Compound parabolic dishes keep the light in one area much longer than
parabolic dishes so you do not need to move them often.
I have a video explaining how they work at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX9Z-nsUHiA
I believe this type of explanation and design of optics could also be
useful for other people when they make their solar reflectors.
The equipment, laser level and paper etc only costs $20 or so and you can
get results really quickly. So it might be useful in poor countries
especially for design! Please try it out and give your impressions.
That's the only way to spread ideas, in my opinion.
You can find info about compound parabolics at
http://www.fossilfreedom.com/increase-output.html
and at
http://www.appropedia.org/Understanding_Solar_Concentrators
I did not follow exactly what those people did. You can see how I did the
mold at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eY0xh23Anc
If you have an hour on your hands, try out some of the curves from the
fossil freedom site with the laser experiment.
I think it would be very useful to make dishes based on these designs.
(they are troughs and dishes have more concentration and are probably ...