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Invention Help Needed


Restorium2

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I'm one of those crazy inventors. I noticed that there is a vast amount of knowledge here among the posters. So I'm going to try to tap into that resource today.

Just had a crazy thing happen. That's how a lot of stuff gets invented. The vinyl siding on my house melted. Big areas with severely melted siding. I tracked it down to the low e windows. The seal between the panes leaked causing a vacuum between the panes. This made the panes into a parabola. The low e reflective glass is like a mirror. Anywhere the panes focus the sun is instantly heated. Last night I had some people over and one person got burned as they sat in the focused ray of sun. They were about 50 feet from the window. The window company has given me all new windows. I still have to replace a few of them. Can anyone think of a practical use for these windows? I know I could mount one in the back of my truck and have a portable tool of mass melting. But that's not practical. Didn't Leonardo Divinci invent something like this?

Edited by Restorium2
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could make a solar oven or solar powered heater out of it.

 

careful , couldve burned your house down. did you make them pay for the melted siding ?

Nope. The window people just gave me new windows. My house insurance declined the claim because I could not pinpoint an exact time of occurance(they suck). They did say that if they burn my house down they will pay.

 

Now here's where it gets really interesting;

 

I can take one of the panes I removed and set it where the one that is still installed focuses. Then I can focus that onto another pane I have taken out. Each one magifies the sun's energy. What kind of ray will I end up with after several maginifications? It already will melt plastic with just one magnification. Last night it was hot to just pass close by the ray at 8 pm wimpy Michigan sun. You got anywhere near the ray it was like the air was heated.

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I was a building inspector for over 20 years.  I have seen siding both faded and melted from sunlight after being concentrated by window reflection.  The best way to defeat that is to install non-reflective screens.  Most people don't know it but there is a variable quality in types of siding manufactured.  Some sidings can withstand heat and fading far better than others.  If you have a dark color siding and you can see sunlight reflected off a neighbor's house or your own you should take corrective action.

 

I have never seen glass bent into a parabola due to heat though.  That is interesting.  Is it the window frame that bent and forced the curvature or are you saying that the vacuum basically sucked the glass inward?  Usually sealed pane windows are filled with a gas denser than the atmosphere.  Argon is the most common.  It is used because the denser gas better insulates against temperature changes.  If it leaks that usually means argon gets out and atmospheric air gets in.  Since the gas is denser than the atmosphere its departure from the window allows the less dense gas of the atmosphere to enter.  So it doesn't create a vacuum it just loses the filled gas which is exchanged for atmospheric gases/air.  Basically an equilibrium is formed.  Also the gas between the windows would tend to be a higher temperature than the outside air which would form an expansion rather than a contraction.  Not saying there wasn't a vacuum but curiousity leads me to wonder how that occurred.

 

As for the use of the old windows I would make a greenhouse.  Windows aren't cheap and to have a whole houseful of windows at your disposal means you have the most expensive part of the greenhouse already. 

Edited by FranksHotPeppersAndMarijuana
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I was a building inspector for over 20 years.  I have seen siding both faded and melted from sunlight after being concentrated by window reflection.  The best way to defeat that is to install non-reflective screens.  Most people don't know if but there is a variable quality in types of siding manufactured.  Some sidings can withstand heat and fading far better than others.  If you have a dark color siding and you can see sunlight reflected off a neighbor's house or your own you should take corrective action.

 

I have never seen glass bent into a parabola due to heat though.  That is interesting.  Is it the window frame that bent and forced the curvature or are you saying that the vacuum basically sucked the glass inward?  Usually sealed pane windows are filled with a gas denser than the atmosphere.  Argon is the most common.  It is used because the denser gas better insulates against temperature changes.  If it leaks that usually means argon gets out and atmospheric air gets in.  Since the gas is denser than the atmosphere its departure from the window allows the less dense gas of the atmosphere to enter.  So it doesn't create a vacuum it just loses the filled gas which is exchanged for atmospheric gases/air.  Basically an equilibrium is formed.  Also the gas between the windows would tend to be a higher temperature than the outside air which would form an expansion rather than a contraction.  Not saying there wasn't a vacuum but curiousity leads me to wonder how that occurred.

