bad case of designers block!

[XeonPony]

I am in the hard ware assembly stage of making a tracker, I have a 90 degree worm drive off one of those disability scooters, very powerful motor, but where I seem to be unable to pick a method of connecting it, and then how to do the final thrust berring for the azimuth support.

So can we get some pics of how you did the berring system for the mast rotor?

I am thinking chain will be the easiest way to couple the motor to the main suport shaft, and welding say 10 bike sprockets back to back will over some major safety factor and more then enough strength to handle any winds that get thrown at it

For the thrust berring one thought was use an old wheel hub but I am cuatious about that as it will be holding a few $k in panel!  so I need to see some images of how others have don it to draw some conclusions!

Thanks in advance! will post detailed pics of this project when don!

[Mary B]

for that low speed of a bearing pipe on pipe works fine.

[XeonPony]

well I been using pvc as a wear bushing but the studs that it rides on there has been noticable wear, so I want to avoid that wear point, ironicaly the pvc wear bushing has don precious little wearing!

[Gary]

Not following exactly but we have all seen what appears to be a rubber seal wearing a steel shaft.  It's really harder-than-steel grit getting embedded in the rubber and wearing the shaft.  Likely what you have seen with your PVC bushing.

[XeonPony]

Nope, no wear on the inner diameter of the pole either, the load is so well spread it isn't wearing, all the load is on the upper studs that the array rides on.

The Azmith spindle is even more critical as I am in a high wind environment now.

[Frank S]

I have 1kw worth of panels inbound and am thinking about just making the array to have 2 positions a morning and afternoon the array size for the panels is about 9ft by 9ft give or take a couple inches.
 my thinking is to avoid having the array pointing directly at the sun during the highest heat of the day say sunrise to 2PM maybe 10 to 15 degrees east and 2PM to sundown 10 to 15 degrees west I'm at 32.52 latitude. that actual degree will have to be worked out after things are set up.

  For my way of thinking and I could be wrong is that the gains in wattage from facing directly into the sun would be lost due to overheating.
 if my theory is correct then instead of tracking I will only need a simple single movement of the servo actuator operated by a  programmable mechanical timer

[XeonPony]

Not really you do want them to face dead on just the way they work, got the strong back made and the latitude actuater on it, still strugling with the azumith drive end of it.

I redesigned the array to hold 6 kyroshera 245w pannels will snap some picks of it in the morning.

[tecker]

Most of us are not Designers by any means . But I would say 99% of the folks on this board get the info they need and share with
others . Just trial and error with good success rate . This would account for the success of these boards . The Tracking is a fun part of solar setups . I'll look a t Homey's inventory sound good .

[XeonPony]

I am no engineer or professional designer, but when it will be holding a couple thousands worth of pannels I crunch the numbers and dot the I's.

Found the cammera pictures to come soon! still haven't got the slew system figured!