Boiled water

The first step to forcusing is determining where we'l place the mirrors. Since we're talking about inclined mirrors arranged on a flat surface there is bound to be some shading/blocking issues. Here, Djadje moves two mirrors around the wing and draws a rough guide to mirror placement so that we can space the mirrors effectively.


To space the mirrors effectively we--
Wait! Stop everything! Emergency! The teapot is broken! All work ceases and Michel heroically breaks out the oxy-acetylene torch and welds it back together. Phew. OK back to work, nothing to see here.


Using the mirror map we drill holes and place three screws in a broad triangle beneath each mirror. By placing a mirror on the screw-tripod and by varying the height of the screws we can incline the mirror such that it reflects onto the pot. You can see one mirror is on target while another is hitting the building.


Once we have all the screws properly adjusted (it's not enough to do it for one time of day, it has to work all day, so once you do the initial focusing you have to keep it on target for a day or two and observe how the mirrors react to different insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) angles and adjust accordingly.) we can proceed to backing the mirrors. I'd settled on styrofoam/glue mix. We bought a large quantity of styrofoam for next to nothing and got to work busting it down.


It wasn't the easiest process:


But it did the trick. The problem was how to weigh down the mirrors so they would stay in contact with the screws. For our first try we makeshifted a fast solution because the glue was drying fast:


Afterwards we reflected and determined that we could glue the mirrors and then tie them down using wire. We found out that wire worked so well we didn't even have to glue them.


That means that we could mount the wing and adjust the mirrors a little bit while we saw how they behaved on the machine. They behaved pretty well! We managed to boil some water, and we're at only half power! I assume we're at around half power, but you never know what ol' bucket-o-rocks is up to.


This bodes well for the final product, but the hardest part is yet to come.

The next step is to build the mold, and then use that mold to stamp out copies of our original. It will not be easy. Again, if anyone has any ideas about how to effectively make a very large mold of these mirrors let me know.

Geometry Achieved

Today was a wicked day.

Not only did I get a drive to work (instead of spending an hour walking and taking a packed van) but we basically finished the frame for the Butterfly (my variation on the Papillon) and proved the geometry is sound).

There were a number of problems that I had foreseen (weight distribution, pot placement, spaces between mirrors, mirror shading etc) and had assumed that we would be able to solve with a certain amount of elegance. Kudos to us for actually being able to.

Also, the butterfly is a test of construction precision, because unlike the other Solar Fire technologies, this one is pretty rigid. The Vesta, Apollo and Helios, however, all have movable mirrors and can be modified fairly easily. The butterfly is a one-piece reflector that must follow a pretty precise line of movement to track and reflect the sun easily. Initial indications… indicate… that we achieved an acceptable level of precision. Must be due to all the vicegrips:


And our counterweight (speaking of elegant solutions, note the paintbucket filled with rocks tied opposite the wing):

The butterfly works like this: the two wings face the sun directly, and will eventually be covered with 10cm by 10cm mirrors (like the one I'm holding)
which will reflect the sun onto the pot at the center. The paintbucket-counterweight will eventually be replaced by another wing, so the weight will be balanced. We've substituted that wing for a counterweight because I didn't know how this experiment would turn out and didn't want to make two wings if their shape/construction weren't for certain. I reverse engineered this design by looking at some pictures of the papillon, and so nothing was for sure.

The mirror angles at the edges of the wings are pretty acute, which means that we'll have to fill fairly large spaces with the woodglue/sawdust or Styrofoam mix, but luckily I happened across another type of plastic foam with better cohesion than Styrofoam, so we'll be able to cut it to fill the majority of the space without using large quantities of glue:
However well things went today, the process is nowhere near finished. Once the geometry is finalized, we move on to calibrating the mirrors. There are 100 mirrors to calibrate, which will take a solid amount of time (especially with the heat of the sun these days!). After the configuration, we'll have what we call a master mold. That is, we'll have glued all the mirrors at the proper angle, but in order to avoid having to calibrate 100 mirrors each time we want to make a wing we're going to make a mold of the original wing.

