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Concentrating solar collectors use shaped mirrors or lens to provide higher temperatures that flat plate collectors.
Heliostats are tracking mirrors that reflect solar energy onto a fixed target.
This page "concentrates" on providing links, information and plans for Build It Yourself solar concentrators.
See also the Solar Cooking section for more concentrating designs ...
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| Concentrating Collectors | |
| RedRok
Duane Johnson
|
 Duane's
RedRok site is information central for DIY Heliostats and
concentrating solar collectors. There are good designs here that can
be built on a budget and without exceptional mechanical skills.
The site can be a bit of a challenge to find stuff on, but its worth the
effort. |
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The Aquaflector
|
 This
is a new and very interesting design for a simple and potentially large area
concentrating collector. Potential applications include generating
steam, or concentrating PV cells.
Looks like a very simple, buildable, well thought out design. |
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A parabolic trough solar collector you can build www.ffwdm.com/solar/solar-index.htm More information on the tracker:
|
 A
very nice set of ganged, parabolic, tracked, concentrating collectors used
to heat water. Can be made with common shop tools. (This is certainly well designed and skillfully built, but one question I always have when I see a tracked, concentrating collector used in an application that does not require very high temperature water is how the output compares to a low tech, flat collector? -- maybe George will let us know) (Thanks to Curtis for suggesting this) |
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Solar Fire Project
|
 Solar
Fire provides detailed plans and how-to instructions for building three
different sizes of concentrating solar collectors.The materials are easily obtainable and the design is simple and straight forward -- the concentrators can be made with readily available materials and simple tools. The Helios collector provides about 3 KW output and temperatures up to 950C. Several potential applications are discussed. |
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HELIOTRACK.COM
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 A
very good website on building heliostats and concentrating solar collectors.Good practical design and experimental data and even some kits to help with the tracking. |
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The Practical Solar Heliostat System http://www.practicalsolar.com/index.html
|
 An
interesting new commercial heliostat product. The 8 sqft of mirrors
are tracked to reflect sunlight on a fixed target using software running on
your PC.The mirrors can be adjusted to provide concentrated or diffuse light. One PC can guide many heliostats. Many applications, including reflecting light and heat into windows that do not ordinarily get sun. While the product is new, units have "endured several years outdoors with no damage, even during severe winter weather and winds in excess of 80MPH." |
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How to Build a Heliostat for Solar Heating and Lighting, Rob, www.IWillTry.org
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Rob's heliostat -- reflects solar light and heat into a window in your
house. |
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Inflatable Heliostat Download full report pdf (3.5 mb) Mithra and Gary
Mithra (the inventor's) website: |
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| Home
Made Solar Water Distiller
http://www.thesietch.org/projects/distiller/index.htm
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 This
is an interesting design for solar water distiller.I've included it in the concentrating solar collectors are because the mirror design is interesting and simple, and may have variety of concentrating solar applications. |
| Roasting Coffee on Sunshine |
 Issue 105 Home Power MagazineHow to build a 1200F solar coffee bean roaster. Certainly one of the highest and best uses for solar power! |
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A concentrating Collector made from 116 mirrors of 1 sqft each
http://www.ida.net/users/tetonsl/solar/page_iii.htm
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 "Teton Engineering's Tracking Solar Concentrator is an array of 116 mirrors, one square foot each mounted on a framework and arranged to reflect sunlight on a "collector", figure 1. The concentrated sunlight can raise the collector temperature to about 1200F" A very detailed set of plans are included -- !! be careful !! |
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Understanding Solar Concentrators VITA paper on concentrating solar collectors
|
 VITA
paper provides a good deal of information on how a wide variety of
concentrating solar collectors work. |
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SunSpot -- Fresnel Mirror Concentrator
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 A
concentrating Fresnel mirror.Used as a solar cooker here, but might be used for other concentrating applications. |
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Scheffler Concentrators -- Large, Concentrating Cooking
Collector with Storage Barli Development Institute http://www.barli.org/solar-storage.html Another Version in Nepal Good description of Scheffler Reflector Design: David Delaney article on the Scheffler heliostat cooker design |
 These Scheffler heliostats concentrate the sun onto a fixed cooking vessel, or
onto a heat storage device that provides for cooking after sunset.This type of concentrator can be built with common materials and ordinary skills. The daily tracking can be by a simple clockwork mechanism, and seasonal tracking can be manual. |
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The Ultimate Solar Cooker
How it works:
|
 Solar
cooking on a large scale. 84 parabolic concentrators of 9.2 sq meters
each. Capable of cooking 20 to 40 thousand meals a day!This type of concentrator can be built with common materials and ordinary skills. |
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Solar Sphere -- Concentrating Solar Power http://www.seao2.com/solarsphere/csp.htm
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 An
interesting collection of concentrating solar collectors. |
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Parabola Drawing Tool
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 An
easy to make tool for drawing parabolas as used in concentrating collectors. |
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Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector A concentrating scheme using flat or nearly flat mirrors Full size prototype test (pdf) Several papers from Ausra -- a commercial developer of the concept: |
 An
approach that maintains some of the advantages of trough collectors without
the need for hard to form parabolic mirrors. |
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Optics Experiments On The Cheap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX9Z-nsUHiA
|
 This
is a very clever and simple test setup for experimenting with curved mirror
shapes.It allows you to quickly and easily fully visualize how a given mirror shape will do in focusing incoming sun. It allows you to very quickly see the effect of mirror shape changes. While the video is aimed at refining solar cooker designs, the technique could be used for any kind of concentrating solar application. |
An
experimental, low-cost heliostat design that uses air pressure to focus and
support the mirror.