 

As for the use of the old windows I would make a greenhouse.  Windows aren't cheap and to have a whole houseful of windows at your disposal means you have the most expensive part of the greenhouse already.

I talked with a senior tech at Andersen and there was a vacuum and it did warp the glass. That's a given now. The dual panes actually touch in the center. My siding is light colored and it's the thickest made to date. You are correct about the screens stopping it. I had window AC and didn't have a screen on. The other places are where I had casements with screens that go on the inside. Those casements are crazy because they fold out and the focus is moveable depending on how far open the window is. I burned two diagonal strips across a whole wall, right up to the window J channel. I put these windows in myself back in '92.
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"As for the use of the old windows I would make a greenhouse. Windows aren't cheap and to have a whole houseful of windows at your disposal means you have the most expensive part of the greenhouse already."

These are windows of mass destrcution. I need to be very careful what I do with them. They are a tragedy ready to happen.

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Were they Andersen windows?  As I'm sure you know those are some of the best out there which is probably why you chose them.  I'm glad they replaced them.  That is crazy.  I've never seen panes almost touching on the inside.  Maybe it was due to the perfect storm of environmental factors.  Were all of the windows like that or just the ones in the most direct sunlight?

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If you break the seal on the windows it should release the vacuum.  The window then loses some efficiency but being low-e it doesn't lose all of it.  Maybe they then become safe to use as a greenhouse.  That is a crazy situation.  It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.  I've seen cars melted by double pane low-e window reflection too.

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Were they Andersen windows?  As I'm sure you know those are some of the best out there which is probably why you chose them.  I'm glad they replaced them.  That is crazy.  I've never seen panes almost touching on the inside.  Maybe it was due to the perfect storm of environmental factors.  Were all of the windows like that or just the ones in the most direct sunlight?

All of them except the roof window that is made of tempered glass. Andersen was good to me. Couldn't get them to pay for any colateral damage though. They said it was fairly common with the run of windows in the time frame I bought them. It only happens with low e. Edited by Restorium2
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The reality of inventions: There's no real way to take the ball and run with it without someone 'in a position to do so' becoming interested. You would have to make a youtube video showing results without giving away all the details. It's really tricky. Inventors always get ripped off.

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I want to use a bunch on larger magnifying mirrors in series.

 

i think i asked this question way back in 6th grade once. i think the teacher said the lenses either wouldnt amplify the light (there was a limit, due to the light being focused vs wide) or the 4th lense would just simply melt. either way.... not going to get a death ray that way methinks.

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i think i asked this question way back in 6th grade once. i think the teacher said the lenses either wouldnt amplify the light (there was a limit, due to the light being focused vs wide) or the 4th lense would just simply melt. either way.... not going to get a death ray that way methinks.

She was talking about magnifying glasses. I've got this figured out now. You can only get so much energy out of the suns rays in each refraction. That's why MIT used several mirrors instead of mirrors in series. I would have to use several of these windows and focus them all in the same spot. I would be doing better than MIT because my mirrors are also parabolas. I'm sure someone must have already done this though.
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Make a hot water heater.  Heat a pool.  Focus them on a solar collector to create power.

I have a pool heater invention. Used it a lot this year. The pool is 91 right now.

 

The trick would be the collector. I will shine one at the pool and see if there is a warmer spot. Don't want to fry my liner though.

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How about a wall [vert.] with pex floor htg set in 2.5" lite wt crete, like a cement radiator, captures the heat for use in winter, hw in summer? Z brick exterior or ?  

 

Here's some confirmation of the phenomena:  Musings of an Energy Nerd.

 

Vinyl Siding starts to melt @ 160o - 165f  Most important:  Don't play with the Fire ...  

...else you may be burned...
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