V3Solar

2»

Comments

  • jg167
    jg167 Registered Users Posts: 4
    Re: V3Solar

    Completely unrelated to solar panels, or toaster ovens, but related to strange things with heating glass. There is a great video on what not to do with your microwave on the net (just Google it) and one of them is how to melt glass, yes melt it, in your microwave. It involves first taking a torch and getting a little spot on an empty beer bottle hot, then put it in the oven and nuc it, and that little spot goes white hot and melts despite nucing without the spot preheating doing nothing but warming up the bottle. Its amazing.
  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: V3Solar
    jg167 wrote: »
    Completely unrelated to solar panels, or toaster ovens, but related to strange things with heating glass. There is a great video on what not to do with your microwave on the net (just Google it) and one of them is how to melt glass, yes melt it, in your microwave. It involves first taking a torch and getting a little spot on an empty beer bottle hot, then put it in the oven and nuc it, and that little spot goes white hot and melts despite nucing without the spot preheating doing nothing but warming up the bottle. Its amazing.

    Easy enough to understand based on knowledge of how microwave heating works. Materials have a parameter called susceptance which is a measure of how well they absorb energy from microwaves. The susceptance of ice is much lower than that of water (the molecules are not as free to move and absorb energy in the crystal compared to the liquid). This causes problems in thawing foods without cooking parts of them, and requires that you give time for the heat to conduct into the other areas to melt the ice.
    The susceptance of sugar and fat is quite high, allowing you to get some parts of food hotter than the boiling point of water and to damage plastic ware if you microwave the wrong type of food in them.

    In this case the susceptance of glass increases with temperature (again more mobility of the molecules?). So the hotter a spot gets, the better it absorbs the microwaves compared to the rest of the bottle.
    BTW, don't leave the microwave on too long with only a uniformly cool bottle and nothing else in the microwave. The power output of the magnetron remains the same, and with little to absorb the power, the voltage goes up and things that usually do not absorb much heat (like the turntable, plastic parts, etc.) can be damaged. Or the magnetron itself can suffer.
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.
  • lasvegassolarguy
    lasvegassolarguy Registered Users Posts: 3
    Re: V3Solar

    thanks for posting this video of a green house is Washington. I am building a 5,454 green home in Las Vegas. I will be using the NEW Securus DC current system and running through a mini-duct system. Has any had experience with the NEW Securus 2-3 panel solar air conditioner???

    LasVegasSolarguy
  • inetdog
    inetdog Solar Expert Posts: 3,123 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: V3Solar
    thanks for posting this video of a green house is Washington. I am building a 5,454 green home in Las Vegas. I will be using the NEW Securus DC current system and running through a mini-duct system. Has any had experience with the NEW Securus 2-3 panel solar air conditioner???

    LasVegasSolarguy

    No experience, but the data sheet looks intriguing. Off-grid PV is generally a losing proposition when grid is available, but in this case with no need for batteries, CC or inverter there might actually be some value to it.
    There will be the usual regret about the "wasted" output from the panels whenever the AC is not running. How does an outlay of $500-700 for the panels plus any premium cost of the A/C itself compare to the cost of the power saved?
    It would be very nice if it has an economy mode in which it will run with reduced output at something within the capability of the panels and just stay on longer.

    I wonder, Rube Goldberger that I am, whether it would make any sense for a completely off-grid system in which the DC from the panels (30 volts, apparently) is used to provide the majority of the power needed and a battery-sourced inverter provides the reference voltage and any power deficit?

    It looks like they already offer more or less the same mini-split in a straight 48 volt DC model, for true off-grid.
    SMA SB 3000, old BP panels.