Mike said:

> I once saw an article in an old gleanings about
> a solar melter that rotated during the day...

Wow, that's getting fancy.  Next thing you know,
someone will rig up a focused parabolic melter,
and not only vaporize wax in seconds, but cause
the frames to burst into flame!  :)

Seriously, if anyone is not getting adequate performance
out of their solar wax melter, there are a few tricks
of the trade that can help.  I've designed and built
several "solar enhanced" houses, so I've done the math
more than once:

1)  DOUBLE GLAZING
    Double glazing with a thin "dead air" layer
    between can really help, as most of the heat
    loss will be radiated through the glass.
    Sometimes one can find existing double-gazed
    window panes in metal frames, and they are
    worth the kludging required to adapt them to
    your melter.

2)  ADD THERMAL MASS
    Get some bricks, paint 'em black, put them
    in the chamber.  They will get hot, and
    radiate heat, keeping the temperature higher
    for longer.

3)  CLEAN THE GLASS
    I'm not kidding here.  Squeaky clean glass
    is important to getting a nice hot chamber.

4)  ADD MORE INSULATION
    Can't hurt.  Just wrap the chamber in some
    insulation batts.  Extra credit for cutting
    a larger box from the Styrofoam sheet material,
    and gluing it to the surfaces of the box.

5)  "SILVER" PAINT ON THE INSIDE OF THE BOX
    Assuming that the sides of the box have little
    thermal mass themselves, you want to reflect
    the light around inside the box and get more of
    it to hit (and warm) the combs.  This may be
    the most marginal of the improvements one can
    make.

6)  PARABOLICS
    Never tried this with a solar wax melter, but
    I did cover a 3-meter satellite dish with reflective
    Mylar and melted aluminum cans at the focus to
    make some castings once.  Parabolics are scary, and
    can generate temperatures that, even when off-focus,
    require one to wear welder's gloves and goggles.
    A "trough" type parabolic might be safer for melting
    wax.  You could fabricate one from roof flashing, but
    it would take some math and woodworking skills.  The
    good news is that even a lousy parabolic will generate
    very impressive heat with very little sun.  But don't
    blame me if you blind yourself and/or get nasty burns.
    You have been warned - parabolics are "weapons grade"
    solar collectors.

7)  TRACK RACKS
    Get an old satellite dish actuator (from the old days
    when one pointed a C-band dish at different birds), and
    hook up a 555 timer and a relay to "kick" the dish every
    few minutes to track the sun (they run on 12 Volts DC, so
    a car battery or a lawn light transformer can be used).
    Manually adjust the height for the season with an "elevation"
    bolt.  Adjust the "return" microswitch in the actuator to
    reverse the direction of movement during the night, so that
    the dish ends up pointing back towards dawn at dawn.
    This is clearly silly overkill, but who am I to limit your
    aspirations?

                jim (Hive yourself a happy Thanksgiving!)

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