Solar Wax Melter

Hi Everyone,

Since I had accumulated little bits of burr comb over the last few weeks I decided it would be fun to build a solar wax melter.

My goal was to have something that could turn a small pile of honeycomb into a nice clean brick using only solar power. I had a secondary goal of having the contraption be cheap, not too big and using as many "around the house" parts as possible.

I based my design on common designs I found on the internet, I mostly had to work on scaling it down since I wanted a much smaller version of what I generally found on the internet.

Here are my trials and tribulations:

Version 1.0 - a black plastic mini paint roller tray that had a hole poked in the paint reservoir part so the wax can leak out. Under the hole is a strainer and a margarine tub to catch the wax and the whole contraption goes into a rubbermaid bin with a sheet of glass over it. I liked the fact that the paint roller tray had a nice slope to it already.

Results: It worked if anything too well. It got so hot that the paint roller tray melted! I came back to a puddle of wax at the bottom of my rubbermaid and a paint roller tray that was so melted it was practically unrecognizable. I went to the hardware store to hopefully buy a tray made of metal or heavier plastic but they didn't make mini paint roller trays in metal, and the full size trays wouldn't fit in my rubbermaid bin and I didn't want to buy a new bin if I didn't have to. So much for my first attempt.

Version 2.0 - instead of the paint roller tray I bought one of those small disposable cookie sheets from the grocery store. I put it in the bin so that it had an incline to it (using a piece of styrofoam to elevate one end of it) and used a nail to poke a drip hole at the bottom of the incline. Same strainer, tub, bin, glass.

Results: Much better, the wax melted beautifully and all of the gunk (larvae, pollen bits, etc.) were left on the tray. The problem was that I think the melting heat was coming from the temperature of the metal sheet, so when the wax dripped out of the pan it cooled quickly so I ended up with an "icicle" of cooled wax coming from the drip hole and a blob sitting in the strainer (it had cooled to the point where nothing came through the strainer). Plus the drip hole seemed almost plugged up by the cooled wax.

Version 3.0 - I removed the strainer entirely (it seemed to be superfluous anyway), and instead of a little drain hole I made a bigger drain slot.

Results: Better still, I got a nice wax melt and the wax flowed into the margarine tub. The only problem was that I think the wax cooled the moment it dripped off of the hot pan so I had a stalagmite of wax sitting in my margarine tub.

Version 4.0 - Instead of a margarine tub I'm using a mini pie pan. I'm hoping that the metal pie pan will hold enough heat so that the wax will cool more slowly and I'll get a nice flat disk of wax. I'm trying it out today (assuming we get some sun).

Results: The best so far, in fact I think this design will work. I got pretty close to a uniform piece of melted wax.

Here are some photos of the "final" design:

You can see the bits of pollen, larvae, and other gunk that was left behind on the tray. The chip clips were so that the piece of glass didn't slide down. I put a piece of wood under that end of the plastic bin to elevate it.

This is the melter with the glass and baking sheet removed. Not much in there, just a piece of styrofoam on on end to keep that end elevated and the mini pie pan that I used to catch the wax.

The wax collected in the pie pan. If I'd had more honey comb I might have gotten a nice disk of wax, but since I don't have much comb I got a half moon of wax instead. The wax is clean and solid, so I would consider this a success.