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Tracker on the cheap, part 2.
By Volvo farmer, Section Solar Posted on Sat Jul 8th, 2006 at 08:08:47 PM MST
Finally finished off that jar of peanut butter.

Today was the day to install the tracker on the big array. All the farmers around here can thank me for bringing the rain. What's the rule? three daysof rain now?

Here's the Redrok tracker, mounted in a peanut butter jar lid and screwed to the edge of the solar panel

Here she is, all weathertight.

Here's a picture of the worm gear and limit switches. These are wonderful satellite dishes to use for this, very robust and they have an incredible range of travel

Parked at the West limit

Parked at the east limit with a dumb looking Volvofarmer standing alongside.

The sun came out just long enough for me to see that it worked, It then clouded up and is now raining again. The tracker now thinks it's night and is trying to park in the east.

All finished. Thre's a 5W amorphous panel on the fencepost in front and a small SLA battery sitting on the ground behind my concrete form. These power the tracker. I need to get some concrete delivered soon and fill up that form. This array looks like a scary big sail when it's near the east or west limit.
Without the solar panels, I don't think I even have $200 in this whole setup. If you're looking to do this, keep an eye open for Birdview or Paraclipse H-to-H worm-drive mounts like this one. This thing has about 20 degrees more travel in both directions than my other tracker which uses a screwjack.

Tracker on the cheap, part 2. | 15 comments (15 topical, 0 editorial)

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by TomW on Sat Jul 8th, 2006 at 02:58:00 PM MST
(User Info)

VolvoFarmer;

I bought one of those RedRok trackers about 4 years ago. It never worked right. Always hunted a place to stop and would not actually stop nearly cooked my jack. He blamed my mount for being "too loose" but I think he sent me a prototype.

I wonder if you have seen any of that type thing? I would like to get my array tracking but after that deal I am somewhat reluctant to deal with Duane again.He was very good about trying to help get it working right up til I said "I want my money back or another unit" at which time he stopped responding to email.

Can you give some idea of how rigid your panels are on your pole? Mine is a 4" steel pole embedded 4 feet into a hole with concrete and about 7 feet of pole out of the ground. I can get some motion on the panels but certainly not what I would call sloppy.

Anyway, just curious how rigid your mount is and if you had seen this problem or not?

Thanks.

Cheers.

TomW

Contact: IRC

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by 12volt dan (dan12v@hotmail.com) on Sat Jul 8th, 2006 at 03:33:31 PM MST
(User Info)

I found with mine that it was touchy in regards to aiming but my tracker was mounted in the center at the top.Bending the leds gets to be a pain to aim the panels. I also attached a wimdow motor out of a car to slow it down (and draw less).It seems to be less seceptable to hunting now. I wonder, does mounting the tracker where it is help with aiming?
11 years off the grid and counting
[ Parent ]

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by Volvo farmer on Sat Jul 8th, 2006 at 10:42:57 PM MST
(User Info)

Hi Tom,

These new trackers are improved over the old ones I believe. They now use only two LEDs and they're the biggest LEDs I've ever seen. My only experience so far is with my 2x80 watt array at my garage with the same unit. It has a very small satellite actuator on it and it has been pointing at the sun every time I looked at it for months now. Duane's website is seriously outdated. The new trackers have the night-parking feature and are significantly different from those he was offering a few years ago.

I'm sorry you had those problems with Duane. I might be reluctant to deal with him as well if I had that experience. However, when I looked at this tracker and realized that I wouldn't have even been able to solder the components into the board in two hours, much less design, test and improve the circuit, not to mention manufacturing the circuit board, I realized that if they work, they're worth 3x what he's selling them for.

My pole is only 3" and only 3' deep. It has about a 16" cardboard tube filled with concrete around the pole. It's scary-loose in the ground, though the clay soil helps a little. We had some 20mph gusts come up tonight when the thing was parked and I could see a 1/4" gap where it had moved the pole in the wet earth. I don't exactly know what you mean by "rigid on the pole" There's very little slop in my moving mechanism, due to the worm gear design. My other array was just thrown together with no attention to slop and Its been fine. I can wobble the whole pole/array by grabbing the edge of a panel but there's no dead spot, if that's what you mean. Are you using an actualle satellite dish mount? Those things have to track pretty accurately to get a strong signal and they're generally designed for no slop.

All that being said, I realized this evening that this new tracker is not working properly yet. I noticed when I did my manual run from east to west that it takes a lot more current for the motor to pull the thing up from its limits. Well, I went out this evening and I could hear the motor being energized but it wouldn't move the chain on the gear drive. The array was pretty far east with the sun in the west. If I helped it along, it would run and move though. The circuit in these trackers only energizes the motor for a second or two every couple minutes to keep from overheating the components, I believe (maybe to keep from cooking your jack as well?). I cut up an old droplight cord for my cable runs and it was pretty thin wire, maybe 20-22 ga. In addition, the motor on this worm drive unit is significantly larger than on the satellite linear actuators I've seen. I'm seriously hoping I have a problem with wire size and not enough current at the motor and that the tracker is not the weak link here. I'll be going out tomorrow with some significantly larger wire and rewiring it to see if that solves my problem.

I'll post back when I know more.

