Sunmaster focusing parabolic evacuated tubes

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Walter H Rose on January 28, 2011 at 5:13pm

Any information you can give me on the performance of focusing parabolic systems in Alaska would be fantastic!  We're thinking about doing a fairly ambitious project in Nome & don't want to reinvent the wheel. Please call me Monday if you get this message 907-443-4366 Walter Rose

Permalink Reply by joe durrenberger on March 15, 2012 at 8:38am

gary,

 

Did you get your system up and running?  How is it working for you?

I have a 7 panel array of sunmaster collectors I hope to bring back into service this summer.  I have found performance information to be hard to come by, however I do have some DOE reports with data from some testing that was done in 1979 and 1981.  What I have not found is any information about how they were intended to be operated.  My array was set up to run as a drainback system.  Is that what you ended up doing with yours?  It is not clear from my system where and how they measured the array temperature for input into the controls system.  How did you handle that?

 

I would be interested in more discussion on the details of your system and how it is working for you.

 

jd

Permalink Reply by Gary Newman on March 15, 2012 at 10:54am

Joe,

Not entirely set up with two issues. 

1. Had a couple of broken tubes and found only a couple of folks in upstate Maine with extras.   Sending them by UPS didn't work, came totally smashed despite intense packing efforts.   Subsequent, someone in Fairbanks found my plea after he acquired a number of Sunmaster panels from someone who got them at auction.   So I'll be working on getting them going this summer.

2. One of the panels has an insert into one of the evac. tubes for a temperature sensor.  I didn't know this and didn't have one of these panels.   There is one of them available per 1. above so am contemplating changing one of my panels out for this sensor tube equipped panel.    That being said, the sensors used these days are bigger than the ones used back then, so the sensor tube needs to be modified with a silver-solder larger receptacle for the newer style sensor.

My original system (using Solaroll) and how I anticipate the current system is not set up as an automatic drainback system, though I think that is a prevalent mode.   I just drained back my system each Oct. and started it up once I was confident in the mix of heat and glycol I I had in the system.   Of course, Solaroll, being an EPDM type of material, was much more tolerant of freezing than are the evacuated tubes.      I also used the RV style propylene glycol I've since been told is a bad idea.

I did purchase a new controller made by Caleffi instead of the pre-integrated circuit controller provided by Sunmaster back in the old days.

Maybe we can get together if you are in Fairbanks.  I'd be interested in seeing your system.

Permalink Reply by joe durrenberger on March 15, 2012 at 1:32pm

Gary,

 

I am in fairbanks, our place is on the south end of Chena Ridge.  The last tube in the last panel of our array is clear, not black and looks different from the others.  I have never figured out what that tube was for.  Maybe it is the sensor tube.  I don't know.  I guess I need to do a better job or tracing the sensor wires that go up to the array as I have never quite figured out where they go.  They just disappear into the insulation.

 

How did you make the connections on the supply and return manifolds between panels? Mine are connected with heater hose and hose clamps.  All the tubes are good in our system and when I did a wet pressure test two summers ago, the only leak I could find was in a 30 year old gate valve.

 

There is a guy who lives somewhere up the street beyond me that says he has all the panels from the Mary Siah building when they took that system apart.  I don't know if they were Sunmaster or something else, but that might be a possible source of spare parts.  Also, I have heard there were several systems similar to mine from the same era on houses off of Small Tracts Road, however when I went looking for them, I did not find them. 

 

jd

 

Gary Newman said:

Joe,

Not entirely set up with two issues. 

1. Had a couple of broken tubes and found only a couple of folks in upstate Maine with extras.   Sending them by UPS didn't work, came totally smashed despite intense packing efforts.   Subsequent, someone in Fairbanks found my plea after he acquired a number of Sunmaster panels from someone who got them at auction.   So I'll be working on getting them going this summer.

2. One of the panels has an insert into one of the evac. tubes for a temperature sensor.  I didn't know this and didn't have one of these panels.   There is one of them available per 1. above so am contemplating changing one of my panels out for this sensor tube equipped panel.    That being said, the sensors used these days are bigger than the ones used back then, so the sensor tube needs to be modified with a silver-solder larger receptacle for the newer style sensor.

My original system (using Solaroll) and how I anticipate the current system is not set up as an automatic drainback system, though I think that is a prevalent mode.   I just drained back my system each Oct. and started it up once I was confident in the mix of heat and glycol I I had in the system.   Of course, Solaroll, being an EPDM type of material, was much more tolerant of freezing than are the evacuated tubes.      I also used the RV style propylene glycol I've since been told is a bad idea.

I did purchase a new controller made by Caleffi instead of the pre-integrated circuit controller provided by Sunmaster back in the old days.

Maybe we can get together if you are in Fairbanks.  I'd be interested in seeing your system.

Permalink Reply by Gary Newman on March 15, 2012 at 3:26pm

Joe, how about dropping me an email gary@chena.org with your contact info and we can touch bases this weekend?   Cheers,   Gary