thank you!! have you minded about making a guide?? :)
Comment on searching for solar food dehydrator resources
schmorpel@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
You can build stackable wooden frames, staple a net curtain to them and put them in the sun, or use those plastic fruit boxes, always covered with a net on top against insects. Placing your frames or boxes on or between rocks provides extra heat after sunset. Or the extra lazy method: place your drying net under a fruit tree, wait for fruit to drop, drag into sun or halfshade as is convenient.
When energy is low and overwhelm is much the simplest solutions are often the best.
And for indoor drying in winter a repurposed shoe shelf (or yet more stackable boxes) placed near your radiator might do the trick.
masparfad@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
schmorpel@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Yes, but first I have to build a few and test them - they are result of a few years experimenting and thinking about the problem from the perspectives of ease of building and using it, repairability, flexibility, price … It has the option to stack frames as high as practical and cover a stack of frames with either mosquito/flynet or shading fabric or a combination of both, and add any heat source to the bottom of a stack. The current heat would be great for drying all sorts of stuff and put this to the test, but unfortunately the same heat is crap for any mental and physical activities, so this project has been progressing slowly. But it is one of the parts of my small gardening and processing cycle. Equally slow is my documentation of this cycle. I’ll try to come up with a drawing of this idea!
livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
Keep in mind that, at least in my experience, if you are in a high humidity area, only stacking them might not be enough to prevent mold on high water content fruit like tomato, so it needs to look more like the one pictured by OP to have enough air flow in the system
schmorpel@slrpnk.net 1 week ago
That is true. Whenever I see these designs I feel like I would like to develop a hybrid model - to use with either solar heat or other heat sources when needed.
Or for a low low tech solution, a drying rack that can handle a fire under it. Things will be smoked rather than dried, but that’s not necessarily a disadvantage.