That's a pretty big mold. The parallelogram that makes the wing is short side: 70cm, long side 150cm and width 100cm. We're probably going to go for rebar reinforced plaster or cement (plaster is way easier to work with since it doesn't bond to mirrors too fiercely) but I don't know yet. If you've got suggestions on how to avoid breakage, let me know. I'm slightly worried, but have faith in the guys I'm working with. I don't have extensive materials experience, but they sure know their stuff. I'll let you know how we solve the problem (and the various ways we might fail).

The National Forum on the Environment

Right. Remember what I said about blog frequency and craziness? Yeah.

So Monday rolled around, and there was no action on the budget. Not only that, but the guy who was supposed to help bring the Helios to CNESOLER didn't show up. I decided to go to the director of AMADER's home energy dept to speed things up. He understood, but couldn't influence things. I told him about my decisions regarding CNESOLER and he agreed that it would improve chances to get funding if I partner with a government establishment.

I went home without having accomplished much.

Tuesday started out the same… I was in an office trying to move things along when a brochure on the lady's desk caught my eye. The Mali-Folkecenter is apparently hosting the National Forum on the Environment. MFC is a pretty big operation, and I hadn't yet made contact with them, though it was in the plan. It didn't really connect just yet that I am in Mali. I look at the date, it says 29th of Jan 2008, not knowing what date it is I think for a moment, that's a shame that I missed it. Wait a minute… that's TODAY! At this point I still have significant doubts that we'd be able to do the necessary paperwork to get a vehicle, or register me or whatnot. Still, might as well ask.

Bam. To the directors office! 4 hours later we had dis-assembled the machine and transported it to the Palace of Culture, where the Forum was taking place. They gave me 10,000 F CFA to buy food to cook for people and I was on my way.

The next day we(and by we I mean she) cooked up a big stew for everyone.
Solar Fire Style: maxed out thermometer (that means +200C)
Ibrahim C Tomota says: Solar Fire, awww yeah.
So much stew.
lol poor SK-14, all broken and neglected:
Then there's the Association of Women Engineers who had a stand promoting their use of cardboard and tinfoil cookers with a heat resistant bag. They have to be imported from Holland, but have the advantage of being able to be transported like 30 to a backpack.
Mmmm so much solar cake. We made the mistake of using pots that were too big for cake, and they were burning at the edges and not done in the middle, so we massacred it a little bit and put everything on the baking trays.
I probably served cake to like 100 people.


It was good to the last crumb.
Haha in our enthusiasm for cake we let the focal point wander… on this oven we built the exterior side walls out of wood to save on tinsmithing, but we'll probably not do that in the future, considering it smolders a little if the focal point hits the tin on front.
I made tons of good contacts, met the minister of the environment a couple more times, and impressed the people who work at CNESOLER (I was hosted by their stand at the forum). Everyone is really enthusiastic, so we'll see what we can cook up.

This weekend is catch up on sleep time and kit maintenance. This coming week, if the money isn't available to start the papillon prototype I'm just going to buy enough materials to get started... the Habitat Salon is less than 3 weeks away, and is important enough to disregard protocol (what? me? disregard protocol?)

Initial leaps

Due to time and logistical constraints (Karim's van and Pierro's vans leave tomorrow) we have purchased all major steel and mirror components for a Helios ( http://www.solarfireproject.com/thehelios) array (no doubt at slightly higher costs than would have been possible with more time, but orders of magnitude more convenient).

Note the nice clean T-shirt.

The Project is in very high gear.

Last night: strategy meeting with RV and the President, secretaries and Administrative council of FIMB-Mali, and Tomota, who seems to have a hand in just about everything. We are in general agreement that the plan is as follows: build a Helios ASAP, promote it at the highest levels permitted to us through pooling our (their) contact networks and solicit funding for a solar energy research, development and training (R,D&T) center, where my colleagues and I would explore all low tech (for now) solar technology options, while training others in the science of solar concentration as we build concentrators to distribute to eligible people. To this end, it was decided to call the director general of the Cité des Enfants, a ‘Ministry of the Promotion of the Woman, Child and Family’ institution housed in a sprawling complex of buildings built to look like fairytale castles: All those at the strategy meeting knew him and agreed that Mr. Dembele was the man who could set this thing off with a bang. The Cité des Enfants has plenty of space to set up the unit for demonstrations and is a government institution, which will reduce the red tape for inviting government representatives and media to the unveiling of the Helios.

