Solar Ice Maker
Tried hunting through the 'ables, and also hunted for it elsewhere.
Has anyone done an Instructable on making a Solar Ice Maker?
And if not, will anyone do it?
I've got some ideas for trying to use it as part of a home cooling unit, but I don't know how to make it yet. Thus, modifying it seems kind of out of the question.
Thanks for any help in advance.
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May 4, 2012. 11:30 AMGlenn Burrow
says:
I know this thread is long abandoned but you are looking for an absorption cooler. These are used in campers and RV's. They use propane but you can use a solar collector just as well. And on your collector, look into fresnel lenses. They are cheap and you don't have to spend forever focussing them like you do with mirrors. Best of luck.
Mar 16, 2011. 1:22 PMjmrock
says:
Anybody here in NW Montana interested in building one of these? Kinda funny but seams really simple to construct but I've never seen one built outside of Central America. There I seen 3 of them but didn't quite understand them at that age.
Apr 3, 2011. 11:13 AMpikeman72
says:
I'm in Missoula. Building one of these to take with me to Burning Man. Want to put our heads together?
Jun 8, 2011. 6:26 AMGrumpyOldGoat
says:
I'm having trouble locating the flexible mirrors they used in the solarice.PDF.
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
Jul 20, 2008. 9:37 AMguyfrom7up
says:
I forgot where I saw this... but: you take a large black pipe fill it partway with amonia. the sun causes it to turn into a gas at night it turns back into a liquid, cooling water near it. you then have ice in the morning google around
Oct 2, 2009. 9:19 PMnutsandbolts_64
says:
found that at an E-book called "solar powered projects for the Evil Genius" w/ the word "darksiderg" somewhere around that. Find it at "www.mininova.org" I guess that's the site.
May 26, 2010. 6:21 AMcritterfluffy
says:
There is also something similar to this used in propane refrigerators. Basically, there is ammonia dissolved into water. Using heat from a propane flame(easily replaced with solar) the ammonia is boiled out of the water. It is used as a coolant and is circulated through the system. At the end, the now warmer ammonia is exposed to unheated water. It wants to dissolve in water so much it actually releases its stored heat to allow for it to happen. Rinse repeat. I don't understand it completely but this system does, as part of its design use heat to create a cooling cycle.
Jun 14, 2010. 2:35 PMredneckjaybyrd
says:
Ammonia was among the first refrigerants used and in most places it is illegal to use as a refrigerant nowadays. Ammonia does work though.
Mar 16, 2011. 1:19 PMjmrock
says:
Could anybody cite where I would find the laws regarding the legality of ammonia use as a refrigerant? I too am very curious about this instructable.
Heh. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this. It's so ironic! Solar. Ice. I never even thought the two could be used together in a sentence! I didn't get it at first, but then I thought about it and understood. Thanks man, you just made my day.
May 27, 2010. 4:15 PMRelientOwl
says:
I got kind of puzzled at the title they're like two different things
There are a lot of ways to do this you could, as forgesmith said drive an electrical or mechanical AC/fridge unit with solar energy. You could also consider using peltier or other thermoelectric units to remove heat from the cold box these are however more suited to simple cooling, a 12V mini fridge could easily be modified to your purposes but it wouldn't be great at ice making without some modifications and overclocking of the peltier. You could use wind or water power very effectively instead of solar to make a nice unit that runs a compressor and/or a generator, the compressor of the AC unit giving you your cold with zero electricals... Another good option may be to run a stirling or steam engine of a solar heater, if you have a lot of sun energy you could make a parabolic dish to run a boiler that would power a steam engine, this would be a nice way to get rotary power for both electrical and compressors, using a generator you could run electricals of of that, also a good efficient steam or stirling engine setup is much more efficient than a solar panel, to the best of my knowledge.
Jul 20, 2008. 4:25 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
I've thought about going with sterlings for electricity, actually using the parabolic dish to make the sterling work better. (pretty sure that's more efficient than steam engines.
If you built a good Stirling engine, yes it would be more efficient but well built is the key here, the parabola should be comparatively easy...
May 26, 2010. 3:08 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
I have a left over sat dish in my shed. So the parabola is pretty much a prefab.
I have yet to come upon the most effective sterling design that I could manage cost effectively, but I am looking at such designs for a larger power plan than just a freezer now.
I was interested in figuring out a design that might get away with using basic thermodynamic principles and heat transfer to create the ice here.