Volvo Farmer

May you always have success in your quest to irritate those who you despise. -Ben Goode
[ Parent ]

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by hydrosun on Wed Jul 12th, 2006 at 09:10:22 AM MST
(User Info)

I was having the problem of the tracker going back and forth trying to find the center. I had Duane put on a 90 second delay before reversing direction. This eliminated the problem. It did add $5 to the price, and I have to call to special order this modified circuit. I've got three of these up for myself and customers. It also protects the circuit better from jammed motors and other problems.
Chris

[ Parent ]

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by SamoaPower on Sat Jul 8th, 2006 at 03:35:52 PM MST
(User Info)

Looks great! Enjoy the increased output.

One suggestion. Cover most of the jar with foil, leaving a small opening for the sensor LEDs to peek out. This minimizes the jar acting like a mini-greenhouse and unnecessarily heating up the electronics.

I also use a Redrok controller on my polar axis tracker with concentrator, although a different model than yours. It has four LEDs and is all surface mount. Contrary to TomW's experience, it has worked flawlessly and is quite accurate - I'd guess within 1-2 degrees. I think it's a bargin. It's kinda neat watching it seek out the brightest part of the sky when the clouds are floating about. It often is not where the sun is, depending on cloud fringing effects.

Hope the cement truck arrives before a big wind.

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by iFred (ifred2006@yahoo.com) on Sat Jul 8th, 2006 at 06:32:21 PM MST
(User Info)

nice! i have heard that if you put some small black tube around the led's of different lenghts it helps to make it adjust better. you can also try putting a small peice of cardboard (black) in-between the led's. this might also make it more or less sensitive. I like the panels thought! nice job!

>> all energy used to produce this comment or post came from solar and wind energy! It works!

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by wooferhound (tim((NoSpamAt))wooferhound.com) on Sun Jul 9th, 2006 at 11:13:38 AM MST
(User Info) http://wooferhound.com

I looked at the pictures really hard, but I can't see your Volvo Garden . . .

W o o f -={(

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by BT Humble (bt_humble@bigpond.com) on Sun Jul 9th, 2006 at 05:47:07 PM MST
(User Info) http://www.humbletown.org

I looked at the pictures really hard, but I can't see your Volvo Garden . . .

Not to worry, Dan has planted some Volvo seeds under his new tower and he should have a good crop next year. ;-)

BTH

[ Parent ]

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#14)
by dinges on Wed Jul 12th, 2006 at 09:20:45 AM MST
(User Info)

Could you send me an enveloppe with some Volvo seeds? Preferably the V80 kind, so I could drive it before taking it apart for the hubs.

But if all you have is Volvo 240 seeds, fine.

Peter (Wanna-be Volvo Farmer)

[ Parent ]

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Volvo farmer on Sun Jul 9th, 2006 at 07:03:52 PM MST
(User Info)

Farm... it's a Volvo farm. One thing I've found is it's a lot easier to grow Volvos out of sight of the house where the wife lives.

Volvo Farmer

May you always have success in your quest to irritate those who you despise. -Ben Goode
[ Parent ]

Followup (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by Volvo farmer on Sun Jul 9th, 2006 at 07:23:36 PM MST
(User Info)

Well, I cured my problem today. After reading more closely about this tracker circuit, it appears it works from anywhere from 10-44 volts. I needed more oomph to get the motor to move when it was near the limits. Well, I just re-wired from 12V to 24V with a couple small SLA batteries I had laying around and it works like a charm now, plenty of power to move the motor. Hehe, it's about an hour before dark, the clouds have gone away, and I'm still getting over 300W out of my panels. Those two Harbor Freight 1.5W panels I bought last month are going to come in handy for keeping these batteries topped off.

Volvo Farmer

May you always have success in your quest to irritate those who you despise. -Ben Goode

Re: Followup (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by iFred (ifred2006@yahoo.com) on Sun Jul 9th, 2006 at 10:05:51 PM MST
(User Info)

I agree, there is nothing like watching it get close to 7 or 8 pm the sun goin down and still pumping a couple hunderd watts out of panels.. pretty cool! I run full load all day and charge my batts at the same time. Each afternoon, my batts are fully charged to 14vdc. Nice! what kind of batts are you charging volvo farmer?
I have 8xL16
>> all energy used to produce this comment or post came from solar and wind energy! It works!
[ Parent ]

Re: Followup (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by ghurd on Tue Jul 11th, 2006 at 12:26:43 AM MST
(User Info)

Seal up the 1.5W HF PVs. They die quick in the weather. 2 to 12 months.
We moved the most recent pair inside against the window!
G-

[ Parent ]

Re: Followup (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by Volvo farmer on Tue Jul 11th, 2006 at 06:29:53 AM MST
(User Info)

Thanks, The paper in the box also said to seal them up for outside use. Clear silicone already applied.

Volvo Farmer

May you always have success in your quest to irritate those who you despise. -Ben Goode
[ Parent ]

Re: Tracker on the cheap, part 2. (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by richhagen (richhagen (a t) Juno.com) on Sat Jul 15th, 2006 at 10:18:46 AM MST
(User Info)

Volvo, nice job on the tracker, also, I've also never had any luck with the longevity of those amorphous type panels standing up to exterior conditions as was previously pointed out by Ghurd. Lastly, being from Chicago, I just have to point out your sweatshirt. Rich
'A Joule saved is a Joule made'

Tracker on the cheap, part 2. | 15 comments (15 topical, 0 editorial)

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