Difficulties and New Idea

We had some difficulties with sealing the water leakage in a few spots of our final prototype.
Therefore, we came up with a new idea: using a 2.5 gallon recycled plastic water bottle that has a faucet for draining. This 2.5 water container is designed to sit on a flat surface and is sold anywhere in the US. We wrote to GrupoFenix to check whether they have such bottles over there. We have not heard back from them, but we decided to go ahead and try this new idea.

Advantages of this design:
Sustainability- It is made of recycled material, an empty water bottle.This unit will not leak! The base is made of the bottom half of the bottle--all one piece. The unit already has a faucet for draining the water at the bottom The plastic is soft and very easy to work with. It can be cut with a scissors or a utility knife. No need to worry about cutting with electrical machine It will use recycled water (base) and coke bottle plug (to refill water). It eliminates the need of creating a draining plug, and it takes less time to make. It is also inexpensive, saving on material for gluing/sealing the joints of the distiller. 

Disadvantages of the Design:
The sides of the unit are semi clear. The unit will perform best when the sun is shining on the top of the panel. This may reduce the rate of evaporation by a significant amount. However, because it is inexpensive we can create as many units as needed to supply the two gallons of distilled water needed per month. 

To create this new prototype, we cut the top of the bottle to create an angle. We then glued a plastic divider used from the same bottle to create the large and small compartment of the bottle. 

Process:

We first cut the top of the bottle diagonally, leaving one inch above the water plug/tap

We cut a small round opening through which we will insert a plug we cut from a cola bottle.  

Next, we cut a divider and glued it using silicon.

Next, we cut the glass and strips of left over plastic to help seal the gaps between the glass and the container. 

We attached the plastic strips on the back of the glass to help seal the gap on top of the container. 

Next we used silicon to attach the glass on top of the container.