Tech

• Solar Fire is a place to develop solar concentrators and applications in Open Source.
• Most R&D has been accomplished through self finance.
• Today, we are concentrating our efforts on diffusing the collective oven the (Helios) and the steam machine the (SFP32).
• You can build these models, buy them or produce them.
• You can also contribute ideas and developments to the site and join the network.

The Solar Fire Technology is at heart a very simple way to concentrate solar energy: Mirrors on a square frame pointed at a focal point. Each mirror can be bent to concentrate even more.

Design criteria:

• As powerful as a fire
• As accessible as a fire
• As little maintenance as a fire
• As cheap as a fire
• Local available materials
• No dependence on specialized skill or tools

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler” – Einstein

Construction guides

Prometheus Design System

The Prometheus System explains how the solar fire technique can be designed from scratch.

The tutorial is based on the the construction of the Solar Fire P9 (9 square meters of mirrors). With the Open Source Solar Fire Calculator and Simulator programs the dimensions for other scales and designs can be easily recalculated. The prototype was measured at 210 PSI (13 bar) - for semi industrial purposes.

The Prometheus System extrapolates the Prometheus design to any scale.

Th Prometheus System Calculator takes care of hundreds of calculations for you in spread sheet.

The Solar Fire P32 (P for Prometheus) is a larger scale version that can provide this pressure and heat continuously for small engines and thermal processes.

Download

Click to download the Prometheus System Calculator v1.0.4
The README of the program is found on the following page.

To visualize the principles, please look at the short films.

Feel free to build, and let us know what you use it for and what improvements you find or imagine.

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