The homemade dish!

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buzwad
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The homemade dish!

Post by buzwad »

Hello Feedhunters!

I thought I'd share my progress with you in developing a homemade satellite dish....

I've started by trying to make a copy of my 65cm FortecStar dish, using tin foil (aluminium foil) and varnish... at least in phase 1!

Here's some pictures of the development - I will post later on how well this foil cover/foil dish compares to the "normal" 65cm dish.

2 sheets of foil and some varnish:
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A picture of the dish, with the camera looking through the LNB holder
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A side-shot of the dish, showing the reflection of the LNB arm
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Ionising hair dryer to help dry the varnish
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A new coat of "fast drying" varnish
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Please change the #sat-benelux chat room on to a server that doesn't crash my router! :-p
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buzwad
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Posts: 178
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:10 pm
satellite: 80cm/SM3D12 motor (45e - 43w)/Eagle (DM500)
1.1m Triax/SG2100 motor (57e-58w)/TM 5200 blindscanner
Location: United Kingdom

Re: The homemade dish!

Post by buzwad »

So I got desperate to try the foil covered dish for power/reflectivity....but due to bad weather, this had to be done from indoors, through a double-glazed window:
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I tried the 65cm dish with and without the foil, which produced the same maximum signal..... 54% (but this was behind a closed double-glazed window!):

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It seems that two layers of foil with varnish in between is not strong enough to maintain the precise parabolic shape when I took it off the steel dish.

Next step.... fibreglass over the foil!
Please change the #sat-benelux chat room on to a server that doesn't crash my router! :-p
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buzwad
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Posts: 178
Joined: Mon Dec 27, 2004 7:10 pm
satellite: 80cm/SM3D12 motor (45e - 43w)/Eagle (DM500)
1.1m Triax/SG2100 motor (57e-58w)/TM 5200 blindscanner
Location: United Kingdom

Re: The homemade dish!

Post by buzwad »

It was a slightly sunny day here in south-eastern England today so while the foil was on the dish, I tested the heating power of the solar oven!

Step 1 was to dry the washing:
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But that wasn't good enough, I wanted to know how hot things were getting at the focus.... so the handy (but probably inaccurate) fridge thermometer was used:

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It was originally showing a temperature of 17 C in the kitchen.. but what about at the place where the LNB should be?

Health warning: if you try this, wear sunglasses as things get very bright, and do not put your head in the way of the reflected light!

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And after 1 minute, the maxiumum reading had been reached, 50 C:
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But then this probably was a terrible way of measuring the temperature/power of the dish, so I thought it would be a more traditional test to try and make a cup of tea using the energy!

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By this point, the thermometer was no longer capable of measuring temperature... this was cold water from the tap that was reading 20 C... who cares anyway, can it make a cup of tea????

I picked the darkest mug I could to get the most energy absorbed and put cling film over the top to enclose any heat...
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All was going well until the clouds came back :-/ So I'll have to get my tea from the kettle for now...but the water had heated up, but probably in the region of 5-10C in 40minutes... if only we had sunshine!
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Please change the #sat-benelux chat room on to a server that doesn't crash my router! :-p
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