This is part of an architectural project by Nadim, who’s studying architecture in Sweden, to design an ecological house. Here we have bit of an idea of what a Prometheus would look like on the roof.

Here are some useful photos to understand the mirror construction process of the Helios. This is the "Spider" glued to the back of each mirror, on the ends of each spider leg is a tiny bolt which will bend the mirror (3mm can tolerate enough bending and still be strong enough not to break) into a concave shape.

In 2009 Shalin, using the Batant guide, did some training in Kenya. The craftsmen that worked on it adapted it more for Kenya, arranging things in a circle as well as developing some great ideas for the mirror assembly (simply bending some tin).

Currently we hear the concentrator is being used to dry fish. We will try to follow these great developments in the time to come.

This will document the construction of a Helios in Lytton Springs, Texas (just a bit less than 30 degrees N. Latitude). Since the first construction article for the Helios was written in French, I ran the article through a translation program, saved it, and printed it so I could convert the measurements for materials into American units of thicknesses, widths, and lengths that I could purchase at a local steel supply yard. (Discount Door and Metal L.L.C 2 at 1083 Highway 71 West, in Bastrop, Texas 78602) Then, I obtained a printed price list from them, and made a list of what I wanted, and hooked up my 12 foot long cattle trailer to my diesel truck and drove the 20 miles to the supply yard. Loading the 24 feet long 11 gauge (heavy duty) square tubing into the 12 foot trailer left me with a good bit angled up into the air over the bed of the truck. With luck, I managed to clear all the low hanging power and telephone lines on the way home. The first photo shows the material and prices I picked up on that trip. Then using the pictorial Helios construction plans put together by Marie Testud (GUIDE DE CONSTRUCTION FOUR HELIOS) I began using a hacksaw and a 14" metal chop saw to cut metal. To cut the 3" wide 1/8" thick material that the 12" mirror tiles are glued to, I used the chop saw to cut two at once. Put them on edge, measure carefully (These need to be square 3" by 3") and lower the grinding disk. Works great! Then clean up the edges on the bench grinder. The smaller pieces for the spider were cut in a bench vise using some old hacksaws, mostly to save on material, because the chop saw takes at least 1/8" of material for each cut. However, the chop saw does cut at pretty close to 90 degrees each time.

Download

Click to download the Prometheus System Calculator v1.0.4
For maximum access, the program is written to work in Open Office Spread Sheet (Calc) (though many other spread sheet programs can read the format as well).

---

Read Me

SOLAR CONCENTRATOR MODEL RAVIRAJ - 324 SPECIFICATIONS: (1) Entire concentrator rests on central single vertical pillar and revolves around vertical axis. Vertical pillar should be preferably RCC column having foundation in the ground. Height of the pillar may be about 1.5 mt. Any RCC column of the existing building protruding on the flat horizontal roof of the building can serve the best purpose. (2) Main beam supporting the entire concentrator is 6 mt long and centrally supported (...)

Here are the characteristics of the machine; 1. The Prometheus 100 (or "Ravi Raj 100") consists of 100 reflectors arranged in 10 straight rows with 10 reflectors each. 2. Each reflector has size of 30 cm x 30 cm, so total reflection area of 100 reflectors is 9 sq. meters. 3. Each reflector has 9 glass mirrors of 10 cm x 10 cm which are simply glued together on a very cheap plaster of Paris mold. 4. All 100 reflectors can be focused by a simple manual tracking device: all rows controlled by (...)

Our Second day of experimentation we went up to 210 PSI (14.5 Bar), even with some joints leaking. Without leaky pipes we hope to achieve such pressure in less than 2 hours. But still, not bad for a prototype. There is not such great quantity of steam, as our boiler is fairly small, but the principle is proven. This result of 210 PSI shows us that 4 or 5 units will be able to sustain 150 PSI continuous, for a small steam engine or other heat applications. We can also use thermic oil to (...)

Or Ravi Raj... is over! Total weight 200 Kg, including 100 reflectors (600 grams each). We are at 110 Psi, 7.5 bar, and and our steam is at 167 degrees C. Here we see the water excess. Wood test... everything works. We have about 5 Kilowatts at focal point (with 100 perfect reflectors we could reach 6 KW). Temperature at focal point 470 degrees C at noon (we can reach easilly 1000 degrees C with more precision in construction... it’s a very first prototype (...)