My very very long solar tracker build

[XeonPony]

Mostly picture thread, this was started in 2013, then after moving to Alberta then to Saskatchewan then 8 years of thumb twiddling! I finaly got it made, big part was the purchase of a plasma cutter welder combo!







The above where the very basic beginnings of it.



I scavenged this from a RV Slide out as the RV was getting scrapped figured it`d be good for some thing I had my Y axis, I needed an X!



The idea, it has merrit!

[XeonPony]

How to glue it together now





Hmmm it looks like it`ll work but missing some thing



Not the fanciest thrust bearing but it`ll do!

[XeonPony]

Limit Switch

[XeonPony]

I went through a few controller revisions, first one I cooked the N relay, so got a power relay modul (They didn't have that when I first ordered it) then I gave up on the independent solar idea and used a 12V 40A psu.

[XeonPony]

Now with the controller I notice the X axis is working it seems the motor can move it faster than the panels can accelerate! I think this will be an issue!

PWM to the rescue!





Thankfully the way they designed the power relay board made integration very easy!








Last thing to do is to get the pad heater wired in, it stops tracking at apx -23c but starts once it warms up, the controller becomes non responsive to input. Then sealing up the box properly, so far it has worked great over winter other wise, that is my 540w array, it keeps things good enough for morning power till the main fixed array kicks in.

[JW]

Cool stuff Xeon,

 I just went thru getting a mobile phone today thru my cable company (imagine that) Im an LLC they even wanted my EIN, ?

JW 

[XeonPony]

The ebay welder that made it all possible!









The Helpers napping

[XeonPony]

How's it all going today?





New Helper to the pack, all so serves as an anti theft fur missile.

[XeonPony]

Cool stuff Xeon,

 I just went thru getting a mobile phone today thru my cable company (imagine that) Im an LLC they even wanted my EIN, ?

JW 

TY. I haven't been too active as late, now you guys got an idea why lol. I started to build the wind turbine but that got a bit stalled due to life, but now the tracker is for all intents done, new battery integrated I can again start to focus on that.

Going to try and upgrade the solar capacity, beehive and chickens on this years goal, and I need to get the milking machine out to the sheep and give that a go soon!

[JW]

 Some history here, the board is pretty old.

 back in the day as I took over ownership, buy the way DanF told me as he handed over the server keys well if JW is running things the board will be ok.

 Back when this transfer occurred ExonPony was made a moderator thruout the events. My best guess is over 8 years ago.

JW

[XeonPony]

Some history here, the board is pretty old.

 back in the day as I took over ownership, buy the way DanF told me as he handed over the server keys well if JW is running things the board will be ok.

 Back when this transfer occurred ExonPony was made a moderator thruout the events. My best guess is over 8 years ago.

JW

Ya it's been a while! I keep aiming others around here interested in getting self sufficient to this site, such a wealth of knowledge for all.

Keeping a picture record of the various builds and will be posting as I can. Slow en steady improvements.

[XeonPony]

Well after a couple blown PWM modules, a burned relay board I figured time to fix the azimuth drive properly

So far the main motor been an old rv slide out unit, 10 RPM at 840 inch pounds, this then went to a 2 to 1 further reduction, so 5 RPM

(5rpm / 60) * 360 = 30 degrees per second, needles to say horribly fast, stresses the frame and the motor.

So I finally got a 40:1 worm drive. So made a simple shaft coupler system and ruffing out an adapter plate.

Had to take the motor apart and clean it up.





So this will end up with 10rpm / 42 = (0.24rpm / 60) * 360 = 1.44 Degrees per second way way better!

So sun moves 7.5 degrees per 30m (I have it set to adjust every 30m to save wear on the motor) means now unit will run for 5.21 seconds, means much better wear pattern on the brushes and happier motor rather then massive 1 second surges!

Ideally now my psu and drive motor will be much longer lived and no more weird burn outs!

Next stage is to fabricate an adapter plate to mount on the bell housing, this will be 6" by 7" by 1/4" aluminium. will post an update once that is made and some picks of it when mounted back to the array and see if this will let me post a video of it in action.