I figure if the energy doesn't have to be converted it should be more efficient.
I understand the principles, it's putting them into design that seems to have me stumped at the moment.
(Pardon the late response, it's been a busy few years. lol)
I have yet to come upon the most effective sterling design that I could manage cost effectively, but I am looking at such designs for a larger power plan than just a freezer now.
I was interested in figuring out a design that might get away with using basic thermodynamic principles and heat transfer to create the ice here.
I figure if the energy doesn't have to be converted it should be more efficient.
I understand the principles, it's putting them into design that seems to have me stumped at the moment.
(Pardon the late response, it's been a busy few years. lol)
Mar 19, 2010. 10:54 PMajparag
says:
i have some information to share. please go to the below link to check out the site. these guys are working on a similar project.
http://www.appropedia.org/UTC_Solar_Absorption_Refrigeration
and download this file from there:
Study, Design and Fabrication of a Solar Powered Adsorption Refrigeration System
http://www.appropedia.org/UTC_Solar_Absorption_Refrigeration
and download this file from there:
Study, Design and Fabrication of a Solar Powered Adsorption Refrigeration System
Oct 9, 2009. 6:10 AMkramerr
says:
In physics we have this nice relationship called the perfect gas law:<br /><br />Pressure*volume = moles * r * Temperature<br /><br />where r is the gas constant: 8.314 472(15) J K−1 mol−1 <br /><br />In simple terms: When you heat a gas it expands. If you force a gas to expand without adding enough heat it will suck up heat from everything around it, producing a cooling effect.<br /><br />Try it out for yourself by empting a can of compressed air. The can will become cold.<br /><br />Its because of this relationship that the evaporation of sweat cools us down and fridges work by compressing then expanding a gas.<br /><br />An ancient way of keeping drinks cool was to use pots with very small holes. As water left the holes it would evaporate which would cool down the pot. In theory a temperature drop below the freezing point could be produced in this way if something that evaporates quicker than water is used. <br /><br />I think amonia might be suitable if you put it in a near vacuum.<br />
Jul 23, 2008. 7:28 AMforgesmith
says:
A solar ice maker???
It takes energy to make ice, the sun is a source of energy. The rest is engineering.
It takes energy to make ice, the sun is a source of energy. The rest is engineering.
Jul 23, 2008. 1:51 PMforgesmith
says:
Oh, I get it now, sorry for being stupid...
Heh. Bud, if everyone felt sorry every time they did something stupid, the entire nation would have to be on prozac to get anything done. Don't worry about it.
Heh. Bud, if everyone felt sorry every time they did something stupid, the entire nation would have to be on prozac to get anything done. Don't worry about it.
Jul 31, 2008. 5:04 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
You mean it's NOT? lol There are no stupid questions, Plasma. Some are very close, but I don't think that one was.
Pretty easy, you will need a large quantity of dry straw, a shallow pan and a desert. Use the straw to insulate the pan from the earth, fill the pan with water and wait over night.
Jul 20, 2008. 4:32 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
Ok, I know what's going on with this one, and it makes sense (assuming air temp drops low enough). But I'm confused as to how it's solar? Wouldn't the solar ice maker actually work better during the day?
Oct 2, 2009. 5:55 PMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
I wish I'd cauth this comment earlier. It was pretty funny. :)
Oct 14, 2008. 3:42 PMTaffGoch
says:
Looks like all the development work has been done already. There are several firms that are starting to produce turnkey products based on this 'how-to' article:
http://www.solarhaven.org/AmmoniaAbsorptionIcemaker.pdf
http://www.solarhaven.org/AmmoniaAbsorptionIcemaker.pdf
Oct 20, 2008. 1:29 PMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
Thanks. I've seen the picture before. Seems kinda big for a bit of ice though. lol It's all about the engineering though.
Jul 25, 2008. 12:28 AMV-Man737
says:
in rethinking your question, I feel my sputterings about inverters and batteries with huge duty cycles missed the mark. So, after a Google search, I give you a couple resources that look promising: This PDF to HTML document (scroll down) seems to cover what you're asking about, and a closely-related (albeit strictly trademarked) model called ISAAC.
