Testing F-Cubed Carocell 1000 solar distiller

I posted about the F-Cubed Carocell 1000 solar water distiller, that was given to me about 5 years ago:

http://bkhome.org/news/201904/fcubed-solar-water-distiller.html

It has been in the shed all that time, and only recently I got it out and  put it together. Today is the first test. Yesterday, I tested my home-made prototype #2 solar water distiller:

http://bkhome.org/news/201906/2nd-test-solar-water-distiller-prototype-2.html

I was expecting it to be overcast today, however, the rain has been delayed, and it is bright sunshine all day, just a few wispy clouds that came and went. So, an opportunity for more testing. Would like to test the two panels alongside each other, however, want to do some modifications to my prototype first. So, tested the Carocell on its own.

I set it up at 9.15am, Wednesday 19th June 2019, and allowed the water to disperse through the cloth until 9.25am when I connected the outlet bottle. As you can see strong sunshine:

At 9.25am, ambient was 11degC, front of the panel (about two inches above, measured with IR thermometer) was 34degC, back was 21degC. Blue sky, a few wispy clouds here and there.

At 10.30am ambient was 15degC, front 53degC, back 40degC. More wispy cloud in the sky, not in front of the sun though.

At 12.10pm, ambient 17degC, front 56degC, back 43degC. No cloud to be seen anywhere. measured irradiance: 870W/m2.

At 2.50pm, stopped the test, as shade from the patio had reached the panel.

Total collected distilled water: 3.10 litres.

The surface area of the cloth is 1.02m2. My prototype #2 is 0.466m2, so less than half. So, will need to take that into account when comparing. Much sunnier today than yesterday, but even so, my prototype has got some catching-up to do.

One thing that I want to improve is the water-dripping from the top pipe. The Carocell has a very nice design:

...it seems, that purple/pink pipe has holes in it, with some kind of black plastic thing sitting on top of each hole. There is a water-head of about 48cm, and water bubbled out from under that black thing. I wonder how that is designed? Is it a standard part from somewhere?  -- don't think so, as it has "FCUBED" stamped on it. 

Tags: nomad