VE6BLD’s solar pop can garage heater

In 2014 I found a video on you tube of a man in Newfoundland who had built a solar pop can heater. I decided I would build one for my big shop in the back of my large town lot. There is a south facing wall to install it on a foot away from the wall for safety reasons as it can produce 80 -90 degree C!  I had an old double pane window in the shop that was about 3 by 7 feet. So the project began. I also had the aluminum frame from a score clock which had been removed from a school gym which turned out to be the perfect depth to fill with rows of pop cans after being insulated with 2 inch styrofoam. The metal frame also had a perfect indentation on the front to install the double pane window. See the pictures in the link below for how I  built  this pop can heater. I used a small squirrel cage fan on the inlet in the garage and another one on the outlet in the garage. There is a temperature sensor at the top of the outlet pipe connected to an adjustable digital temperature control. I can set any temperature to turn on the fans and I can also adjust the differential to turn off. As soon as the sun comes up and shines on the heater  it  will quickly come to the set temperature of 32 C. The heater was tested to  produce up to 180 degrees F before I installed the fans. This is a good reason to have 2 fans so it will not melt the heater if one fan quits! Today Nov 11, 2020 the sun was very low but the heater quickly rose to 32 C and the thermostat turned the fans on. The heater produced a steady 18 C temp into the garage all day! Darn nice free solar heat. 

Click a picture to see them bigger.