Category: Solar Cooking
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PV2L-MG: My Low Voltage DC Residential Micro Grid Goes Live! Direct Solar Photovoltaic
It’s live! After several years of testing and research, then a long and grueling move to the countryside, I installed the first Low Voltage DC wall outlets in my house. A full length multi-episode video documentary is in production to document the system. Within hours these outlets were powering up one of my DC cooktops,…
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Video: PV-to-Wall – Direct DC Solar Power – Direct Drive Solar
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How Many SOLAR Watt-Hours does it take to cook? (Documented Experiment plus Video)
Kitchen-Grade 12 Volt Cooking Appliances are an untapped industry in my opinion. There is a pressing need all over the world for simple, durable and affordable 12v cooking appliances, but most of the ones available are not designed for the rigors of daily use. After years of searching for alternatives, I could not really find…
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Insulated Solar Electric Cooker – simple DIY! affordable off the shelf option plus video
An insulated solar electric cooker, sometimes referred to as “ISEC” is an insulated container that takes a direct solar panel input to cook food. These appliances are generally a DIY project and not something available off the shelf. A good example is my small solar electric cooker which I used to boil an egg with…
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Pure 12V Off Grid Cooking With a 200AH LiFePo4 Battery! Article and video
A larger 12v lithium ion battery offers a renewable energy source for cooking. In fact, such a good sized battery can replace the fuel tank typically used for cooking in some scenarios. Recently I received a sample of Power Queen’s 200ah deep cycle LiFePo4 battery. I put it to the test by simultaneously operating three…
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12V Toaster Oven! Build your own for about $25 DIY / HOW TO Video
12 volt toaster ovens should be very cheap and readily available – the world needs them. I’ve been working on a 12v DIY volt toaster oven prototype project for over a year in the solar workshop. Wouldn’t it be great if the DIY solar power enthusiast could build a portable 12 volt toaster oven in…
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Direct Solar Electric Cooking vs. traditional methods – A Grid Down Scenario
It’s happened, The Grid Is Down. Roads are closed. No gas stations are open. Nothing works. Electrical power and communications are gone. Chaos is slowly breaking out. But the Off Gridder feels fairly secure; solar panels on the roof, 20kw of batteries, a wondrous integrated inverter with bluetooth, MPPT charger all crammed into one giant…
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My 12 Volt Hotplate Cooktop Prototype – Cooking without an inverter
This project has the goal of the total conversion of a portable kitchen cooktop / hot plate to pure 12 volts DC operation – NO inverter! Second is to show and demonstrate that such an appliance should exist. I believe this type of 12 volt appliance should be common and affordable. With a 12 volt…
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20 Watt Solar Panel Boils an Egg! My ultra efficient solar electric cooker prototype (Video Added)
Cooking food with only 10 watts of solar power sounds unattainable – but it’s not. This was recently proved in my solar workshop. I used a combination of an insulated food container with a diode chain solid state heating element to efficiently extract heat from a solar panel. The result is an ultra efficient mini…
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Tiny 12V LiFePo4 Lithium Solar Powered Kitchen Setup – Emergency Preparedness Test
Cooking food from smaller solar power systems has always been one of my key interests. High tech survival and emergency preparedness too. But cooking with standard kitchen appliances often seems out of reach due to the high power draw required. And many people do not have large batteries and inverters to do the task. The…
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Solar PV Solid-State heating elements (Diode Strings) explained
This post is mainly to address the lack of understanding about solar powered (PV-to-Load) solid-state heating elements – also called a diode string or chain. The Part 2 video presentation and this blog post should help fill in the blanks. The video itself is also posted here on this page. Watching Part 1 is also…
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Boiling Diodes: a more efficient way to heat water and cook food using Solar Power
Why Solid State Solar Electric Heating Elements Matter Update: further research has been conducted into this topic, and it has been very fruitful. Videos showing some of the latest results are posted on this page. While continuing my research into solid-state solar electric PV-to-Load heating elements, I decided to try heating and if possible boiling…
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Solid State Solar Electric Heating Elements
Background Update: further research has been conducted into this topic, and it has been very fruitful. Videos showing some of the latest results are posted on this page. I’ve spent a lot of time working with resistance style heating elements to extract heat from solar panel arrays. Uses include space heating, cooking food and heating…
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Boiling an Egg with a 100 Watt Solar Panel – Simple Solar Electric Cooking
What can a 100 Watt solar panel actually do? Well, it can boil an egg pretty easily. There are a lot of complicated and expensive ways to cook off of solar. But this is not one of them. One of my favorite ways to use a small solar panel to cook is to simply plug…
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My Portable 18V job site oven project – working prototype
In this article I am presenting a very special and unique DIY prototype project. There is also a video presentation if you prefer, posted below. For years, I believed the need for flexible, multi-voltage mobile small-scale DC cooking appliances would dramatically increase over the next few years; and that there should be more choices on…
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My Portable Solar Electric Toaster Oven prototype – cooking without batteries!
Hi folks, hope you’re doing well. In what is possibly a first, I am unveiling a new prototype invention – a mini PV solar electric toaster oven. It is lightweight, portable and I think would be fairly cheap to produce. It easily bakes or roasts bread, meat, vegetables and whatever else – all day using…
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18V tool battery bakes bread! My Mini Oven prototype part 2
Is it possible to bake bread using an 18V Power Tool Battery? Recently, I set out to answer this question. In the back yard I set up a table and connected my mini solar electric PV2L oven to a Ryobi 18V power tool battery with alligator clips. After a few adjustments and a short wait,…
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My Mini 100 Watt solar electric oven prototype – Simple Solar Cooking!
Can a single 100 Watt 12V solar panel supply enough power to cook or bake food by itself? I’ve been thinking about this question for years. A simple portable electric oven that operates off of such a small amount of power could change everything. Finally, after a long wait, the opportunity came to test the…
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