How To Make A DIY Photo voltaic Cooker (Step-by-step)

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A DIY Photo voltaic Cooker permits you to take pleasure in scorching meals anyplace off-grid; it’s a transportable and low-cost methodology to cook dinner meals whereas out and about. You may gradual cook dinner stew, make soup, and even warmth scorching canines — all with photo voltaic vitality!

The simplest technique to get your palms on a photo voltaic cooker is to make one your self. Honestly, the challenge’s complexity will depend on your degree of ambition. You may have a easy photo voltaic cooker that does the job or an intricate one with sliding drawers.

However let’s bit waste any extra time; we’re right here to show you make a sturdy DIY photo voltaic cooker. All you’ll want is wooden, cardboard, a automobile windshield solar protector (and some instruments alongside the way in which).

Foreward

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Instruments Wanted To Make a DIY Photo voltaic Cooker

Right here’s a desk of the instruments and elements you’ll want.

Associated Studying: How To Make DIY Photo voltaic Lights For Your Backyard


How To Construct A DIY Photo voltaic Cooker

Gathering materials for DIY solar cooker.
We gathered the supplies first earlier than beginning the challenge.

Constructing a DIY photo voltaic cooker might be as simple or as sophisticated as you’d wish to make it. It’s a science challenge you may make at a highschool degree or an expert DIY construct for outside cooking. Ultimately, the distinction comes right down to the quantity of effort you place in.

There are 6 steps you’ll must observe to construct a DIY photo voltaic cooker. These embrace:

  1. Planning
  2. Measuring and reducing the wooden
  3. Becoming a member of the wooden
  4. Reducing all of the cardboard and windshield elements
  5. Assembling the photo voltaic cooking
  6. Including the ending touches
  7. Utilizing the photo voltaic cooker

That is an intermediate-level DIY challenge. It requires some wooden reducing, however apart from that, you’ll discover the method to be fairly simple. 


Step 1: Plan

Planning stage — DIY solar cooker.
We do all our planning in a sketchbook.

DIY tasks all the time require a great little bit of planning. With no stable plan, your challenge can go sideways shortly. On this case, you’ll must plan out the quantity of wooden you’ll require and the sizes of your cardboard.

One of the best ways to do that is to sketch a design in your DIY photo voltaic cooker in a pocket book or on some tough paper. Don’t fear in case your drawings aren’t masterpieces; you simply must put your concepts down on paper.

After getting a plan, you’ll higher perceive your photo voltaic cooker’s look and dimensions.

Subsequent, collect your supplies collectively; it’s time to start out constructing!


Step 2: Measure And Lower The Wooden

Measure out your plank sizes earlier than reducing. Make sure that to attract pointers and never simply mark the corners.

The following step is to create the field the place you’ll place your cooking pot. This piece acts as the middle and primary physique of your photo voltaic cooker, so it must be sturdy — therefore why we suggest utilizing wooden.

To create the field, measure out 4 sides onto your wooden planks. You can also make your cooker sq. or rectangle; it’s solely as much as you. The scale of our field is 12” x 12”.

Utilizing these dimensions, measure and reduce the bottom of your photo voltaic cooker.

Lastly, the peak of your field will depend upon the dimensions of your pot. Our field is 7” in peak.

Use the wooden noticed and the rules to chop the wooden to measurement.

Step 3: Becoming a member of The Wooden

Use screws to drill pilot holes before fixing the planks together — DIY solar cooker.
Use screws to drill pilot holes earlier than fixing the planks collectively.

It’s greatest to complete up with the woodwork aspect of issues earlier than you progress on to working with the opposite supplies. For this step, you’ll want your electrical screwdriver.

Utilizing your pencil, mark holes on every nook of one of many aspect planks. Then, drill a pilot gap utilizing a screw and the electrical screwdriver. Subsequent, maintain one plank in opposition to the opposite plank at a 90º angle and repair them along with the screws. Chances are you’ll want an additional hand to make this step simpler.

Repeat this step till all 4 planks are linked right into a sq. form. Lastly, add the bottom to the field utilizing the identical method as above.

As you’ll see in our footage, we had been brief on wooden. So we mounted 2 strips to the underside earlier than gluing cardboard over them to make a sturdy base.

Our completed field would be the base of our photo voltaic cooker.

Step 4: Lower Your DIY Photo voltaic Cooker Parts

We used insulation tape to tidy up the edges to make it easier to glue the pieces together — DIY solar cooker.
We used insulation tape to tidy up the sides to make it simpler to connect the items collectively.

