DIY Solar Food Dehydrator This is simple to make. Made from two cardboard boxes (or even timber), some clear plastic wrap, and a little tape and you can build an inexpensive solar dehydrator.
A functional food preservation machine that can be created for little work and little money.
Using the illustration as a guide, use a long thin cardboard box for the collector and a taller cardboard box to be used for drying. The boxes can be made to size 
by cutting and taping together small cardboard pieces (Alternatively, if you're a bit of a handyman, this can be made from timber - make to any size or configuration you desire).
The bottom of the collector box is to be lined with a black plastic sheet (garbage bag?) or paint the bottom with black non toxic water based poster paint, (lamp black or soot mixed with a little vegetable oil would work as well). NOTE: It is not desirable to use petroleum based sprays. If you do, let the collector bake in the sun for a day or two before use.
Cover the top of the collector with clear plastic wrap or window glass, etc. Tape it together as shown.
This unit can be quite easily made from recycled materials from the dump.
To increase the efficiency, you may want to cover the sides and bottom of both boxes with some form of Styrofoam insulation. When completed, place it on a support facing the sun as indicated in the illustration and it is ready to operate.
TESTS FOR DRYNESS:
- Rely on appearance and feel to judge.
- Test a handful by cooling for a few minutes before deciding if the fruit is done.
- When no wetness can be squeezed from the fruit when cut, it can be considered dried. Fruit should be pliable and tough. Don't overdry as the fruit is not as nice to eat.
- Vegetables should be dry and brittle.
PRE AND POST-DRYING TREATMENTS:
Steam blanching is a safe pre-treatment technique. This can prevent spoilage with low acid foods such as vegetables.
STORAGE:
It is important to ensure food is cool before storing - a condensation build-up can occur leading to mould if this is not followed.
Dried goods to be stored in small quantities in glass containers is desirable.
Always check frequently for mould or dampness.
Keep in a dry, cool place. Ideal temperature range is between 4 C/40 F and 21 C/70 F.
Make the most of the long hot summer by drying your excess fruit and vegetable crops.Sunshine, drying is free and easy. It is easy to do and you will find the end product so much tastier than the bought variety. You will also know that no chemicals or preservatives have been used in its preparation.
http://ecobites.com/content/view/857/48/
Solar Food Dryer
http://ecobites.com/diy-projects/diy-solar-food-dryer.html
The engines on them were probably good, but you have to have a purpose for them. <<<
I do have, you do too, a few parts and make electric.
I have one for my sluice box.
I had one for my dry washer.
We had one on the water tank on the trailer, sucked water out on the canal and then pushed it up to the top of the big water tank. [same type pump that is on the sluice box.]
They will run a pump for a shallow well.
They will run a grain grinder.
Put one in sight and it will vanish, they are magic and quickly stolen.
They were worth 3 to $500.00 35 years ago.
I doubt that my family even remembers that I have the sluice box and motor hidden and yes I went out and used it, until about 15 years ago.
No, I didn’t need a stream, hauled barrels of water and recycled what I used.
No, it never paid for itself.
I wish the drones I found, had of had the motors, we really needed them at the time.
I too played in wrecked airplanes, during WW2, would walk miles to the airport at Otay Mesa and spend hours there.
Then my mother started making me take my brother with me, as girls shouldn’t be in the river bottom alone.........Fred went as far as the river bottom, where we found him a shade tree, an old car seat and there he stayed, while I went on my way.
I look back now and wonder if I got a beating for that action, I did for every thing else......but then Fred just wanted to be quiet and think, he grew up to be an Ordained Baptist Minister.
If it had been my brother Ray, he would have gone with me and fixed the planes, but he was too young for such a long walk...Knowing him, had he been left under the tree, he would have built a raft and went out in the gravel pits [40’ deep holes full of water] and drowned........
I think a child needs to play at things, that are pretend, things that stretch their minds and let them roam.
We had timbers, as LOL, Mary and I drug those home one day and I could see a tripod, with the drones on cables, they could even have moved a wee bit....
We were on the bombing range, prospecting, so many times that I did not have to go to the base in Yuma and ask for a permit to go on the range, I called a phone number and they said if it was safe and LOL, furnished me with Gov. / Military maps, so that we could hunt for lost this and that, they wanted if found, and would be look for it, if we went to this or that area.
It was an exciting place to live, dopers stopping to ask for the road to pick up the load, trucks with barrels of fuel, for refueling the dopers airplanes, stolen farm equipment on its way to Mexico, illegals and even a pair of spies, wanting info that we did not have, about the things tested on the bombing range.
Said they walked the 5 miles out from town, and I looked up and there they were looking in my window at 10:pm.
We didn’t have a clue what they thought we should know, until the next day, the Sunday paper had a big write up about the fancy jet helicopter....news to us.
I did see the plane that could make a turn like a car, instantly, not a banked turn, he flew low over my house and then made a sharp right turn on to the bombing range.
Bill said “No, you saw a helicopter, airplanes can’t make a sharp turn”.......time proved him wrong, it was an English plane with a Rolls Royce engine and the paper showed it making the turn.
And then there was the space ship.
When you see your first one, you are scared to tell anyone, as they will call you nuts. We saw one about 1965 in Ramona Calif., had no idea what it was, just that we had seen ‘something’.
LOL, it was based at Yuma in the 1970’s, and flew over my place, every night at milking time, just at dusk, so it would not be seen.
At last about 2000, Popular Mechanics did a spread on it and when I showed the photo to Ray, he says it was being tested in Alaska in the late 1950’s and 1960, when he was there in the Air Force.
Yes, it is a space ship, it too makes sharp turns and you don’t really see the shape of it, as it is covered in bright lights, so you cannot, but is is round or oval shaped and much like the many photos that people say they saw.....which they did..except many of them do not ever admit that the pilot is
U.S. Air Force.