Tom Ligon website overhaul ...

[Tom Ligon]

I've been putting off diving into that rats nest of a website of mine, and now I remember why. Sheesh! Everything was in the root directory.

I have it reorganized now, and I hope considerably improved. The fusion section has added a couple of my slide presentations, in .pdf form. The Assorted Technical Expertise section adds a lot of new material, with more to come.

I'm sure I still have some broken links, etc. What worked well on local files frequently screws up once uploaded because the host server's OS is pickier about capitalization, but I think I have most of it fixed.

Let me know if you find anything broken, or have any other suggestions.

http://www.tomligon.com/

[chrismb]

No '®' in Polywell.

Not since 1992.

::>>>

Typed Drawing

Word Mark POLYWELL
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 007. US 021. G & S: electric generators for generation of electric power and/or steam from controlled nuclear fusion reactions
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 74106141
Filing Date October 15, 1990
Current Basis 1B
Original Filing Basis 1B
Published for Opposition September 24, 1991
Owner (APPLICANT) Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 12340 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles CALIFORNIA 90025
Type of Mark TRADEMARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date June 18, 1992

::

Typed Drawing

Word Mark POLYWELL
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 035. US 101. G & S: ENGINEERING DESIGNS, ANALYTICAL EVALUATINS, DOCUMENTS, REPORTS, PUBLICATIONS ON PROPRIETAR POWER SYSTEMS. FIRST USE: 19871121. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19871121
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 73830556
Filing Date October 10, 1989
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Owner (APPLICANT) PACIFIC-SIERRA RESEARCH CORPORATION CORPORATION CALIFORNIA 12340 SANTA MONICA BOULEVARD LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA 90025
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date July 5, 1990

[KitemanSA]

Welcome back, chrismb!

[Tom Ligon]

A year or two back, we were discussing solar technology, and I mentioned my cabin system. Somebody here suggested I post the details. I now have a "White Papers" menu page, with two writeups on the solar heating system posted.

http://www.tomligon.com/ATE/WhitePapers.html

[KitemanSA]

Have you tried selling to Home Power?

[CaptainBeowulf]

Very interesting white papers Tom; I might end up using some tips from you one day!

I didn't realize that the old 1970s glass solar panels were so superior to a lot of the current stuff. Any suggestions on what good brands are today? Or just what features to look for (ie. you seem to indicate pebble glass coated is much better than plastic coated)?

[Tom Ligon]

Most of the panels back then were pieces of crap like Grumman built ... plastic glazing over painted aluminum. There are a number of them still on roofs around Manassas, all so yellow and crappy-looking they probably barely gather heat. Most of them could not work anyway as they are looking at trees that have since grown up.

Mine were made by Revere. I have pointedly avoided saying what the collectors are made of because I don't want to have to shoot any thieves. I have security cameras, and the rattlesnakes are authorized to use deadly force.

Iron-free tempered glass is the material of choice for covering PV panels these days, due to its high transparency. If perfectly flat, as the sun moves toward the horizon there will be a point at which it just reflects off instead of being transmitted. The pebbled finish apparently stretches the length of time these will gather useful energy.

I have recently found Revere collectors for sale on e-bay, around the price I paid for these. They have been out of production for years, sadly enough. Somebody might be making a comparable product. You can buy sheets of the glass on e-bay, where DIY PV solar panels is something of a cottage industry. However, tempered glass is for all practical purposes impossible to cut, so if you can't get it at the size you want from the glass maker, you're stuck with odd smaller sizes for the PV business.

The collectors being pushed these days are "evacuated tube" types. They are better for getting their working fluid hotter, but not dramatically so, and there are still some advocates of flat panels for space heating applications. A quality flat plate collector will turn nearly all the energy hitting it into usable BTUs.

At some point I might put together an article, but for now I'm using the project for marketing my consulting service. I'm not generally at liberty to share the technical details of my work for clients, but I can certainly share my work for me! Next spring I hope to hook up some of the thermocouples and other instruments the system is festooned with, toss in one of my pyranometers, and document the performance in detail. I've got a very nice 16-channel datalogger now.

[paperburn1]

There is a good website called builditsolar dot com. Run by a guy named Gary and full of details about solar power. He is a retired engineer fom Boeing and rigorous testing is the sites mantra. He bui!lds test beds so you get real numbers tobase you opinion from. His plans work on the idea of good ROI. Also presents other ideas and why they may or maynot fit your situation. That is the two hundred pounds gorilla for using solar power in my opinion. One size does not fit everyone. Best of all it's free.

[Tom Ligon]

I think I've seen the site, and used it. I'm trying to remember if one article therein was on using old iron radiators as a heat dump.

I've had a heckuva time finding good data on heat loss through floors, heat capacity and thermal conductivity of gravel, and strategies for insulating gravel to make a good thermal storage mass. It is depressing to discover just how wishy-washy the knowledge base on these things is. There are a couple of outfits who claim to have models they will run for you at a price, but precious little hard data available for DIY types.

If time and budget allow, I'm considering building a special purpose guarded hot plate to measure thermal conductivity of gravel, and a pair of test pits to run controlled tests of strategies for heat storage in gravel. I wish I'd thought to put a thermowell under the cabin while it was under construction. It would be nice to have about 4 thermocouples going down a meter or two into my gravel bed.

I picked up an Omega HFS-3 heat flow sensor about a year ago, and have been playing with it. If I can get the requisite sensitivity, I should be able to measure heat flow in and out of the concrete surface of the floor.

[williatw]

I've been putting off diving into that rats nest of a website of mine, and now I remember why. Sheesh! Everything was in the root directory.
http://www.tomligon.com/

http://esciencenews.com/sources/the.gua ... .milky.way

'Tens of billions' of habitable exoplanets in Milky Way

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - 15:00 in Astronomy & Space

About 40% of red dwarf stars are thought to have a so-called 'super-Earth' planet orbiting in a habitable zoneAstronomers hunting for rocky planets with the right temperature to support life estimate there may be tens of billions of them in our galaxy alone

If this is true the answer is simple...as far as people are concerned Human Dwarfs will inherit the Cosmos. Who better to tolerate heavy gravity than someone shorter than 4ft 6in and 100lbs or so? Red dwarf stars have very long life spans as main sequence stars too, some of them 10X or even 100X longer than our sun will.

Hello Tom you don't post often enough, any Polywell related hints you are at liberty to disclose? Sure we would all like to here. What do you think about dwarfs in space? Could be a good Sci-fi story for analog, feel free to write it.

[paperburn1]

In his reference section there is most likely what you will need. But you will have to dig for it, wheat in the chaff so to speak.

[CaptainBeowulf]

Tom and paperburn, thanks for the additional details on solar installations.

[KitemanSA]

There is a good website called builditsolar dot com.

Just curious, is there a reason you didn't just include the link?

[paperburn1]

There is a good website called builditsolar dot com.

Just curious, is there a reason you didn't just include the link?

not sure of the inlaws computer has viruses and rootkits. I am cleaning it now. I just did not want to risk a malformed link.

[hanelyp]

not sure of the inlaws computer has viruses and rootkits. I am cleaning it now. I just did not want to risk a malformed link.

Sounds like you could use a USB drive with something like http://www.pendrivelinux.com/multiboot- ... rom-linux/ and a good linux distro installed on it, for when you have to use a computer of uncertain safety. There are also linux distros specifically assembled to inspect and rescue infected or damaged windoze systems.