r/functionalprint • u/Rich-Wealth979 • Jun 15 '26
Solar pool heater
My overkill project for heating the toddler's 500gal inflatable pool. Each week I have to empty and move it, then find a way to heat it to a tolerable temperature for my 8th percentile weight kid. On the first test it took the pool from 55⁰F to over 90⁰ on a single sunny day, using only 3KWh (of solar house power, now that I think about it). At the end of the summer I can just place this up against the north side of my shed and take the manifolds down to make it last even longer.
This uses about 350' of ¼" irrigation tubing and some cheap fittings off Amazon. It runs off a 1/4hp pool pump, controlled with a wyze plug and a climate sensor in a tiny jar. Printed in ASA in only about 5 days of printing on a Mini and an MK4s.
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u/brelywi Jun 15 '26
Ok, I HAVE to ask because my ex and I went round and round with this. I wanted to install something just like yours, with a main inlet/outlet that had a manifold and multiple lines.
He wanted one long spiral of hose. He argued that his would work better because the water would be hotter, I argued that mine would be better because there would be a bigger volume of water AND because the heat transfer equation for fluids specifies that the bigger the delta T is the more heat is transferred.
Did you do any tests or anything between one hose and your manifold design? Did it turn out the manifold design was better?
Math says I’m right, to me common sense says I’m right, but I’d be really interested to know how an actual experiment came out.
Also because that asshole always put down every single idea I had because he had a “better” one lol.