Week Seven

Week Seven consisted of a lot of testing. This week was probably the best for testing and to see how and if everything worked. We once again tested how long it took the water to boil, and also if they pump was still working with the 30 ohms that we attached to it. We ran into a problem that the pump was struggling to pump constantly, but we figured out that it was due to the fact that the tubing was too long when the pump was trying to suck up the water. We fixed that problem, and now the system is almost working as intended. The only problem that we have been running into was the problem of the yellow metallic deposit that was coming off of the wire is still being deposited into the water, so our way to solve it is by covering it with high heat epoxy putty. This will allow the putty to still get hot, but not to the point where it will melt into the water. The wire does not get nearly as high as 550 degrees, which is what the putty is able to withstand. The putty should be able to withstand high heat and also boil the water in the mean time. For the actual building part, we have made it so now the solar panels sit on top of wooden planks that are on our bucket, making it easy for them to get the sun. If this were a larger scaled, we would always have the solar panels perpendicular to the sun to ensure the flux would be the highest that it possibly could, ensuring the charging capacity would be at its highest. Pictures can be seen below. The one on the left is the picture of the set up of the bucket now that the solar panels have been placed on. To the right is a picture of the yellow metallic deposit that has been building up for a while now that we are finally fixing.