Brilliant Rob Bless Up

The craziest thing is last night I was laying in bed looking at these glow in the dark space paintings made and this idea just kept me awake. I thought that if we could take the excess light from the sun in the day time and store it in a fluorescent backing we could save that energy for night use. So during the day we use what we can absorb but at night we can reclaim some of the losses. Then I see your video. Lol I am loving it.

Yet another excellent video and subject matter. Something to keep in mind is that when using magnifiers, (frenal lens, mirrowes, etc.) the life of the solar cell / panel will be shortened. Example.. a typical high quality mono crystal panel may last 20 years and still put out 85 % of its rated when new wattage . Lets say you triple the sun intensity striking the cells , it will create more heat, and also shorten the life by other means. This is just an example . Watch the temperature of cells and it may help ... Use heat to make hot water... etc.. Happy Experimenting.

Loved the video. Has anyone thought about gelatines ability to be moulded into shapes. You said that the light guide has pyramids moulded into one side. How about moulding the gelatine onto this creating a surface covered in mini pyramids. You also showed a diagram using a surface of mini lenses to track the suns movement. Perhaps a surface could be found to replicate this. If. It works with jelly why not make a more permanent sheet using a clear resin wired with the dye. If anyone has a play please let me know. Unfort7nately I am unable to experiment but can still think up ideas. Steve

Robert you have done it again thumbs up

Well Robert my 3D printing genius, I’d happily send you a roll of glow filament if you can advise me of the brand/type. It’s the least I can do to say thank you for my new most favourite video.

How about small glass pyramids but tru 8 sided with fluorescence film or simply color glass with marker. Just my 2 bit thought. Thanks for being the awesome person you are.

Very interesting....!!! Sure, I would like to improve my solar panels, especially winter time...Thank you Robert

For the LED light guide, if you hold it up to a sunny window with solar panels on the top and bottom edge, you can scavenge energy without blocking the window - nice.

My imagination flared for a moment at the beginning of this video as Robert said that we collect all this energy and Ship it ... At that point I had a brief picture in my mind of semi-trucks hauling shipping container sized batteries all in lines getting charged at massive solar-panel fields and driving off to deliver them to neighborhoods around the nation.

World domination.... indeed!🤓

One thing I say to people, if you can fit solar yourself and put it on Garage roofs etc, where they are low to the ground and easy to fit, clean and maintain. Providing you have the land and buildings with uninterrupted light of course.

Such fun and interesting adventures in engineering. You're Awesome 😎 Thank You 🤝

Very interesting. Finding even a limited tracking ability without any mechanical additions would definitely be a huge improvement. There will definitely be shading issues and other downsides, but as you say about the fluorescents, you might get some of these problems mitigated. I will watch with considerable interest.

Robert you’ve produced another fine video. This video answers the question I posed to you on the past video you did. Question What if you used Water Glass instead of the Gelatin? You could spray this onto a Silicone Mold and build up the thickness desired, in any sharp you wanted. Wouldn’t this be a better solution than Gelatin? I look forwards to the next video series on this beautiful development. Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge with me.😊

Great Viideo and mor excellent original thinking. I particluarly like you idea for a lateral collector pike the prism concept. The problem I see is that low angle to the sun collection on a panel is primarily geometric. The actual effective collection area is the area perdendicular the the sun's rays. For a single collector and a single prism (or other projection) the prism height would control how much more light would be collected. The next downlight panel would could not be placed any closer downlight than the shadow of its uplight neighbor. The problem: shallow height prism (et al) collectors equal small improvement but closer spaced "next" collector: large height (et al) collectors big improvement but far apart "next" collector. Perhaps some benefit by angling the array , but no more than by angling a flat panel to better match the suns transit angles. Jimmy Johnson

..a Man in a shed Saving the World.

I think standard silicon solar cells are optimised for IR so the idea of 'stealing' non-visible UV, fluorescing to IR & guiding IR whilst keeping a clear panel sounds appealing. If liquid crystals can reorientate different parts of the spectrum maybe tinting the window could also generate. Vertical orientation or prisms will align generation better with (domestic) consumption and the reduce the storage required, even if we're not offsetting with fluorescence.

Yes! Now make it phosphorescent also and it should give a voltage at night also. Definitely something to experiment further with. Really cool bright 💡 idea

It seems you could start with a small cell from a garden light. This allows you to keep the control small and keeps the waste material of the proto typing to a min. Maybe set up a rig so you can have some real measurable data to graph along the way.

That was awesome! Gonna have to watch that again.

