I've seen the way of the future

[Durhommer]

So a few nights ago I had a dream I was in the mountains near me living I went to a shed covered in solar panels and in it was a u guessed it a bank of batteries and a still. I soon woke with the idea firmly in my mind solar power!! I'm nowhere near money capable of accomplishing this at the moment but wouldn't it be a dandy thing to have a solar power still

[NZChris]

I have a small still and a dish that could be paired up to do a gin run, but I've never gotten around to it. The main drawback with that system is having to keep the dish aimed at the pot as the sun moves. A motorized heliostat would fix that.

[Durhommer]

I'm not sure on the math but I'm thinking 10 12 car batteries chained together with a couple panels to charge the batteries maybe someone more skilled and paid could give my idea a try maybe this system could run a couple2500 watt elements and a cooling pump

[DAD300]

With an off the shelf 1gallon Airstill, you only need ~1,500-3,000watts.

Very doable.

[NZChris]

Distilling doesn't need batteries unless you want to run outside sunshine hours. Install at least enough solar panels for your desired Watts and wire them directly to matching elements.

[nerdybrewer]

The way I see it the question should be what's the most efficient way to bring the fire to your still?
You can take sunlight, fire burning 90+ million miles from us, collect it with solar cells, convert it into electricity and then convert that juice to fire (heat) and fire your still.
Yes sunlight is "free".
Solar cells are not free and to make 5KW from the sun with them is going to cost you some serious coins.

Propane is a compressed gas that is flammable, light it and you directly get fire (heat) for your still.
You may be in a place where you can easily get other compressed gasses, some of them burn hotter and some not as hot as propane.

Wood is (from one perspective) compressed sunlight.
It takes a lot of sunlight to make a respectable tree, cut that up and make firewood and burn it and you release all that stored energy (fire) into your still.

What's best?
I don't know, I'm not a scientist nor am I an engineer.

I have a feeling one of the least efficient is solar cells, but that's just me.

Now the idea of reflected and aimed sunlight does intrigue me.
I know that is being used to fire boilers and thereby create electricity in some areas.
Just seems like it's a more direct sunlight to fire path, that's got to be more efficient.

[NZChris]

I've used my solar dish to reduce sugar cane juice to treacle, dehydrate lime salts, dehydrate sea water to salt, make coffee, cook lunch and burn a damp tree stump to below ground level. Doing a gin run should be easy, especially now that I have a 12v controller to look after the cooling water.

[nerdybrewer]

I've used my solar dish to reduce sugar cane juice to treacle, dehydrate lime salts, dehydrate sea water to salt, make coffee, cook lunch and burn a damp tree stump to below ground level. Doing a gin run should be easy, especially now that I have a 12v controller to look after the cooling water.

That's a kind of reflector isn't it?
More details would be great.

[NZChris]

Mine is a 3' satellite dish covered in mylar.

[nerdybrewer]

Mine is a 3' satellite dish covered in mylar.

Oh yeah, that would do the job for sure!

[Durhommer]

Nerdybrewer ur right about cost of a solar system I'm broke as it is some ideas are just that ideas I'm doing ok with what I have now but always am looking to save a buck to put towards something else nz Chris says wood fire and that is totally doable for me. The old timers were on to something nature providing fuel nd all I'm worried how imma do with a keg on gas on the back deck with neighbors. I'm wanting to work this new equipment in my garage but propane an all maybe I could just leave the doors cracked with a fan. It would cost me 2800 to go solar for a 15 gallon keg boiler so guess propane will be my deal now kids already use enough juice

[NZChris]

You only need a lot of Watts to get up to temperature. If you run a Charentaise style preheater, you only have to do that once for a set of stripping runs. My preheater is insulated and holds it's temperature quite well overnight. I reckon I could run my 9 gallon setup using three 370W solar panels and no batteries except for one for the condenser automation.

[decoy]

You would not use solar panels!
You need approximately 15 square meters of solar panels to produce 2.4Kw of power.
During summer the sun produces approximately 1Kw of energy/heat per square meter.
You would produce 3Kw of heat from a 3 square meter solar trough collector.

This was a test I did back some years ago.
I built a test solar trough collector using MDF and Mylar reflective film, like they use in grow shops, this was temporary for testing only.

I calculated this collector as being able to produce about 1.5kw.
I ~1/2 filled the tube with 1L of water, it boiled and started bellowing steam within 1min
You can see the heat oxidisation caused to the copper tube when it boild out all the water.

You can google "parabolic calculator" to generate dimensions for you parabola design.
For a permanent outdoor mirror I would use clad'd aluminium panel with mirror finish, these are designed for outdoor use and have good flexibility.

For the still design I would make orient the trough vertical on an equatorial mount.
you can make or order of ebay cheep solar sun trackers.

