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bridges for glass
Monday, April 7 2008
As part of the preparation for the installation of the glass on my homebrew solar panel, today I installed a set of three bridges that will sit beneath the joints between the four three-foot-wide glass panels. Such bridges hadn't been necessary when the panel was covered with a single large sheet of tough plastic, but with glass I'd be nervous not to support each sheet around its entire perimeter. I made the bridges out of simple one by two softwood stock (supposedly grown in sustainable Swedish tree farms). I supported each bridge by gluing and screwing their ends to the panel frame and I also supported them their middles using blocks of wood reaching down to the panel's back plate (the corrugated galvanized steel sheet that I've painted black that absorbs solar radiation).
While I was doing these things, I continued to test the panel for leaks and (mercifully) it seemed to be leak-free.
Long ago I'd heard all the This American Lifes in my collection, so as I worked today I listened mostly to archived podcasts from the journal Nature. Now that's a magazine that's not afraid to get technical, not even in its podcast. It was sponsored by the Bio-Rad 1000 Series Thermal Cycling Platform. "When you rethink PCR you think about how easy it can be." How is that for an esoteric object of desire? I don't even know what PCR is.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?080407 feedback
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