Mechanical Part of a Solar Tracker

EarthOS Autarky Lab
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#1

Greetings from Islamabad, Pakistan.

I am already working on the design of a tracker. It uses two satellite actuators for altitude and azimuthal movements. Electronics uses Arduino Leonardo board for controlling two arrays of 2KWs each.

Construction activity shown in the link below

http://www.wiredpakistan.com/topic/22690-diy-solar-tracker/?page=1

ITIS’s proposal can be conviniently bolted on top of the rotating table that I have already developed.

Could someone translate ITIS’s drawing into English. I am interested in looking at the design of the altitude hinge, which is not very clearly shown in the drawing.

Aurangzeb

#2

Nice!

Hi Aurangzeb,

Thanks for your contribution, it’s really interesting!

Do you plan to have somewhere an encoder so that you can check the movement of the tracker?

How will be built the support that will support the panels?

Marc.

#3

Mechanical Part of the Tracker

Hello Marc,

Thanks for your interest.

I plan to use satellite dish actuators for both movements. In the actuator there is a reed-switch which is activated by a magnet attached to the rotating part. I have noticed that each ‘click’ of the reed switch corresponds to less than 1 mm of linear movement of the actuator. I believe this is more than adequate for accurate tracking, when coupled with a microcontroller, which can keep an account of the forward and reverse clicks to determine the position.

To fine tune the alignment I have used photodiode based sensors for both the altitude and azimuthal movements.

Currently I am considering the design of the hinge. I have short listed an option which I would post in a few days.

The panels would be mounted on a steel frame welded together and bolted onto the hinge. This is quite easy to do here because welding services for such like jobs are easily available and thus cost effective.

Aurangzeb