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Step 11A Question of Efficiency, oh and a little math to.
This is all fine and dandy but what kind of power and efficiency are we talking about here. I mean can we bake bread, pasta, and stew?
I figured that for the first light of this oven it might be a good idea to run a test before I place a bunch of food in it and end up with a big mess and a half a dozen people laughing at my ruined lunch.
This will require some thought.
I will need to know a few things:
" How much potential wattage I can get out of a given area of sunlight
" How much wattage I AM getting out of a given area of sunlight
" How efficient is the set up based on these two values
To get potential wattage is easy.
The dimensions of the port that allows sunlight in are 40.64cm by 21.59cm. This equates to 877.4176 sq cm.
Each square meter of sunlight has a potential of 1000 watts of energy in it when it reaches the Earth. Each sq meter is 10,000 sq cm. So 1000 watts divided by 10,000 sq cm gives up .1 watts per sq cm.
So if we factor in the viewing area of the solar oven 877.4176 sq cm multiplied by .1 watts we get 87.74176 potential watts for the solar oven.
Potential wattage I have come to find out is often a pipe dream left for those that believe in endless amounts of power that can be conjured through a philosopher's stone at the stroke of midnight when moons are properly aligned. So I dont readily buy into the thought of my copier paper box being able to harness 87 watts of power by merely being pointed at the sun.
I needed a way to measure the true wattage of this oven to be able to determine cooking times and more importantly what I could cook.
The easiest way to achieve this is to measure calories. This is done by multiplying the temperature change in Celsius by the mass of pure water heated in grams.
So I need to heat some water and measure the temperature change. However temperature change does not happen instantaneously, it takes time so that will need to be factored in down the road at some point.
Each calorie is equal to one degree centigrade increase in one gram of water. So with a given amount of water and the temperature change in the oven over a given amount of time, it should be enough to calculate its power.
I figured that for the first light of this oven it might be a good idea to run a test before I place a bunch of food in it and end up with a big mess and a half a dozen people laughing at my ruined lunch.
This will require some thought.
I will need to know a few things:
" How much potential wattage I can get out of a given area of sunlight
" How much wattage I AM getting out of a given area of sunlight
" How efficient is the set up based on these two values
To get potential wattage is easy.
The dimensions of the port that allows sunlight in are 40.64cm by 21.59cm. This equates to 877.4176 sq cm.
Each square meter of sunlight has a potential of 1000 watts of energy in it when it reaches the Earth. Each sq meter is 10,000 sq cm. So 1000 watts divided by 10,000 sq cm gives up .1 watts per sq cm.
So if we factor in the viewing area of the solar oven 877.4176 sq cm multiplied by .1 watts we get 87.74176 potential watts for the solar oven.
Potential wattage I have come to find out is often a pipe dream left for those that believe in endless amounts of power that can be conjured through a philosopher's stone at the stroke of midnight when moons are properly aligned. So I dont readily buy into the thought of my copier paper box being able to harness 87 watts of power by merely being pointed at the sun.
I needed a way to measure the true wattage of this oven to be able to determine cooking times and more importantly what I could cook.
The easiest way to achieve this is to measure calories. This is done by multiplying the temperature change in Celsius by the mass of pure water heated in grams.
So I need to heat some water and measure the temperature change. However temperature change does not happen instantaneously, it takes time so that will need to be factored in down the road at some point.
Each calorie is equal to one degree centigrade increase in one gram of water. So with a given amount of water and the temperature change in the oven over a given amount of time, it should be enough to calculate its power.
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