My emphasis has always been on simplicity in my projects

[Brian in Victoria BC]

How did you find PF?

I found PF on the physics.org website

I made the "pulser pump" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulser_pump (Specifically to pump water from a small stream to water my garden without any effort.) Following that, I emigrated from Ireland to Canada, and did some work on very low pressure airlift pumps. I currently use air at about 1 meter water pressure to drive airlift pumps that circulate water in my greenhouses, and raised bed planters. I have found that the combination of airlift pump and "boar scare" works best to distribute water and keep the plants happy.

I have also developed different reflector shapes for solar cooking and I have made solar tracking devices for solar panels and for solar cookers.

The emphasis has always been on simplicity. My current project is a compressed air "timer" that controls an airlift pumped solar tracker for a solar panel. It is on "equatorial mount" and it is working really well. I hope others take a mechatronic approach and develop it further.

I have my own certain set of skills, and I believe that parts of my working proof of concept can be replaced with an electronic equivalent and it will work well for a different set of "makers" with different skills. The photo is my proof of concept, The outside stuff is entirely mechanical, there are no electronic parts outside in the weather and the part that makes the slowly increasing air pressure is in a shed. The shed part consists of a low pressure pond air pump, a slow synchronous motor and a programable timer, and a float in a pipe.

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PF, Brian. It looks like you will enjoy our DIY forum!

 

[DeBangis21]

Welcome to PF.

 

[Brian in Victoria BC]

Alongside the solar panel, I have a solar cooker. And over the summer, I was solar cooking soil (7 liters soil with 1.5 ish liters of water. Simmering in the solar cooker all day. I was planning to fill a planter with it and grow lettuce. But, I ran out of solar cooked soil half way, and used ordinary soil for the rest (with weed seeds in it). I transplanted lettuce and waited to see the difference. I expected a slight difference but it was big. The solar cooked soil grew lettuce significantly faster. They are also greener. Solar cooked on the right and ordinary lettuce on the left. I weighed some yesterday after about 35 days growing and the solar cooked is just over 20% heavier than the lettuce in uncooked soil. (I hoped for 5% improvement so I am very happy!) It might be a good experiment to try in the wider community? My soil is a heavy clay that can get rock hard in summer and very sticky in winter. The weather here is usually hot dry summers and mild wet winters. A "soil association" (an organic gardeners group) in the UK does not recommend steaming soil because it is too energy intensive. But maybe solar cooking can get a pass because it is "free" energy?