Sahydri school is a Resident school based near Chas-Kaman Dam in Bhimashankar area of Pune district. This territorial region has tropical deciduous forests. The humidity in the region is varying seasonally ranging from dry 20% to 100% humid. The weather is pretty much dry in the summer season. Hence Sahyadri school wanted to use this dry spell in summer to dehydrate local agricultural produce.
The second dome dryer was installed at Sahyadri school. Sahyadri school approached Vigyan Ashram for drying technology. Sahyadri schools have recently started working in food drying sector. as the approached with a need for a solar based food dryer, we suggested them Solar dome dryer.
The outreach of Sahyadri school lead by Dipa More Madam supports and promotes organic farming in the region. They also run a small seed bank at the school campus mainly focussing on Rice and Millets.
They wanted to dry fruits and vegetables like Chickoo, mango, guava, and other vegetables. they wish to consume dried goods in schools itself as a start and further, they want to sell this through a Farmer producing Company. Their major aim was to uplift small farmers in this region.
The dryer was installed on the school campus. there is a dedicated operator for the dryer. Rajashree aunty is supposed to operate the dryer through the seasons. she will preprocess the food product load it in the dryer and unload.
The dryer kit included solar panels 20 Watt 24 Volts and an SMPS to run the fan at night time to run the exhaust fan, Solar Dome with base, Tray structure, and Trays.
to protect the electrical connections we attached a weather-resistant pannel box. This was a new leaning.
It took 6 hours to join the dryer together since we were short of tools. After assembly, the dryer is rigid and was easy to move from one plate to another by two people. The solar panels were connected using low resistance wire with was 10 m long deliberately if the solar panels had to be fitted anywhere high.