Sunbeam Electric Grill
A solar cooker, in Dutch called solar oven, is a solar collector that converts sunlight into heat. This heat is due to the construction of the cooker is directly used to prepare food. Because they are inexpensive to make, no fuel or power needed and therefore no further costs, the solar cooker is used mainly in third world countries to combat deforestation and disease. They are also used on such sites, because of the small fire. In the Netherlands, such an oven in the summer months are well used, judging by the results of the Solar Cooker Workgroup (see their site to include building plans). There are different types, namely the solar box cooker, the panel cooker, the cooker and the parabolic cooker hybrid. We will discuss them here n for n. The solar box cooker is as the name suggests a box-shaped shell that can cook. A box cooker can be put in simple materials, the body consists of an inner metal wrapped in aluminum foil, a wooden outer coffin and insulation in between. The cover further comprises a glass plate (two for better insulation) and a plywood sheet with aluminum foil. The plywood sheet is put up at an angle such that there is maximum sunlight are bounced in the box. The insulation must be able to withstand temperatures of 150C without melting or degassing. Solar box cookers usually get a maximum temperature of around 150C. This is enough to cook most foods to get. Especially food with high moisture content in these temperatures are well prepared, because it was not much hotter than 100C can be. The important thing to remember is that the longer cooking time may be, count on a few hours. Precisely because of the limited temperature is also quite possible the food in the cooker all day without letting it burn. The panel cooker is a low-cost solar oven that uses several separate reflectors. These reflectors concentrate the sunlight onto a centrally located dark pot, thereby becoming hot. To combat heat, the pot is often a transparent plastic bag. The main advantages of this form of solar cooking is the simplicity with which the whole can be made and the low cost that this entails. Disadvantage is the lack of insulation, which increases cooking time. The best known is called Cookit panel cooker, a commercially available variant because of its simplicity, for example, can be found in refugee camps. The video below is a refugee camp in Darfur, a poor area where the sun is shining happily. It shows among other rice and tea, with only the sun as an energy source. A parabolic cooker consists of a reflector in one focus all the sunlight together. This focus is a black boiler by strongly concentrating the action quickly heats up. A parabolic cooker is very powerful and works at least as good as a conventional oven. The disadvantages are the complexity of the design (a good parabolic reflector making is not easy) and hence, price. In addition, the dish turned regularly to stay well in the sun, when it is cloudy the dish does not. The advantages are as mentioned the speed at which food is hot and the high temperatures that can be achieved. Below egg was cooked in under three minutes!. The hybrid cooker, as the name implies, a solar oven in case of Sun clipping on a conventional fuel can work. This is useful if the weather turns quickly, or if the sundown. They are relatively expensive and therefore especially in third world countries are less popular. A hybrid cooker usually uses a parabolic reflector which is in a tripod below the sunbeam electric grill surface. This reflector can easily replace a conventional fuel (wood, coal) or an sunbeam electric grill element. . . .
