@@jaytigra2234 Yes that is a good topic to do. I haven't covered it specifically yet. It's also something we are working on improving right now. Thanks for the idea.
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It can be a problem since it's on the ground. But I found they didn't like how hot it was in there during the day, and after a bit they didn't mess with the pears at night. Actually I don't remember them being a problem. And if you don't have sweet things they really aren't interested.