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Recycling glass bottles at home.

 Our local Single Stream recycling center no longer accepts glass for recycling.  I have been letting the bottles stack up in a pile out in the yard, but decided to find a use for them.  My first idea was to smash them up into sand that would be used in my Sandblaster. https://www.raptorblastingsolutions.com/product/crushed-glass-sacramento-sandblasting/ Crushed glass is used as an abrasive sandblasting media in a variety of industries such as: dustless wet blasting , slurry blasting, blasting ship hulls, concrete restoration, cleaning tanks or pipelines, graffiti removal, and auto restoration. Fine: 70/100 mesh grit Medium-Fine: 40/70 mesh grit Medium-Coarse: 20/40 mesh grit Applications for Crushed Glass Abrasive Fine (70/100): Perfect for blasting aluminum, chrome, brick, concrete, and wood. Applications may include graffiti removal, dustless blasting, paint removal, aged wood restoration. Medium-Fine (40/70): Surfaces you can blast include slate, marble, fiberglass, s
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DIY Solar Water Heater

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All of the solar water heating schemes (shown below) prior to Feb. 2022 have been abandoned in favor of PV direct to the water heater resistive element.  The element in the tank measures 12.5 ohms, and it does not care if it is hooked to 240 volts ac, or the dc voltage coming from the solar panels. The label on the solar panel shows open circuit voltage and short circuit current.  I connected a string of three 240 watt solar panels to the lower element of a 50 gallon forty year old water heater tank.  Using the label data of Power max. voltage and current, the source impedance of the panels is either 4.44 ohms or 3.85 ohms, and three in series would be a current source with an impedance of either 13.3 or 11.6 ohms. The 4500 watt 240 volt resistance heater measures 12.5 ohms. For maximum power transfer, my source impedance of 13.3 or 11.6 is close to the load resistance of 12.5.  Unfortunately, this is for best solar conditions around solar noon, when I can measure 80 vol
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