Concept solar tracker

[(unknown)]

Greetings, I found a video on you tube showing a bike chain and sprocket used for axis movement.  The chain is attached around the outside of the axis and the sprocket on the motor drive shaft and the configuration allows for very easy assembly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww0DN_dQSuE

Another video shows a project where two small pv panels are placed back to back and then mounted perpendicular to allow for very accurate position sensing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH49Xd_NV3A

It is to cold to work on other projects so I created a concept drawing. I am thinking of mounting a small pv panel on the back of the unit so at sun rise the unit will return to start tracking the sun again.  Controller circuit will consist of some op amps and power fets.  I still have to draw, assemble , and test before starting construction of unit.  Feed welcome.

[zap]

I never heard anything on the video from your first link about any type of return function nor could I find anything about a return function at his blog site or on his instructables page.

I'm sure a return could be worked out and although using a sealed vessel of ethanol is intriguing and how he went about is very clever, the design seems a bit fussy.

I wonder how much power could be extracted from his design if it was scaled up and used purely for power generation?

Your second link is also interesting.  Too bad there's not more information on the project.

It's hard to tell for sure but it looks like he's got the power from the tracking panels hooked up to a breadboarded circuit.

For "cheap & simple", I'll stick with the "trash tracker".

[KilroyOdin]

Greetings, the first link shows how to use a bike chain and sprocket for a easy way to mount a motor to a axis for motion tracking.  I wish him the best of luck with the rest of his project, but the chain and sprocket idea is different and really neat.  

Using the idea from the second video hopefully should make the motor control circuit very simple and straight forward. The sun will only shine on one pv panel at a time. I am still working on the details.