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Lytefire DIY Solar Oven

The first construction plans allow you to build the solar concentrator...

...and the second part of the construction plans are for building the Oven.

Get your Lytefire Solar Oven DIY Construction Plans

112 pages to guide you step by step

Build your own, powerful solar oven for baking. This construction plan summarizes more than a decade of our field experience to reach the best performances and design! Check all the users and see all the great things you can do with your Lytefire here.

Package Content:
  • 1 Solar Concentrator Construction Plan: step-by-step instructions (70 pages)
  • 1 Solar Oven Construction Plan: step-by-step instructions + detailed parts fabrication (42 pages)
  • 1 Users Manual with instructions for use, security and site selection (30 pages)
  • 1 Tutorial Video: Installation and Setup of your Lytefire
  • 1 Tutorial Video: Mirrors callibration for efficient use
  • 1 Technical Booklet: Use and maintenance
  • 1 Safety Notice to pin next to your Lytefire
  • Up to 1 hour of technical assistance during your building from one of our trainers. We support you, at your own pace, on the phone (chat or call). We’re here to make your project a full success.
  • Your access to Lytefire Hub with a dedicated builders forum where you can share and get tips
  • 1 Lytefire’s solar baking Recipes Booklet
Interested? Contact us →

How does solar baking with Lytefire works?

What can you do with this Lytefire ?

  • 50 kg to 110 kg of fresh bread every day depending on the bread recipe
  • Up to 500 buns or cookies
  • Pizzas, pies, cakes, quiches
  • Brioches, croissants, all kind of delicious "viennoiseries"
  • Can also be used as a regular cooking oven
  • And the food tastes the same!

More questions? Check the FAQ

Lytefire DIY built is recommended only for private or semi-professional uses. This Lytefire is not a mobile unit.

Disclaimer: Lytefire is powerful. The use of our construction plans and the solar cooking is at your own risk. Please follow carefully the safety instructions that are listed on our Terms. Thank you.

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Construction Plans with the step-by-step instructions and detailed part fabrication drawings (70 pages for Solar Concentrator and 42 pages for the Oven, available in English and in French).
Interested? Contact us →

Technical Specifications:

  • Uses only direct concentrated sun ray, no fuel costs
  • Produces 3500 Watts of thermal energy
  • Reaches up to 300°C / 572°F (the oven is hot at 240°C after 45min-1 hour)
  • Even heat distribution for high quality baking
  • Immune to blackouts and brownouts
  • No fuel costs (requires sunlight, but that’s free)
  • No automated tracking: you need to slightly turn the Lytefire 5 every 10 mins to follow the sun
  • The combined surface of all mirrors is 5 square meters
  • Requires a sunny flat space of at least 7 meters of diameter in which to operate with no shade
  • Easy to clean: only water and soap to clean the mirrors. Clean the oven as normal.
  • If properly built and painted, the Lytefire will last about 16 years
  • The materials are regular steel, bolts, and mirrors, and they can be found almost everywhere. The price can vary from one retailer to the other so take your time to compare.
  • With good conditions, it takes up to 10 days to build your Lytefire and its oven.

Security:

  • As for any stove or fire, you do not leave the device unattended.
  • When you are done building, we recommend you perform the burning stick test for your family so everybody can see the actual power of your solar concentrator
  • Wearing sunglasses while baking is recommended
  • After usage, always turn down all mirrors to completely turn off the concentration.

More questions? Check the FAQ.

So much delicious food you can bake here
Image
So much delicious food you can bake here

Baking:

  • The baking happens exactly as on any oven :)
  • On the side of the oven, a lever allows you to change the inclination of all the mirrors at once to increase or decrease the heat.
  • Solar cooking doesn’t change the food’s taste

Weather:

  • You need a clear blue sky for the Lytefire to work. If can be a fresh spring day, a hot summer morning or a sunny winter afternoon.
  • The mirrors array should be dismantled and/or stored indoor in case of heavy storm / hail storm. For more about the weather, See FAQ.
Interested? Contact us →
Solar pizza in Switzerland.
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Solar pizza in Switzerland.

Calculate your Savings with Lytefire:

For a DIY construction, count about 3500€ for the materials plus the price of the guide, and enter the amount in the calculator.

Every time you use Lytefire, you don’t have to spend money on electricity or fuel. So, over time, Lytefire pays for itself. How quickly? It depends on how much you use it.

With a Lytefire, you can bake 50 kg to 110 kg of bread (up tp 242 pounds) daily. But in practice, most users will bake less than that. The calculator here starts at 30kg per day, but you can adjust it to your use-case. Click on the edit button to calculate yourself.

Next we are factoring in how many baking days there are per year. Consider weekends, off-times, as well as rainy days. To start, we have added 200 solar workdays to the calculator. Adjust it to your use-case. Check our FAQ if you have questions about using Lytefire in your climate.

Lastly, there’s the energy price. Electricity costs are different in every country, as well as fuel prices. Research your local electricity price, e.g. on this site, and adjust the Kilowatt-Hour price. We indicated a price of 0.15€, which is likely a lower price than what electricity costs in your country. So your savings are likely higher than that!