I would also place the copper tube inside a glass Solar Vacuum Tube, these are available in many sizes, hollow all the way through or one end capped.

31XrinnNaYL.jpg (10 KiB) Viewed 6283 times

Soalr vacuum tube used for solar hot water.

This is a collector with vertical equatorial mount.

[HDNB]

from a cost effective standpoint evacuated collection tubes for pre-heat and electric panels for the run may be a good combo.

evac tubes are pretty cheap...and electric panels are about $1 per watt if you factor in the panel, inverters and connections etc...but i think you would be spending many thousands and taking up a lot of real estate to make a moderately sized still run semi-efficiently.

but hey, when not cooking whiskey you could plug in other shit and heat your shower water.

summary: plug it in or light a fire.

[NZChris]

You would not use solar panels!
You need approximately 15 square meters of solar panels to produce 2.4Kw of power.

I sometimes let my still putt along with a miserly 700W powering it. That is only two modern solar panels worth of heating. 300W of that is lost to the atmosphere at distilling temperatures, so only 400W is being used for the distillation. I calculate that with only two panels optimized for the sun, it would take around four hours to get up to temperature to start the first strip. That is without adding more insulation, which could easily be done. A third panel would cut the warmup time to around two hours. Subsequent strips start quickly because they have been preheated. I have started a spirit run in the preheater while doing the last strip, saving the heatup time for that, plus taking off quite a few jars before the remaining low wines went into the main boiler.

[decoy]

from a cost effective standpoint evacuated collection tubes for pre-heat and electric panels for the run may be a good combo.

evac tubes are pretty cheap...and electric panels are about $1 per watt if you factor in the panel, inverters and connections etc...but i think you would be spending many thousands and taking up a lot of real estate to make a moderately sized still run semi-efficiently.

but hey, when not cooking whiskey you could plug in other shit and heat your shower water.

summary: plug it in or light a fire.

My conclusion was I like the simplicity of GAS
If I was to do solar it would be a trough collector to generate steam or circulate oil.

[NZChris]

I am considering using a heat pipe in combination with a parabolic dish rather than pointing the dish directly at the pot, but I haven't come up with a design I'm happy with yet.

[The Baker]

couldn't see how to delete this, it registered twice including the edited version. Sorry

[The Baker]

HBNB said, ' ...I think you would be spending many thousands and taking up a lot of real estate to make a moderately sized still run semi-efficiently.'

Like many people we have our 3 kw of solar panels mounted on the roof of the house. No real estate problems...

'Mostly people have high kw elements to shorten the heat-up time but that is not necessary, start it a bit sooner with a smaller element and read the paper or something while it warms up.
And get a pre-heater like NZ Chris.

Geoff

[NZChris]

With an off the shelf 1gallon Airstill, you only need ~1,500-3,000watts.

Very doable.

Mine says 580W

[The Baker]

And make sure your electric still is wearing a coat!

Geoff

[Durhommer]

Plug it in or start a fire I like that...don't be extra dummy

[Captain Pappy]

my initial reaction here is that your principle source of power for the distillation process will come from a bank of batteries. Producing heat for a still is quite a sink of power and the cost of the bank may exceed the value returned. Also keep in mind that even though the panels may be continuously trickling charge into the battery bank, the voltage of the batteries steadily drops as power is consumed. I think that is a a power supply curve that is in reverse of the needs of the distiller. By that I mean, other than initial heating, you need to draw more sustained power later while you increase the temp of the mash throughout the run.

Thoughts about that?

[cayars]

I've built a batter bank with solar recharge for our RC flying club. Here's some rough numbers, adjust as needed.

Let's assume you have a 220v 5000 watt element and it takes 30 minutes of heatup then will be ran for 1500 watts for 7.5 hours.
5000 x 0.5 = 2500 watts
1500 x 7.5 = 11250 watts
Total watts needed 13750 for run

If powering with "cheap" deep cycle marine batteries available at Walmart for example in the $100 range they are roughly 105 AH.4
12 volts x 105 AH = 1260 watts of power in total.
Deep cycle batteries should never be cycled below 50% but better to leave 60% left for longevity so we will have 40% of 1260 watts from each battery.
1260 x .4 = 504 watts per batter

Now since these are 12 volt batteries (can be wired up differently such as 24V, 48v) but key is need to be converted to 220 volts the converter will be roughly 80% effecient meaning our 13750 watts will be 17187.5 watts

17187.5 / 500 watts per battery = 34.375 batteries needed

So at roughly $100 per battery we have $3400
Converter at roughly $200

Now we need to be able to recharge it. For an area like New Jersey you would have 2.8 of "sun hours" per day. In order to recharge in one day you would need 6383.9 watts of panels. At 300 watts per panel that's 22 solar panel. Then you would also need a 550 amp charge controller.

