Commercial Solar thermal panel in the morning sunshine. Our house is almost completely wrongly oriented for solar on the main roof so for "fun" hung this on the side of the extension. Second cylinder in the loft for solar preheat store that feeds the main cylinder of the original system. In 1/2 a day in good sun this cylinder can reach 45c. Even in dull days it still puts a degree or 2 in the tank, and it all helps.
Primary system is antifreeze mix pumped round by 12v aquarium pumps in a plastic storage box! Using small W1209 thermostats to control the flows. All pipes are 15mm plastic and foam lagged. Been running fo around a year with no problems.
W1209 can be tinkered to give differential readings!! Cylinder and panel temp monitoring uses lots of serial/ parallel 10k thermistors to show top, bottom and average temps all read by a selector switch downstairs feeding a cheap button cell readout.
Primary system is antifreeze mix pumped round by 12v aquarium pumps in a plastic storage box! Using small W1209 thermostats to control the flows. All pipes are 15mm plastic and foam lagged. Been running fo around a year with no problems.
W1209 can be tinkered to give differential readings!! Cylinder and panel temp monitoring uses lots of serial/ parallel 10k thermistors to show top, bottom and average temps all read by a selector switch downstairs feeding a cheap button cell readout.