The ideal situation would be to perfect LEDs until they could collect as much light energy as they can emit. I have read, some 18 years ago, that there was a Japanese group who was researching this idea. No idea how successful they were, but apparently the newer, more modern LED types might be very viable for this accumulated directed light harvesting, WHILE, at the very same time, making the side of a building economically feasible, as billboard advertising. Along with fluorescence, [as you mentioned, converting both higher, and lower frequencies into visible light] these could be phenomenal ways to collect the raw heat of a city environment [especially in the desert southwest of the USA] you COULD, in theory, actually convert ambient heat into electrical energy, effectively cooling the surroundings, while at the same time, powering air conditioning, at those peak times when it is needed the most, AND THEN... Take all the exhausted heat from the air conditioning system and RE-convert THAT heat back into electrical energy! (~_^)-b

I really love this. I have a huge tub of gelatine that has been knocking about for years it has just found its purpose in life. Your channel is pure inspiration, thank you so much. Fisrt try will be semicircular easy to mould.

Paint the white reflector material or Mylar in a fluorescent material that will reflect light the cells can use with the light guide? Use pyramid shapes or three dimensional triangles instead of prisms? And maybe use a dye in a moldable uv resin with a printer device?

Another awesome video and something interesting to do with some old monitors! If the collector can be bent it could have two edges focused on a single PV strip. That provides an air channel.... going to have some fun thinking about this. EMP in Seattle has a shiny irregular surface and they had to pay for quite a few melted car parts in the first few years. It's cloudy in London too - do you think the architects just forgot what it was like to see the sun? 😂

A curved surface High-rise would be a nice way to concentrate light onto a steam generator that creates electricity for the building, wouldn't it?

you can get clear resin for 3d printer and some flourescent piigment and simply print prisms. maybe instead gelatin you could try dissolve inside of the marker in acetone, since its made from same stuf as cigarete buds, an they disolve in acetone like nothing. although it could be to cloudy when aceton evaporates

rob that old light fitting put the gell on the under neath yhe light guide to reflect from the back .

My thoughts on the lightguide ( which follow on from what I'd posted on main channel vid 2198 ) is to do with the max limit of a solar panel output. It's not something that'd show up in low level lighting comparison but outdoor, under a midday Sun, is probably another matter. At testing concept scale ( a few inches ) and indoors you're probably in a nearly linear area of it's operating range and extrapolating possibilities, from that data, would probably be somewhat misleading, eg covering a whole house roof in a single 1cm thick wave guide isn't going to give anything in the multi Kw range because of the solar panel area limitations. However covering it in 10cm square tiles probably could. Hence my questioning what length of lightguide would max out the solar panel when done mounted perpendicular to the solar cell ( especially if adding a fluorescent ) eg if it's only 30cm that effectively limits the size of panel that you get an increase from. Taking an extreme example ( mainly as the figures are so easy and require no real thought ) a 1Km long lightguide is not going to give a 1000 times the output of a 1m light guide using a 10W panel. Length of lightguide would fall under that category of diminishing returns when a solar panel's area becomes the limiting factor, that area is itself limited to the perimeter and thickness of the lightguide Hence my thoughts on cutting the edges of a guide non perpendicular, effectively allowing for a larger solar panel and so a larger gathering area before maxing out. eg a 45 degree cut would increase the available solar panel area from Y to 1.4 times Y as it's a right angle triangle we're looking at there. I mostly see the lightguides and fluorescents as tools to try to keep the panels in a higher output range when not in max levels of Sun exposure, which is most of the day for most people's practical purposes.

very cool. thank you

This is genius. Perhaps your most interesting topic yet. Looking forward to your next update :)

I would TOTALLY LOVE to get a fluorescent dye that converts heat into electricity! When it gets hot where I live, it can be as much as 45C and being able to convert that into electricity would help me to keep my house and my shop cool! (~_^)-b

hey why not put mirrors on the edges of the acrylic sheet :P or use optical fiber. Nice topic btw

Polyacrylamide might be a good material to make something like this...

I vote for you as world dominator 😂

Next step : turn the fluorescent gel into an aerogel!🎉

now that u know how to melt glass into a microweave kiln u can make a prism glass triangle prism so u can ise in that solar or maybe can do a lens made of glass also with fluorescent color

Our whole family loves your videos, very informative, and mind teasers, and the way you present, you make these fun for ALL. Thank you, and please keep up the great fun :)

So going over a solar panel with a fluorescent sharpie should be an even simpler way to experiment 🙂

Ok so next is the light battery where we store light as light and then release it when needed and not as electricity so the efficiency will be 100%.

Try flurescine drain tracing dye.

Now I'm wondering how densely you can or should pack the fluorescent more densely, less densely, whether there's a cheap sufficiently transparent epoxy, how well the dye would work if painted onto thin glass . . . .

Awesome!

Question: why are people not farming under the solar panels. Seems it would be ideal for partial shade loving plants

Couldn't he use the LCD screen as a mold? To get the jelly into a prism?

@TnTOmnibus Fascinating video as usual Rob, thank you. I was wondering if you've done a video on something like your Best Things to Salvage/Recycle ?

Love the new channel

How about solar tracking with wax motors?

fluorescent resin? my other half got a kit and a load of prisms and dome moulds came with it.

Resin+fluorescent powder+mold?

Not flourescent but fluorescent. Nothing floury here in your explanations.