From STN to Solixi
STN Travel Guides have been made since 1961, in 1994 Jyri Jaakola was nominated for CEO. Travel Guides were made in several languages about Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with a database/publishing system that was designed by Jyri. Web-pages grew worldwide in the year 2000.
The operations of STN ended in 2016 and the company changed it name to Solixi Oy.
STN financed the ideas, development, patenting and prototypes of Solixi during the years 2007-2016.
Darius Duoba made STN and Baltic Travel Guides in Vilna, Liettua in 1994-2016 and drew hundreds of 3D-drawings with Jyri.
Solixi was redrawn several times. One step at a time functioning and compatible solutions were found.
2017 smart web calculator, economic viability
The birth of the solar concentrator
Jyri needed a new boiler, the year was 2011. You could hook it up with a solar energy. Where could I put the solar collector? What kind of a collector? Unfortunately my roof was in wrong direction, although at the
top of the roof the sun shines.
I could not turn the roof to south and I could not lift it higher. I had to invent a frame for the collector, otherwise it would not be in sun shine. We could not find any suitable frames I could use.
STN resources soon came along as well as energy and climate experts from the chats in the internet.
A friend of mine climbed in the roofs of his relatives to measure the radiation and orbit of the sun.
My neighbour designed Solixi logo and helped to build the first prototype
on the roof of a car from a skateboard and ordinary mirrors. Finally I figured out a solution that was worth trying. In addition to a frame concentrator needed also the mirrors which would concentrate the radiation, heliostats. They were made in a protoshop by Elmer Tech Ltd.
In 2013 we got Solixi solar concentrator to the roof and boiler was made part of the testing equipment at the same time. We measured temperatures and energy production, tested pumps and other equipment.
The development of Solixi controller
The controller of the prototype of solar concentrator in 2013 was quite a tune-up. It and the prototype of the solar concentrator functioned almost a year. The controller had to be productized for serial manufacturing. At the same time the functions were expanded to control also the pumps of Solixi water boiler and other connected devices. Solixi became an energy system. Development was focused in 2014-2017 to the design of controller, for the finance of which a bank and Tekes granted a loan.
Electronics was designed by Microteam Oy.
The prototype 2013
2013 functioned well from March to November 2013.
The solar concentrator got a patent in Finland 29.11.2013, which
accelerated the subcontractor contracts and product development. Especially
because the prototype produced a lot of heat from morning until night, also in the winter.
The birth of Solixi boiler
The heat produced by the prototype did not fit in a traditional boiler. Already the production of one sunny day is often too much. Solar concentrator turns mirrors away from reflection position when boiler threatens to boil, mutta energy will be lost.
We needed a larger boiler, that is steered by an intelligent controller. These ideas lead to Solixi boiler patent application 15.11.2013.
It solved the energy storage problem, but increased work in the design and productization.
Fairs, networking, seminars
Already during the year 2013 it became clear that Solixi improves also the efficiency of other devices and lowers their operating expenses. It is profitable in almost every building and everywhere. Interest rose and buyers appeared, but sales could not be started because the productization was not ready.
During the year 2014 Jyri started designing new software like in the days of STN. Over 30 years career with travel marketing software had changed into Solixi-building services.