This morning RV, Lalla, Tomota and FIMB-Mali’s general secretary and I met with Mr. Dembele, who was astonished by the capacities of Solar Fire technologies. He said there were a half dozen solar cooking devices sitting in a warehouse owned by the ministry of energy, unused, because they were not worth the cost. He said it would be a pleasure for us to do the demonstration at the Cité, and said that it should be no problem for him to arrange for various Ministers (Energy, Environment, others) to be in attendance, as well as directors of various NGOs and institutions, plus TV, newspaper and radio reporters. When I asked him how much notice he needed to set up what he called ‘an inauguration ceremony’ with such attendees, and he told me three or four days. I said I’d be ready by mid January and he shook my hand and said he looked forward to it. He gave me his cellphone number and said if I needed anything he’d do what he could.

Afterwards I went and checked out the workshop. Lalla’s brother, Diadié, owns the place. It is rustic to say the least, but he has everything we need to build the array. It’s a good thing he has an apprentice who is basically a human hacksaw, because there’s no abrasive chop saw. There is a hand grinder and a hand drill and a table vise and some welders’ beams and we’ll be working in the street, since there is no space in the actual workshop (and it’s blazing hot in there).

Here's a picture of our workshop. It's kind of like a 'Where's Waldo?'

Travelling companions

Allow me to introduce my friends, colleagues and traveling companions:

First up is Pierre, a Frenchman from Auvergne who runs his own solar waterheater and solar panel installation company. Pierre has made the trip before and has traveled a number of times to Morocco, Mali and elsewhere in West Africa.

We'll be rolling in Pierre's Renault Tracker 4x4:
It's a beast of a machine. Notice the solar panel on the roofrack, which has been modified into a pop tent.

Introducing Pierre's daughter, Lucie:and Roxanne, Lucie's friend:
We'll be traveling together until at least Bamako, Mali, where I'll gather information about the feasibility of implementing Solar Fire technologies, and based on my findings I will or will not then promote Solar Fire (call me presumptuous, but I have a feeling there'll be enough interest to warrant my sticking around).

The plan is to meet the rest of the crew at Nouakchott, Mauritania around the 14th of December before making the last push across the desert into Mali and Bamako.

Soon enough I'll post some pictures of the sights we've seen along the way... there have been some spectacular ones.

Peace and light

The Solar Fire Project is officially launched!

The past month has been wild and busy, but after many sleepless nights and the launch of www.solarfireproject.com the SFP is now official. I am now confident that I can head to Mali and the project will have a stable platform from which to operate. "Leave to Mali??" you say?

Yes. After a long, convoluted and awesome series of events and adventures, I came into contact with a French NGO called SOS Enfants d'Afrique who plan to convoy their way to Mali to bring medicine, books, hospital beds and solar box cookers to Bamako, Mali. When I presented them with Solar Fire they were impressed and invited me to join them.

What could I say? For years I've been dreaming of going to Africa with my grandfather's invention to see what kind of impact it might have in areas suffering from dirty water, deforestation and energy scarcity. The reason I resisted is I have no experience, contacts or logistical capacities there. The people I've met who are taking part in this mission have all changed that.

When we get to Mali there will be NGOs, local organizations and government officials waiting for us. I'll present the case for Solar Fire with the hopes of initiating a shift to solar energy. In Mali, where fuelwood as a percentage of energy consumption is over 90%, and desertification is running wild, I think we'll have a warm reception.

I also think it's going to be a hell of a ride. I've created this blog to give the SFP a human element, and keep the situation reports current. The sitreps might be few and far between, but they should be intense.

Planned departure is 27Nov 07, but there is a lot of work to do before then. Stay tuned for a post introducing my fellow travelers.

peace love hope