Recycled Plastic Lumber
Not really a new idea. However making it @Home may be.
Well I started here Melting Bottle Plastic. Which then gave me a general idea of what plastics we might be working with and what the melting temps were.
I then explored a bit more and eventually found some info: File on RPL Industry costs etc...
Also: General Guide of All Things RPL
From here it's really only a question of using the same techniques they do for installing a pool liner to injection mold a beam out of a homogenous mixture. Then maybe glossing will take place… Depends on preference and whether or not we use fiberglass.
*Most likely we will use about 20% wood fiber/cotton in the form of shredded jeans and cardboard.
*After that I have the form and pump ready to go.
*Need to buy some CO2.
*Also found a good price on silicon sheeting with rating up to 500+ degrees Fahrenheit.
*Need a heat source. we're going for around 300 degrees here! Accurately!
Ok so wind power is another big thing we're all looking into.
Did some estimation work with 10kwh in mind. Pre-made solutions are as follows:
* 1 X Wind Turbine = $600 X 40 Units = $24,000 to get an average 10kwh @ 1kw per $2,400
Which aint bad considering the cheapest Solar setup I can find is: 1kw per $4,000
The other drawback being you can only generate energy during the day. So you need to store as much as possible. Wind might require less storage.
Though I would like to have a large backup capacity ready for those midnight 40kwh energy usages. (you never know with innovative people)
As Far as making our own. It is very possible:
ebay: 450 Watt DC motor
ebay: 640watt DC Motor
++DESIGN:
Should be pretty easy to fabricate props and a standoff.
Just some links of resources for now…
Here is a rough calc for general hydro production:
Average rainfall in Rhode Island 3.5 inches per month which = 2.185 gal/ft^2
Assuming 10 acres of land (435,600 ft^2 * 2.185) = 951,786 gallons per month
Total cubic feet of water equals 126,905 ft^3 of water available assuming no losses.
1 ft^3 per second roughly equals 1kw using a simple hydro setup.
360 ft^3 will get you 1kwh
126,905 ft^3 / 360 ft^3 = 352.5 kwh per month
Averaging 11kwh per day generously without figuring for losses.
So you buy some rolls of aluminum foil and some cling wrap. Lay down one layer foil, one layer wrap, one layer foil, one layer wrap. Leave the foil hanging out of opposite ends for electrodes, roll it up and see what happens!
The point is, energy storage is needed. You've got batteries, but they only last a few years. Compressed air tanks, raised water tanks, and flywheels are the only other things that can store energy for a rainy day that I can think of.
Expected results:
[http://www.machinist-materials.com/comparison_table_for_plastics.htm]
[http://www.azom.com/details.asp?ArticleID=2004]
[http://www.glad.com/faqs/plasticwrap.php]
Glad Cling Wrap LDPE (low density polyethylene) is about 0.5mils thick (0.0127mm). It has a dielectric strength of about 27Megavolts/meter, so we're looking at a max voltage of 343v. I'd stay a bit lower than that… Now its also got a dielectric constant of about 2.3.
Capacitance is calculated as C = (ε0)(k)(A)/(d). d is 0.0127mm. ε0 is universally 8.854*10^(-12). k is 2.3. Let's say every roll is about 0.3m wide. Let's say we found a roll that is 6m long. We've got 1.8 square meters of capacitor plate.
So two rolls of crappy foil should get us (8.854*10^(-12))(2.3)*(1.8)/0.0000127 farads, or 2.88 microfarads. That's… a tiny cap.
A car battery is typically 12v at 35Amp*hours. This is about 12*35*3600 Joules, or 1.5 MegaJoules. A capacitor holds C(V)(V)/2 Joules, or in our case (2.88micro)(12)(12)/(2) Joules = 208 microJoules.
So we'd need a capacitor of roughly 7.2 Trillion times this area to be a lame car battery. Right…
Say instead we put 120v into the cap (not 12v). This would store 100x the energy, but we'd still need 72 Million of them to store as much as a car battery.
Bad idea, yes, but I'm still not convinced. I'll make a mock up and see how it compares to the math.