retired engineer, former sailor, off grid, gamer, in Puerto Rico. Moderating a little bit.

  • 4 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • There is a new process for treating wastewater sludge that destroys the microfibers, so that is good news at least. I think it may be expensive, of course. It is called “hydrothermal carbonization”. Basically put the sludge in a giant pressure-cooker and the heat breaks the plastics into carbon and some water-soluble residual molecules which can go back to the start of the wastewater treatment plant to be biodegraded. But like others say, the main source in general is tires - not sure if they know whether tire microplastics are the main source in agricultural land though.


  • From the immortal Journal of Irreproducible Results, “The Data Enrichment Method”: “. . .its principal shortcoming is that before the enrichment process can be started, some data must be collected. It is quite true that a great deal is done with very little information, but this should not blind one to the fact that the method still embodies the ‘raw-data flaw’. The ultimate objective, complete freedom from the inconvenience and embarrassment of experimental results, still lies unattained before us.”










  • Engineers describe heat transfer with a “heat transfer coefficient”, and the rate of heat transfer is this coefficient multiplied by the temperature difference. So you can calculate what the heat transfer coefficient must be by measuring room air temperature initially, water temperature initially, and then running your system for a little while and measuring the room temperature again. The smaller room area you can cool the more accurate this will be. You will need to look up heat capacity and density of air (easy to find), and the temperature change of the air with the volume of the room and the temperature change will together give you an amount of heat you removed from the air to the water. Simple!





  • In view of comments about restoration of deleted data, I had a look at the user agreement for NON EEU and it says "When Your Content is created with or submitted to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display Your Content and any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with Your Content in all media formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license includes the right for us to make Your Content available for syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Reddit. You also agree that we may remove metadata associated with Your Content, and you irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to Your Content. tldr; they do not have to honor content deletion in the US. But I feel better that I deleted it, maybe it will be a little bit of pain to restore it. I will go back occasionally and re-delete if neeeded.



  • I built it to fit some glass that was about the right size, so not really a design others would emulate precisely. But a standard sheet of galvanized sheet metal is about three feet by six feet, so four 10-foot boards will nicely make the “box”. I used 1x2 for the corner bracings (just glued and screwed), window frames, and dryer trays. I had made an earlier version with a sheet of translucent corrugated roofing for the lid, and that heated up quite well, too. The legs were just some scrap - I think the angle of the box should be around 45 to achieve some natural convection and good mid-day sun collection area. But it could vary with one’s latitude I suppose - in a more northern clime (I’m at 20N), a more vertical “cabinet” might work - the dryer trays would be shallower, but convection would be better. I am not sure the vent stack makes any difference.




  • I guess, but cannot tell for sure; I did not rotate the pic from the time I took it until I posted. One can “preview” a post, but once you click preview you cannot back up to make edits (at least with my configuration - Firefox on Ubuntu Linux) - browser back button does not work. A mystery!


  • yes, a vent stack; it helps air flow. There are three two-inch (5cm) holes at the bottom end to admit air. An earlier iteration of this design had screens over the holes to keep critters out, but it turned out to not be an issue so we have not screened the holes on this unit.

    We saw a design for a solar dryer popular with Peace Corps volunteers - a heat-collector box with a small dryer compartment on top and three little trays in a stack. But I thought, why not put the dryer trays right inside the heat collector? I just checked the temperature and with partly-cloudy skies, it is 50C in the box.