Now it’s time to chop the cardboard and the automobile windshield solar protector. You’ll use the cardboard to make the highest of your photo voltaic cooker; the windshield solar protector will cowl the perimeters.

The cardboard you employ might be something you discover in your recycling pile. For instance, we used an empty pizza field. First, reduce the correct quantity of cardboard in order that it’s lengthy sufficient to cowl the highest of the wood field. When doing so, go away a chunk on one aspect of the highest flap to connect to the wood field. It’s additionally greatest to have the cardboard lid overlap the wood field so the flap has one thing to relaxation on.


Lower The Automobile Windshield Solar Protector

Subsequent, reduce the windshield protector to cowl the next surfaces:

  • The cardboard flap you simply reduce out;
  • All 4 interior sides of the photo voltaic cooker; and
  • The underside of the photo voltaic cooker.

When you’ve reduce the windshield protector, use insulation tape to tape up the sides; this can give them a completed look and make them simpler to connect collectively. Furthermore, it’ll improve your photo voltaic cooker’s insulation ranges. 

Listed here are the 4 sides we used to cowl the wood field.

Step 5: Assemble The Photo voltaic Cooker

Here we are making sure the cardboard flap fits the wooden box before gluing the sun protector on.  — DIY solar cooker.
Right here we’re ensuring the cardboard flap suits the wood field earlier than gluing the solar protector on.

Begin by gluing the cardboard flap to the wood field. Doing this primary is important because the flap will stick higher to the wooden than the windshield solar protector.

Subsequent, cowl all sides of the photo voltaic cooker with its respective windshield protector piece. You’ll discover that due to how we mounted our wood sides, the 2 sides are barely smaller than the opposite.

Use heavy gadgets like books or ornaments to maintain the perimeters in place whereas the glue dries. Moreover, for those who apply skinny layers of glue, it’ll dry faster. To do that, use a scrap piece of cardboard to smear the glue throughout the floor in a skinny layer.

The final product looks a little like a cooler bag — DIY solar cooker.
The ultimate product seems to be a little bit like a cooler bag.

Professional tip: apply glue to the corners of the wood field earlier than sticking it within the windshield solar protector. It will guarantee the perimeters persist with the wooden accurately with out peeling away.

Use a scrap piece of cardboard to spread the glue out and add glue to the corners of the box for additional sturdiness — DIY solar cooker.
Use a scrap piece of cardboard to unfold the glue out and add glue to the corners of the field for extra sturdiness.

Step 6: Ending Touches

We used a skinny dowel persist with prop open the lid of our photo voltaic cooker.

The ultimate step is so as to add the ending touches to your DIY photo voltaic cooker. You’ll must make a stand that holds the highest flap on the proper angle and canopy the field with plastic wrap.

To make the stand, reduce a skinny piece of dowel which you should utilize to prop the flap up. To find out the size of your stand, measure the best angle you’d place the flap; that is the size between the entrance nook of the photo voltaic cooker and the again nook of the highest flap.


Utilizing The Photo voltaic Cooker

Lastly, place the cooking pot within the middle of the photo voltaic cooker and canopy the field with plastic wrap. The plastic wrap will catch the warmth and entice it inside the cooker, making a greenhouse impact.

Place the photo voltaic cooker in direct daylight, and place the faucet flap to replicate the solar into the field. It gained’t be lengthy earlier than your photo voltaic cooker begins doing its job — cooking your meals!

The complete solar cooker with plastic wrap and a pot inside.
The entire photo voltaic cooker with plastic wrap and a pot inside.

Associated Studying: Greatest Photo voltaic Generator for Tenting (2022) – Evaluations and Purchaser’s Information


A Glass Prime Variation

You should use a glass panel as an alternative of plastic wrap to create the greenhouse impact. It’s renewable and higher for the atmosphere. Nonetheless, the one draw back is that it makes the challenge a little bit extra complicated, and the glass panel can break simply.

You’ll want so as to add a lip to the wood field for the glass to relaxation on. As well as, you’ll want a glass cutter to chop your piece of glass to measurement.

Associated Studying: 10 Off-Grid Heating Strategies To Use (With no electrical energy)


Remaining Ideas

We hope you’re happy with how your DIY photo voltaic cooker turned out. We loved doing this challenge and located that the design labored completely.

The photo voltaic cooker produced scorching water inside the hour, and we will’t wait to apply it to our subsequent tenting journey.

When you’ve got any alterations to the design, we’d love to listen to them. Alternatively, for those who’ve tried this out, share the ends in the feedback under!

Comply with us on Twitter for extra DIY tasks and inexperienced tech information!

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