I'm tinkering with the idea of a tiny solar heat pump / generator. I've got a bunch of 10cm parabolic reflectors, sold as solar firestarters, like this: http://ift.tt/2u2E0Ys first thought is to shape thin copper tubing, probably 1/16" od, to heat water. I was thinking I'd use silica aerogel paint to insulate the tubing except for the focal point, and pump water through 20 of these reflectors. The radius would be very tight, keeping the size around that of a pencil.I've seen the little tubing bender springs and read about filling the tubes with sand or ice to prevent kinks. Can someone provide any first hand experience with shaping such small tubing?Would it make more sense to use high temp silicone tubes connected to a tiny straight section of copper tube in the focal point?I have 20 of these, with about .15 m2 solar surface, so at 1kw/m2, there's ideally 150 watts being collected, in practice it's probably closer to 75W, 75 joules/sec thermal energy. This translates to about 4.2 kw/h, so the whole rig could probably produce .5 to 2 kw/h in electricity after losses.I was thinking a stirling engine generator might be fun, but the temperature is high enough to boil water, too. Maybe these could be fashioned into tiny steam engines, or run a tesla turbine, and some sort of zeolite chamber to store excess heat?I'm still in the brainstorming phase, so any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for your time! via /r/DIY http://ift.tt/2uH1UKZ
