ARETHA Project for a DIY thermal solar collector
 

Hi everyone!
My name is Paolo. I built, with my friend Franco, a thermal solar collector with car radiator and simple materials in order to explore a DIY way for producing hot water from the sun.
I want to inform you about this project "ARETHA Project": ARETHA
The project intends to provide instruction to build a 5 sqm collector and to share experiences about it.
It is not for business, but for helping people to make solar thermal panel by themselves with low technical skill.
We have also launched a funding campaign to build one ARETHA collector with recycled material in Sicily, see:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aretha-project#home
We need your help to finish the project.
thanks
Paolo

Awesome project! I have some questions:

The sensors you are using, the dallas 18x20 line, are 1-wire sensors. Why does the web page state i2c communication?

Why are you using 2 arduino boards? It seems that for simplicity, one board would be sufficient.

I love the idea of the project. Recycled shipping pallets re-purposed as solar collectors, recycled automobile radiators (w/ fans) as absorbers, simple and cheap arduino boards controlling everything. Hand-sheared wool as insulation is ultimate. But what would be the end product of this project? Would your team be supplying any specific products?

I look forward to your progress on the project and wish you good fortune.

Jeff

Thank-you Jeff for your comments.

You are right, the sensors work with one-wire protocol, not I2C. I'll correct it.

I used two arduinos because the number of I/O pin of one was not enough for an LCD, datalogger, relay control and Ethernet card.

The end product of our "ARETHA Project", submitted to indiegogo crowdfunding platform, would be the production of a tutorial, a web site and a forum.
We think that experiences of many ARETHA makers, around the world, could be useful to improve this device.

You can follow us also on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/ARETHAproject

Paolo