I recently took an interest in the Redrok sun tracker and made up my own copy of the circuit and had it produced on PCB's from PCB Express. A total of six PCB's were made and one was populated with the same components specified by Redrok.
The web site reference is here:-
http://www.redrok.com/led3xassm.htm#led3xc3A test pole was erected and an old satellite dish hub mount was equipped with a 36 volts DC actuator. The power supply for the test was 12 volts DC so this meant that the actuator ran slowly which is useful for sun tracking.
After observing the operation for several days in different weather conditions I was able to reach the following conclusions:-
If you live somewhere in the world where there are no clouds all day and everyday of the year, then the sun tracker is the best thing since sliced bread.
If you live in a normal place like me and have every imaginable weather condition (except snow) then the sun tracker will track all over the arc (East to West) and try to settle on the brightest area of sky. Since cloud thickness is forever changing the tracker motor would buzz away to the point where I got fed up with the motor noise.
I decided to implement some changes and replaced a 100uf capacitor with a 1,000uf capacitor which slowed the operation down, but did not stop the constant hunt around the sky. I tried various values of variable resistor which seemed to have little effect.
I then built the reverse inhibitor circuit which made the circuit ‘stand still' and despite making adjustments with the variable resistor I could never track the sun successfully. Sometimes the tracker would be quite a long way ahead of the sun
As a result I became fed up with the experiment and dismantled everything.
I no longer require the new unpopulated PCB's and the populated single board and shall be happy to give them away as a ‘job lot' on a
first come first served basis. There are sufficient extra unused components to populate a new board. Those readers experienced in basic electronics should not have a problem.
Please contact me by signing-in to the board and leave a PM with your correct name and address and I will ship the lot off by airmail.
In the meantime I am pleased
to report that the LM339 sun tracker circuit I built 4 years ago continues to give me faithful and flawless service.
David in HK