Want to understand how this savings calculator works? Read more about it on this post.

Save 1588 € with Lytefire every year.

In this case, the Lytefire pays for itself within 4 years.

Enter below the values to calculate your savings
Production
Kilograms
Workdays
Energy Cost

Choose the energy you use to compare with Lytefire:

€
Check your electricity price with your local provider. In France the electricity price in May 2023 was 0.27 € per kWh. In Kenya it's 0.15 €.
€
€
Investment
€
Visit our shop to find out more about our products.
%
In the current global climate, we can expect energy prices to rise for multiple reasons, including inflation. Put 0 to disable this parameter.
Advanced
kWh / 1 kg bread
kg firewood / 1 kg bread
kg charcoal / 1 kg bread
Currency: €US$£C$CHFKShCFA

Join the Community of 334 DIYers, Users, Builders, Educators and Entrepreneurs

Connect with Lytefire Users all over the world

After your purchase you get access to the Lytefire Hub, where you can download your construction plans, how-to-videos, and acces a forum where you can ask questions and get answers quickly. It is a safe community where you can share updates and learn from other users.Join us and share your journey, challenges and transformation with all!

This map is private to the community, so you decide if you want to be on it or not. It allows you to check if someone near you shares the same Lytefire passion. We show here some of the users of the Hub!

Interested? Contact us →

What they say

Bilal Gondal

Engineering Undergraduate, Pakistan

"Your design is easy to understand and straight-forward to build. We achieved the advertised temperatures in the first try with none of the complications experienced by other students that used a different solar concentrator design."

J. Turner

Instead of buying charcoal, we use the sun", great to see such a simple solution with so many applications - including commercial food production - in so many places (many in Africa, but also the video features Switzerland and Finland).

Kurt Baumann

Building Teacher, Switzerland

"These tools are quick to build and effective for the job. As indicated by the Lytefire team it really did take us 2 hours to calibrate the mirrors but then our surprise was great once the water started boiling and the veggies and burgers started to sizzle in the pan!"

Moutasem Hassan

Builder and entrepreneur, Palestine

"I’m especially excited about this technology because it can be built locally, so it will not be limited by the harsh import duties imposed on us"

Romain Zamboni

Microbrasserie Hélie

"I think I choose Lytefire because it’s the simplest way I found to try what I was thinking about. I already knew that I needed some concentrated solar power for my brewery. And Lytefire was from what I found, that was existing already, it was the simplest. And the design I built and experimented with, was the quickest."

Romain Zamboni

Microbrasserie Hélie

"Our beers are brewed thanks to the power of the sun! To reduce our carbon footprint and the use of resources required for our lifestyle and consumption, the sun is our best friend!"

Shawn Connell

Staff at GrowNYC, USA

"We made popcorn as a snack this morning, (look how hot the cooker got at 9am). Then this afternoon the students used it to make a stir-fry using ingredients from the garden (collard greens, garlic, onions, eggplants, and herbs)."

What they say

Bilal Gondal

Engineering Undergraduate, Pakistan

"Your design is easy to understand and straight-forward to build. We achieved the advertised temperatures in the first try with none of the complications experienced by other students that used a different solar concentrator design."

Check the DIYers
J. Turner

Instead of buying charcoal, we use the sun", great to see such a simple solution with so many applications - including commercial food production - in so many places (many in Africa, but also the video features Switzerland and Finland).
Kurt Baumann

Building Teacher, Switzerland

"These tools are quick to build and effective for the job. As indicated by the Lytefire team it really did take us 2 hours to calibrate the mirrors but then our surprise was great once the water started boiling and the veggies and burgers started to sizzle in the pan!"

Check the DIYers
Moutasem Hassan

Builder and entrepreneur, Palestine

"I’m especially excited about this technology because it can be built locally, so it will not be limited by the harsh import duties imposed on us"

Check DIYers
Romain Zamboni

Microbrasserie Hélie

"I think I choose Lytefire because it’s the simplest way I found to try what I was thinking about. I already knew that I needed some concentrated solar power for my brewery. And Lytefire was from what I found, that was existing already, it was the simplest. And the design I built and experimented with, was the quickest."
Romain Zamboni

Microbrasserie Hélie

"Our beers are brewed thanks to the power of the sun! To reduce our carbon footprint and the use of resources required for our lifestyle and consumption, the sun is our best friend!"

Check Solar Breweries
Shawn Connell

Staff at GrowNYC, USA

"We made popcorn as a snack this morning, (look how hot the cooker got at 9am). Then this afternoon the students used it to make a stir-fry using ingredients from the garden (collard greens, garlic, onions, eggplants, and herbs)."

Check the DIYers
You would prefer to cook?

Get the Lytefire Stove Plans and build yours! Or purchase an Oven from one of the Artisans!

Image

A Lytefire Stove and a Lytefire Oven in a Swiss garden.

Check out what you can do with Lytefire!

Interested? Contact us →
Lytefire mirrors

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