Hello Everyone,
From the previous post from AC Hacker, you might get the idea to fabricate your own VIP's.
However, there are a few things you should know.
First of all, you need a quite deep vacuum (<0,1 mbar or < 10Pa) and that's not so easy to achieve with standard vacuum equipment.
Secondly and maybe even more important is, that mylar may be 100% impermeable for Oxygen and Nitrogen (the main components of air), but if you weld mylar parts, the seam is not 100% impermeable. So, slowly oxygen and nitrogen will leak in and reduce the vacuum. For this reason getter materials are incorporated in the inside of the closed "bag", to cath the atoms that leaked in.
Another difficulty might be to get the insulation material that should be inside the bag. It needs to have very small pores. Generally fumed silica is being used.
I would say, this all is beyond the capabilities of DIY. But of course you may want to try
. If so, keep us posted...
If you want to read all the details about VIP's, I would suggest you to read these reports that I used during my study Renewable Energy Systems Technology (Loughborough University UK):
http://www.ecbcs.org/docs/Ann39_2001_1_hipti_proc%20.pdf https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j...75097201,d.ZWU
http://www.ecbcs.org/docs/Annex_39_R...ubtask-A-B.pdf
Despite the difficulties to fabricate this stuff it's very interesting, but expensive material.
For those of you interested in advanced glazing and transparent insulation, I would recommend this link:
https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j...75097201,d.ZWU