Homemade incinerator beam!

EvilGenius4ABetterTomorro · #1 July 26th, 2004, 07:40 PM

Can you Bar-B-Q with this? You could put propane out of business.

Sorry Hank Hill.

Suicide Junkie · #2 July 26th, 2004, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by mottlee:
OK How did you get them all to "Look" at the same point? I know you did not stand in front to adjust them!

I used a large wooden board, actually.

Hold it up in the focus, move a few more mirrors into alignment, then hose it down again before the gushing steam turns into billowing smoke.

-----

It wouldn't be very good for a barbecue...
There's not very much heat, just extremely high temperatures.
So you wouldn't cook anything, just burn spots on/holes in the surface

[ July 26, 2004, 20:33: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Ruatha · #3 July 26th, 2004, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

quote:
Originally posted by mottlee:
OK How did you get them all to "Look" at the same point? I know you did not stand in front to adjust them!

I used a large wooden board, actually.

Hold it up in the focus, move a few more mirrors into alignment, then hose it down again before the gushing steam turns into billowing smoke.

-----

It wouldn't be very good for a barbecue...
There's not very much heat, just extremely high temperatures.
So you wouldn't cook anything, just burn spots on/holes in the surface

But, if you put a metal pan in the focal point, the heat would dissipate out in the metal and generate a more diffuse heat, enabling some cooking/baking, but perhaps not barbeque though.
There are actually solar driven stoves.

SJ, can you try boiling some water?

Suicide Junkie · #4 July 26th, 2004, 11:51 PM

That was my point...
Spreading the energy back out defeats the whole purpose of concentrating it.

There's only a couple hundred watts going through the 16-array, and you don't have to spread that very far before its merely warm to the touch...

mottlee · #5 July 27th, 2004, 12:16 AM

Hmmm....I kinda like this Idea! SJ you had 16 in your set-up? I wounder if larger mirrors would be better...alas is a pipe dream I do not have the free time to do this in the daylight hours

Kamog · #6 July 27th, 2004, 02:12 AM

Do you think you can put an additional mirror at the focal point of the 16 you already set up, so that now you can use the 17th mirror to direct the beam in different directions? You just turn the extra mirror around to move the beam to different targets.

I'm not sure if this would work because the light beams may diverge again after being reflected.... There must be a way to keep the beams parallel, like using a convex mirror or using a lens or something.

Suicide Junkie · #7 July 27th, 2004, 02:30 AM

Bigger is better, of course, but I don't think you'll find converging mirrors much larger. And certainly not for a buck each

Rather than a small mirror at the focal point, you'd want a fairly large plane mirror closer in.
You can use it to move the focal point around where you like.
Alternatively, you could put the small mirrors in the shade and set them to a fixed focus, then use the large plane mirror to reflect sunlight onto them at whatever angle you need. You can move the one big mirror to follow the sun instead of all the little ones...