Solar Power in the Chicken House

[sksmass]

Scott, I just read through this thread, after you referred to it from my very similar (sorry

) thread. We basically have similar goals.

Someone over on my thread suggested I utilize "pop can solar heaters" instead of PV. I spent this evening researching them (google "pop can solar heater", or here is a good link to start with) and I think it is definitely the low cost, more efficient solution.

They are cheap to build, won't destroy anything if they fail, and can get incredibly hot. If you can shunt their heated air into some kind of heat sink it might be enough to raise local temperatures enough to melt ice.

For my purpose, providing passive heat to the the coop during the winter, I am thinking about building a small pop can heater and sending its heat through a series of gravel-filled 5 gallon buckets inside the coop. The gravel will act as the heat sink and radiate heat out during the night.

Anyway, might want to look into the pop can heaters. I'd never heard of them but they seem like a great idea.

 

[cutlass1972]

already discussed on this thread several times, by multiple contributors.

 

[Scott]

Tell ya what, I've been so busy the past few weeks I haven't been able to do much tinkering with the solar generator. In fact, the solar panel is still sitting here in my bedroom. I was at home depot the other day and almost picked up a metal pipe on which to mount the solar panel. But getting my mandarin pen finished has taken precedence which, thankfully, is almost complete. Fortunately, we probably won't have any more freezing weather here this year, but I do still plan to wire up low wattage lights and fans using the solar generator. I'll post more soon...

cutlass, did you ever get anything set up? did you order that heat strip?

 

[cutlass1972]

I havent ordered the strip, I have been where you are now for quite a while. Panel sitting in the living room, solar charger sitting next to it, pipe to mount to in the back of the truck. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, I did pick up a direcway satellite internet dish out of someones trash and removed the metal pole mount from it. I welded the mounting bracket for my solar panel to it so now I have a mount that is easily adjusted (x, y, and z axis) to track the sun throughout the seasons. I am going to try to install my ventalation fans this weekend. Initially I will just wire the fans directly to the panel so when the suns out they will run, I have a digital thermostat that I am going to wire in to the system eventually. I am going to put some LED lights in my nest boxes with plunger switches that activate when I open the nest box door.

 

[Scott]

Quote:
What kind of fans are you going with? The little DC computer fans? How many are you using? What do you do... just wire them up in parallel? I've been looking at radiator fans on eBay... they have them in 12 to 16 inch widths which would move a bit more air than a computer fan.

 

[cutlass1972]

I found 4 pc fans that have particularly good cfm ratings for their current consumption rating. I used them last year on a little 5 watt solar panel and they ran like the dickens.
I have them wired in parallel.

One of the projects I am going to try to work on this weekend is to buid some sort of prefilter for them and mount them more permanently in my coop.

 

[Scott]

Quote:
Take photos if you can... Id like to see what you get configured. It likely my next project after finishing my mandarin pen.

 

[cutlass1972]

ok.

Basically I got a piece of 3/4" angle alumnium stock and placed the 4 fans side by side on it, drilled holes where the mounting holes on the muffin fans lined up and used some little nuts and machine screws to attach them to the piece of aluminum, I did the same on the bottom of the fans and left the aluminum angle extending off the fans a bit. I am going to build a 2x4 frame around the vent on the side of my coop that gets the most sun (so that I am blowing the hot air out and sucking the air on the "cooler" shaded side of my coop in).

still thinking about the prefilter, I would like to be able to find large sheets of plastic scrubbing pads (like scotch bright pads) or something like that and build several layers into a big box to keep the dust from building up on the fans too bad. I am not sure if this is more work than it is worth or not though, I ran an identical set most of last summer and they got dust built up on them but kept on running. Migh tbe good enough to just dust them off every couple of weeks rather than having to change / clean the filter all the time.

 

[cutlass1972]

I still need to build a duck house of some sort this weekend, so I will be lucky if I make it to that project.... lol you know how it is.

 

[Monk]

Scott, solar is a great idea. What is the cost of set up and where did you get the equipment? Looking forward to the pics and updates.