Introduction
The solar design t-square is a simple physical device that models the sun passing over a new solar reflector design. Using clay and "stop motion" changes to little mirrors, I made successful models and a full size Clam shaped reflector for 2 hours of unattended solar cooking. At full power!
I believe it could be used to design better panel cookers than any that exist today in about 4 hours.
So you could have reflectors designed specifically for 1 hour unattended cooking, 1.5 hours or 2 hours, depending on what is needed.
I used cheap laser pointers in my first solar design t-square but I do not recommend this. The barrel of the pointers are NOT in line with the laser. so it is very fiddley to get them right. Use a small laser level instead.
I designed models first and then scaled them up. Perhaps now that we know the rough shape, you could try make a full size reflector in one go.
Many solar designers limit themselves by deciding that the light must only bounce once before it hits the cooking pot. This, I believe is why cookits are so small. But if a secondary reflector allows you to gain 20 percent or 30% more reflective area with 2 bounces of light on that area why would you not do it???
The following diagram shows (I hope) why secondary reflectors are needed.It is certainly not perfect but I think it shows the reasoning.
Brian
Clam shaped models and video
- This is indented text. See Show preview, to see what this looks like.
I used my first full sized clam shaped dish to cook potatoes in February in Victoria Canada
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz0Jo4CQyJ8