Friday, April 3, 2009

Solar Dryer Part 1

I thought gathering materials for our solar dryer was the easy part, now its proving to be the harder part of this project. :)

Maybe the reason is we don't want to spend more than 100 pesos (about $2) for this project. How? We will recycle and beg for materials. :)

Here's what we'll be needing:

1 whole sheet of plywood or at least 7 sheets measuring 18 by 36 inches each.*

8 pcs. 1"x1"x36" or 1"x2"x36" wooden planks

8 pcs. 1"x1"x18" or 1"x2"x18" wooden planks

1 30"x 36" flat metal sheet

Black paint

A thin sheet of glass measuring at least 18"x36" or a sheet of clear UV treated plastic, the kind they use for greenhouse roofing

hinges

nails

clean plastic net

We'll stop here for now.

So far the only materials we got are the first three. Maybe we'll get lucky tomorrow. :)


*If you want a bigger dryer, make sure to get bigger and longer materials.

2 comments:

DIT said...

an old refrigerator instead of a box made of plywood would be an alternative...design is the same as yours which I saw somewhere in another website...in fact I wonder if the wood gives a certain side effect on the drying herbs such as strange smell(??) also because when the temperature goes down in the late afternoon til dawn humidity will set in on the wood material, unless you transport back in a protected area your dryer...I am curious to know the lessons you gathered from this dryer...I would like to make mine too, also for drying fish which is much more smelly!!

Raymond and Mariel......................................... said...

Hello DIT,

for me, the best materials to use are the ones that you already have. you can even use an old box of washing machine or refrigerator or even an old ice box. what's important here is the principle. if you want better results, a box made of flat sheet metal, painted black will give you the maximum heat but its a bit costly to make.

i've already tried different setups, i,ve even added an insulation sheet inside my wooden setup and painted it black. but i'm concerned about the fumes and toxicity of the materials i used so i ended up buying an electric air-dryer. :)