Apparently all you need is a refrigerant such as (distilled!) ammonia, dissolved in salt, in the "generator" of the sealed system (the "generator" is where the sun heats the solution). The PDF calls specifically for calcium chloride. As the sun heats up the solution, pressure in the system increases. The ammonia escapes in vapor form and travels through condenser coils to a containment tank (which will soon be very cold). When the generator no longer receives heat, the system cannot maintain the vapor ammonia, and it is "drawn" back to the generator component as the salt reabsorbs it. This absorption lowers the pressure of the system, causing the ammonia in the tank to evaporate, drawing immense amounts of heat with it. Water is placed close to the tank and loses all its heat - voila: ice!
Apparently all you need is a refrigerant such as (distilled!) ammonia, dissolved in salt, in the "generator" of the sealed system (the "generator" is where the sun heats the solution). The PDF calls specifically for calcium chloride. As the sun heats up the solution, pressure in the system increases. The ammonia escapes in vapor form and travels through condenser coils to a containment tank (which will soon be very cold). When the generator no longer receives heat, the system cannot maintain the vapor ammonia, and it is "drawn" back to the generator component as the salt reabsorbs it. This absorption lowers the pressure of the system, causing the ammonia in the tank to evaporate, drawing immense amounts of heat with it. Water is placed close to the tank and loses all its heat - voila: ice!
Jul 31, 2008. 5:03 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
Thanks, bud. You've been very informative. Thanks to everyone else for their insights as well.
Jul 19, 2008. 1:42 AMforgesmith
says:
Part 1: Use solar power for mechanical energy. That could be a Stirling engine driven with a parabolic mirror, hot water solar panels driving a turbine, or photovoltaics (solar cells) driving an electric motor.
Part 2: Use mechanical energy to drive an automotive air conditioning compressor. If you are careful you can liberate all you need off an old car, then build a styrofoam box for the core that was inside the cabin giving off the cold, mount everything and hook it back up, refill. Make cold.
Now when you consider the mechanical energy required when driven by a car engine, both the amount needed and the rate it must be delivered to the compressor, you can see the amount of solar-absorbing surface area needed, ballpark figures, is a softball field.
Or...
You set up some photovoltaic panels, add a good-sized battery and inverter for homebrewed solar-based electricity, and plug in the refrigerator or air conditioner.
Ah, and now I see why there are no 'ibles on solar ice makers. That'd be a single-purpose dedicated system, they prefer flexible designing around here. With the solar electric you can also recharge your iPod.
Part 2: Use mechanical energy to drive an automotive air conditioning compressor. If you are careful you can liberate all you need off an old car, then build a styrofoam box for the core that was inside the cabin giving off the cold, mount everything and hook it back up, refill. Make cold.
Now when you consider the mechanical energy required when driven by a car engine, both the amount needed and the rate it must be delivered to the compressor, you can see the amount of solar-absorbing surface area needed, ballpark figures, is a softball field.
Or...
You set up some photovoltaic panels, add a good-sized battery and inverter for homebrewed solar-based electricity, and plug in the refrigerator or air conditioner.
Ah, and now I see why there are no 'ibles on solar ice makers. That'd be a single-purpose dedicated system, they prefer flexible designing around here. With the solar electric you can also recharge your iPod.
Jul 22, 2008. 3:21 PMV-Man737
says:
according to the interwebs, Fridges usually take between 200 (those really small fridges) to 1200 watts (big daddies). To get the inverter to run for 24 hours on a 12-volt battery (adding a 10-hour charging cycle from the solar panel) , you'd want a battery that can supply 4.8 to 28.8 KWH, or about 400 to 2400 Ah. I'm seeing a ceiling of around 20 Ah on heavy duty batteries on eBay, so to satisfy that demand, you'd want to hook in parallel 20 to 120 of them. (Am I figuring this out right? That seems a little outrageous.) I used to work for a company that had a UPS system running on about 100 car batteries all hooked together.
(A quick eBay search later) eBay has several machines dedicated solely to producing ice: this model is rated at 310 watts; here is a 150-watt model. Now that I think about it, you won't be wanting to make ice cubes 24/7, right? This could be simpler than I thought earlier... At 20 Ah (240 Watt-hours), our heavy duty car battery would give the inverter just enough juice to power the 150-watt model for about an hour and a half. According to the stats, that's probably enough to make around 2 pounds of ice. :-) Add another battery, and you can get 4 pounds.
