Solar Cooker

The concept of solar cooker is not new, but I happened to get a chance to intern at the firm which is testing them. I have learnt a lot about the solar cookers. I need to know if there are like-minded people who are interested in this topic who stay in and around Bhopal, MP.
It will be learning to share knowledge on this topic and if it is beneficial for farmers.


hey!

what are these cookers primarily used for ? how can a farmer benefit from this ?

Vivek

Hi

Can we use this to dry black pepper. What are the sizes available? How about cost?

Solar cooking systems are mainly three kind:

  1. Box based cookers in which a mirror reflects sunlight into a glass topped insulated box. These are small scale household level systems in which the cooking happens outdoors.

  2. Dish based parabolic cookers in which sun rays are concentrated several times to focus on the cooking vessel. These come in a variety of sizes from domestic to commercial. In such systems cooking can happen outdoors or the system may be build in such way that it directs the focussed rays inside the kitchen.

  3. Solar steam cooking systems in which concentrated solar power is used to generate steam that is routed to kitchen in insulated pipes that does the cooking. These systems are only available for large commercial kitchens.

The one you’ve shown here appears to be either a small scaled version of #3 or an entirely new design made up of concentrated trough reflector paired with some kind of heat exchanger or heat storage device and cooking vessel. Do share more.

Hello Singhn9

I am from mumbai and was in Indore recently in the month or March. I happen to meet a wonderful lady staying on the outskirts of Indore, in the village of Devguradia which is next to the Ralamandal forest. This lady has house which has solar cooking stove, solar cooker, solar drier, solar oven, all this indigenously made, in house. It was indeed pleasure that I met this lady and saw all this. Had always seen solar cooker but was zapped to see the other appliances. My fav. was the solar stove. The mechanism was such that only once in the morning u have to set the direction of the solar panel (which looks like a dish antenna) towards the Sun and till evening it will exactly face the Sun and all this without any external power. I kept my palm in between this panel and the receiving side of the Sun rays and believe u me I had to pull my hand out at the count of 3 (much less then 3 seconds).

You are in Bhopal and if u happen to travel to Indore this place is a must visit.

Hello Prash,
That is very interesting. Do you have the contact details of this lady? Did you click any pics? It would be very helpful for people to learn about such useful stuff.

Thanks
Yugandhar

I can surely forward u the contact number of that lady but only after I ask her. I have taken few pictures and loading it.

There is a solar gas which once in the morning has to be faced towards the Sun and it will keep shifting as the Sun moves.

There are 2 types of solar oven.








And there is one solar drier which has a small black colour exhaust fan on one side which again runs on a solar panel.

Also there was a machine which use to make briquettes. These briquettes were blocks made out of mixture of cow dung, dried leaves, waste paper and anything which was available on land. Briquettes were made all year so that they could be used as fuel blocks in the months of monsoon when Sun light is less.




Very nice. Thanks. Of course please take her permission and let us know.

I would also be interested in knowing the contact of the person / company which designed the dish tracking system. All such systems I know are dependent upon a power source (electricity). I’ve been searching for a manual automatic tracking device for some time and never found one. Would be great to get these details.