Of course there are inefficiencies in the charge controller as well so the amount of solar panels could be higher. If you only planned on doing one run per week you could recharge in 6 days vs 1 so could cut down the amount of panels by that to reduce costs.

Without even starting to add in costs of solar panels or charge controllers, mounting, wiring, inspections (if needed) you can see it's probably a lot higher than you might have thought.

These were just numbers off the top of my head so adjust as needed but should roughly follow this logic. Solar panels degrade about 10% per year so you really need to factor that in. Same with replacements costs of batteries. I calculated batteries being used at 70F (room temp) so if using in colder weather will need to size bigger as well.

If you lived in Miami, FL you would have 4.5 sun hours per day. San Francisco, CA 3.4, San Antonio TX 4.1, Memphis, TN 3.4, Salt Lake City, UT 2.9 sun hours per day.

Obviously propane would be a lot cheaper and probably more reliable to use.

[Durhommer]

im not a rich man... i looked into all the stuff to make a battery bank too much money. ive ran my mh 8 gallon 2000 watt enough to know how to drive it good so ill use it to polish and prolly around october start working on a keg and liebig to strip on... ive ordered ferrule 2000watt eklement and inkbird pid and a ss grain basket.my wife got a new kitchen mixer so im trying to figure a way to take my cook kettle keg and mount the mixer with a mash paddle i see alot of half inch drills being burnt up in my future if i dont figure a better budget method

[jog666]

I've built a batter bank with solar recharge for our RC flying club. Here's some rough numbers, adjust as needed.

Let's assume you have a 220v 5000 watt element and it takes 30 minutes of heatup then will be ran for 1500 watts for 7.5 hours.
5000 x 0.5 = 2500 watts
1500 x 7.5 = 11250 watts
Total watts needed 13750 for run

..................................................................................



So at roughly $100 per battery we have $3400
Converter at roughly $200

Impressive figuring with rough numbers. I figure stuff out along the same lines & it will blow some peoples minds.

Your numbers have pretty much killed the idea of me ever running solar. I havent even found time to start to look into any of it. Unless the power company supplies most of the equipment or it falls off a truck, its not for me.

Might as well call it $4000 guess-timate after you start to add up the little things. Besides buying a ton of propane (200+ 20# bottles) , $4k would also get you a very nice wood splitter, chainsaw & the misc stuff you need.

[cayars]

$4000 would likely get you batteries, DC to AC controller and the charge controller but none of the solar panels.
Figure $200 per 300 watt panel for cheap ones and you'll need about 22 of them or another $4400.
Then you need wiring, frames, plugs, etc
Easily a $10K system just for your still.

Propane or even a gas/propane generator would be a lot cheaper for off grid use.

[StillerBoy]

People have lost their senses with this electric shit and solar panel.. it's the same with electric cars..

Do some of the numbers, and let's not forget, the life span of these items, its not long, and also their maintenance.. in the end it does not bring us any further ahead in saving and for the environment.. the big boys have all this figured out..

Mars

[cayars]

Not only that but the carbon foot print of panels made in the USA is 3.2 year payback. Probably much worse on Chinese made panels so they aren't as "green" as people think. Besides the carbon footprint there are lots of toxins produced in the process of making these panels.
Then of course they loose about 10% efficiency every year.

You location plays a big part as well. For example in NJ where I'm at we get 2.8 of "sun hours" per day (this is the number times the watts to calculate produced wattage) vs the same panel in Florida at 4.3 sun hours per day. 50% more efficient there and would make better sense.
If you install them on your roof and have a roofing problem, you just tacked on a couple grand to the job most likely to fix the roof as well.

They have their uses, but they are not the utopia people think they are. Now using solar to heat your water is another thing completely!

[thecroweater]

Years ago in South Australia and to a lesser degree the country as a whole solar power really took off, various states offered subsidies and if you didn't have much or any storage your excess produced power went back in the grid at the wholesale market rate which would off step your power cost. So all the power in Ozzy is sold by producers to suppliers and it has been that way now for close to 20 years (its a complete scam). All these "suppliers"/billers are foreign owned (100% of them) and this has caused electricity costs to increase somewhere around 1000% ,(460% just since i lived here) making solar very attractive even without the subsities . The problem is those "supliers" sooked to the government that not only do solar customers use less power but their bill is reduced futher by selling excess power back to the grid (which said companies onsell for massive mark ups) so the government changed the wholesale market price for domestically produced electricity to barely a fraction of its true value and greatly reduced the subsidies. This has made solar less attractive, particularly bigger systems but still worth it in the longer term, if I had solar on my shed that would be the of the gas bottles for me.