(A quick eBay search later) eBay has several machines dedicated solely to producing ice: this model is rated at 310 watts; here is a 150-watt model. Now that I think about it, you won't be wanting to make ice cubes 24/7, right? This could be simpler than I thought earlier... At 20 Ah (240 Watt-hours), our heavy duty car battery would give the inverter just enough juice to power the 150-watt model for about an hour and a half. According to the stats, that's probably enough to make around 2 pounds of ice. :-) Add another battery, and you can get 4 pounds.
Jul 23, 2008. 7:49 AMforgesmith
says:
I've yet to read about a commercially-available whole-house solar system that needs over twenty batteries, thus 120 seems very unlikely. Even twenty sounds high. So something must be off.
Whoa, now here at eBay-Australia they have 1050 Ah batteries for a solar system! Makes these common 86.4 Ah ones look puny.
1050 Ah... You could power an electric submarine with those babies...
Whoa, now here at eBay-Australia they have 1050 Ah batteries for a solar system! Makes these common 86.4 Ah ones look puny.
1050 Ah... You could power an electric submarine with those babies...
Jul 23, 2008. 6:45 PMV-Man737
says:
I wonder where I'm going wrong... Is it my math? 20 Ah at 12 volts = 240 watt-hours... Meaning it will drain completely under a 240 watt load in one hour... But daaaang, 1050 Ah... If you got three of them (4v each) to make a 12v battery, then you're looking at a 12.6 kWh capacity. With that, you could run 525 watts for 24 hours. That sounds about like a moderate fridge.
Still... What's missing in my previous thought? How many watt-hours do solar homes use? For that matter, how many would a simple ice machine use? (I am now assuming one would not want to make ice 24 hours a day...)
Perhaps, do inverters change the rate by which power is drained from their sources?
Still... What's missing in my previous thought? How many watt-hours do solar homes use? For that matter, how many would a simple ice machine use? (I am now assuming one would not want to make ice 24 hours a day...)
Perhaps, do inverters change the rate by which power is drained from their sources?
. "Fridges are an intermittent load. They run for a short while and then shut off. Sounds as if you may have done your calcs with the compressor running full time.
Jul 23, 2008. 10:12 PMV-Man737
says:
>_< OHHHH that's why the yearly ratings on fridges are so low! Lawl. So we could consider the running wattage as a part of the average power time, just a surge area. Two questions from this, then: 1) How often, and for how long, on average, do fridges run? 2) Do fridges consume any power while not running (per se)?
Jul 24, 2008. 12:36 AMforgesmith
says:
2) Do fridges consume any power while not running (per se)?
That's somewhat easy. A dorm cube has a simple mechanical thermostat, only the compressor uses power. Once you get to a refrigerator / freezer, at the least they have a small heating element on the front between the two sections, you can feel the warmth on that surface the doors seal against, iirc it's to prevent condensation. I've found them on freezer-over-fridge, don't know about others but I'd suspect the same. Then there is the circulating fan, I can see that they'd have models that'd run the fan to cool the fridge from existing cold in the freezer without turning on the compressor until the freezer needed it, although with the old models I'm familiar with the thermostat is in the fridge and the freezer uses airflow controls, compressor and fan turn on together. Finally we get to automatic ice makers, standby losses with electronics, and the ultra-fancy drink and sushi dispensers, whatever they toss in these days.
1) How often, and for how long, on average, do fridges run?
That's math. Take the nameplate ratings for amperage and/or wattage, that's the maximum running amounts electricians need to know to size a dedicated circuit. Then see what the big energy use sticker gives for annual usage, been awhile since I studied one, if they don't outright say how many watt-hours then you can calculate it from the operating cost divided by the cost per kWh given. Divide by hours in a year for average watts per day, divide that by nameplate wattage and multiply by 100 for estimated percentage of run time during a day.
Heh. My parent's fridge I bought used as a quick replacement almost twenty years ago. It's a Kelvinator, made by AMC, thus old. It refuses to die. The hot coils are under the outside skin, no cleaning. There is no fan, no air movement between freezer and fridge. The freezer has the most coils, under its skin so only the sheet metal ices up, the fridge has a small coil section around three sides at the top for cooling with a drip tray running under it. Only thing running is the compressor, thermostat is mechanical, you can hardly hear it running, it just sits there and makes cold. I cannot see how anything of comparable size on the market today will save energy over such a simple and efficient design.
