By: Al Rentfro

Al Rentfro — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 15:18:36 +0000

All this complexity with computer logic tracking is making a simple problem extremely complicated. I have built my own 25 watt solar tracking panel with a tracking error of less than 1 degree both azimuth and elevation turning around at sunrise shutting down at night. Built with simple tools and one circuit board and 2 150 ma gear head motors.

By: william

william — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:42:24 +0000

I was cruising through this site and just stopped long enough to read the question posed by Brandon King.
It is very hard to say who the best is at anything and personally speaking I don’t want to take a chance and make a guess. However his question asks
” without LDR” or light dependant resistors. Now ,that, I can speak on. In this day and time the PV array can be controlled mechanically in a one time position and held there pretty easily. Finding that sweet spot for year round direction is not very efficient, to say the least. The best you might expect is 30-40 percent. Since that is directly related to dollars in cost and dollars in lost value you can see that about every 4 years you have lost the price of the original watt/cost and are starting over on the payback cycle. All that said ,solar tracking pays off !
It’s quite possible to write a ladder logic program that will derive an asmuth and elevation for every day of the year and place your panel ,via a stepper motor in exact alignment with the sun. With the cost of Industrial computers (in salvage) dropping out of site a person only needs to find a programmer for his system and a few I/O racks and your off. Using stepper motors with gear boxes and delay on type relays (to cut down on chatter) you can easily build a DIY system for a few hundred dollars . I have already done it. However doing all the design and working out the engineering and programming to maintain the system was not a snap.
Its about a 9 on the electrical scale and a 7 on the structure and a 7 on the mounting/motor system.
Just in case its interesting to you, I used an Omron Sys Mac and Cx_programmer. Controlling the panels are super simple though.
After I did all that I came across a small controller designed by Richard Gideon at phoenix turbine(thats a search hint). I built two ,one for east west one for vertical stabilization. They are small, well thought out and it takes about two after noons to build. Parts are less than 20 bucks all of the internet.. Unfortunatly they do use LDRs in the circuit. They are the sensors for the quad comparator. Its not an array of whoppers all this will fit on a 2×3 perfboard.. Well Brandon if you read this take a look,I hope I changed your mind.IN MY OPINION ITS ONE OF THE BEST..William

By: BRANDON KING

BRANDON KING — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:35:56 +0000

HELLO, I AM WONDERING WHO IS THE BEST COMPANY IN CALIFORNIA TO CALL ABOUT THE NEW SOLAR TRACKING, WITHOUT LDR, NEED NEW PANNELS W/COMPUTER ASSIST & WIND PROVISION ASSIST, WOULD LIKE TO ORDER MULTIPLE PANNELS THAT COULD BE TIED INTO A FACILITY & ANY EXTRA POWER BE SOLD BACK TO LOCAL COMPANY.

Comments on: Solar Panel Tracking Kit

By: Al Rentfro

By: william

By: BRANDON KING