That's somewhat easy. A dorm cube has a simple mechanical thermostat, only the compressor uses power. Once you get to a refrigerator / freezer, at the least they have a small heating element on the front between the two sections, you can feel the warmth on that surface the doors seal against, iirc it's to prevent condensation. I've found them on freezer-over-fridge, don't know about others but I'd suspect the same. Then there is the circulating fan, I can see that they'd have models that'd run the fan to cool the fridge from existing cold in the freezer without turning on the compressor until the freezer needed it, although with the old models I'm familiar with the thermostat is in the fridge and the freezer uses airflow controls, compressor and fan turn on together. Finally we get to automatic ice makers, standby losses with electronics, and the ultra-fancy drink and sushi dispensers, whatever they toss in these days.
1) How often, and for how long, on average, do fridges run?
That's math. Take the nameplate ratings for amperage and/or wattage, that's the maximum running amounts electricians need to know to size a dedicated circuit. Then see what the big energy use sticker gives for annual usage, been awhile since I studied one, if they don't outright say how many watt-hours then you can calculate it from the operating cost divided by the cost per kWh given. Divide by hours in a year for average watts per day, divide that by nameplate wattage and multiply by 100 for estimated percentage of run time during a day.
Heh. My parent's fridge I bought used as a quick replacement almost twenty years ago. It's a Kelvinator, made by AMC, thus old. It refuses to die. The hot coils are under the outside skin, no cleaning. There is no fan, no air movement between freezer and fridge. The freezer has the most coils, under its skin so only the sheet metal ices up, the fridge has a small coil section around three sides at the top for cooling with a drip tray running under it. Only thing running is the compressor, thermostat is mechanical, you can hardly hear it running, it just sits there and makes cold. I cannot see how anything of comparable size on the market today will save energy over such a simple and efficient design.
Jul 24, 2008. 12:21 PMV-Man737
says:
So... to run a fridge rated at 700 kWh/year (pretty average) with a peak of 1000 watts, you'd be running almost 2 hours per day, end power consumption 1.92 kWh per day? This would bring our battery requirement to 160 amp-hours at 12 volts. That'd be two of those 80 amp-hour batteries you showed me earlier... You could get four and in some way rotate them charging in the sun and discharging at the inverter... Fun!
Jul 24, 2008. 7:12 PMforgesmith
says:
Two hours in 24, 5 minutes every hour, sounds about right. But why not just hook the panels and inverter to all the batteries and not rotate?
Jul 24, 2008. 10:30 PMV-Man737
says:
I guess if your panels are big enough, there would be no need of rotation. :-)
Jul 20, 2008. 4:28 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
Don't have an iPod, lol. But seriously, was just trying to learn the basics of the solar ice maker to try to work on modification from there.
Jul 20, 2008. 4:41 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
Good point on the limited use factor, though. Hadn't really thought of that.
Jul 20, 2008. 6:10 AMforgesmith
says:
KISS, not just a rock band. You can get stuff that makes cold easy enough, just needs current. Making the current from solar is easy enough. Simple design choice.
. ArkLa Servel used to make natural gas driven air conditioners. Should be the same basic principle.
Jul 20, 2008. 6:05 AMforgesmith
says:
I'm pretty sure they make RV refrigerators that run on propane, same thing.
Oh yeah, propane, natural and kerosene used to power lots of fridges. They haven't been used too much in the U.S. for 40 years (excep in RV's), but were still in use in New Guniea when I was there in the 90's.
Without huge solar panels it would be difficult. But, it might be easier, if you could put the "ice tray" about 40' underground. At least that way, you'd only be trying to overcome a temp of 50 degrees (farenheit) or so, compared to surface temp.
I can see that turning in to an oops I seem to have frozen the well again moment...
Jul 20, 2008. 4:30 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
Lots of great solar ideas guys, thanks. But I'm pretty sure that generally solar ice makers aren't so much about gathering solar electricity then powering a cooler. I thought it was basically a thermodynamics trick. Just don't know how to do it. Still, I'm loving all the input, please keep it coming.
Jul 20, 2008. 4:37 AMGrey_Wolfe (author)
says:
I believe it uses heat transfer to create a very cold temperature. Basically, the hotter it is on one end, the colder the other. At least, that's what I was led to believe, but maybe the idea really was just gathering electric energy from solar. How big of a sterling would it take to power a house, I wonder? Using a parabolic dish would of coarse allow for a smaller motor, but still.
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