[XeonPony]

Well after much finagling I am going to have to mount the gear motor with flush counter sunk bolts so need to rethink my adapter plate

So 1/4" Aluminium plate it will be with 5/16 SS counter sunk flat bolts

Cardboard is cheap for prototyping with!



got lucky and found the mechanical drawing for the slide out motor. Assisted greatly in helping to make it with a much more precise centre! So ideally the shaft alignment will be very tight.

But the thicker adapter plate may create a head ache depth wise.

[XeonPony]

Apparently my drill press is garbage!









luckily 2 stayed true so it all aligned in the end but I do not like missing two fasteners! But thankfully plenty more material to try again with a better template and drill press.

Counter sinking turned out perfect.

[Mary B]

Looks like either your drill press table is tilted or you didn't clamp the work piece down and it walked a bit...Aluminum is a pain to drill/cut the material will walk a LOT unless clamped tight

[joestue]

Looks like either your drill press table is tilted or you didn't clamp the work piece down and it walked a bit...Aluminum is a pain to drill/cut the material will walk a LOT unless clamped tight

Correctly sharpened drill bits....

[XeonPony]

well going to triple check my template, then will be clamping the hell out of it, and ensure a new drill bit smaller diameter.

will cut a smaller plate for next run, to facilitate better clamping

[XeonPony]

today been very busy, started off with trimming the 3/8th aluminium adapter plate to size and clean it up.

[XeonPony]

Aligning up and clamping things down inside and testing it all for free easy movement







It worked great so now to get it on the mast









Now I need to get all the wiring cleaned up and secured, and make some weather protection.

Next main project is making a proper bearing and rotor system and fixing the chain alignment (It is as bad as it looks).

I'd like to get it to the point I can put 1 Kw on it.

[Mary B]

Don't know the size of your support mast for the panels but if you put a flat plate on your bottom tube one of these would last many years. Already weather sealed... I have used the next size down(2" mast) to support really heavy antenna loads...

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-tb400

[XeonPony]

Don't know the size of your support mast for the panels but if you put a flat plate on your bottom tube one of these would last many years. Already weather sealed... I have used the next size down(2" mast) to support really heavy antenna loads...

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-tb400

All ways good to have options, I need to do a total remake of the top half, I was going to use a vehicle hub was my idea

[Mary B]

Don't know the size of your support mast for the panels but if you put a flat plate on your bottom tube one of these would last many years. Already weather sealed... I have used the next size down(2" mast) to support really heavy antenna loads...

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-tb400

All ways good to have options, I need to do a total remake of the top half, I was going to use a vehicle hub was my idea

That would work but weather sealing is an issue... and using down force on bearing designed to be use horizontal...premature wear? Bearing I linked is designed to have a large vertical weight parked on it.

[XeonPony]

Not sure of the wind loading ability, a wheel experiences heavy side loading as well, they're conical. a proper slew drive bearing has both thrust and side angular geometry. the downward force isn't the largest concern as it is the off set side forces with wind and drive system.

The most ideal thing would be a proper slewdrive unit!

[MattM]

Reminds me of the satellite television dish my parents had when I was young.  It used pivots to tilt back and forth.  The pivoting apparatus bore its weight on an arc shaped bar.  As you rotated the dish horizontally there were wheels that rested against the bar.  The bar sat on the horizontal pivot before the dish tilt machinism and could be adjusted about to any direction before keybolts held it tight against the main horizontal pivot.  Until wind got in the low 50s the big dish could hold a tight signal.

[XeonPony]

Minor update, I had to move the idler out to further tighten the chain for smoother operation, it ran a full 24h off a fully charged 5ah dewalt 20v drill battery and only used 1 bar of energy.

I still need to measure actual current from the drive motor through a full rotation to see the peak amps and time it to set the home position for after Sundown as the controller has a parking feature.

Reminds me of the satellite television dish my parents had when I was young.  It used pivots to tilt back and forth.  The pivoting apparatus bore its weight on an arc shaped bar.  As you rotated the dish horizontally there were wheels that rested against the bar.  The bar sat on the horizontal pivot before the dish tilt machinism and could be adjusted about to any direction before keybolts held it tight against the main horizontal pivot.  Until wind got in the low 50s the big dish could hold a tight signal.

It was made with a good bit of repurposed satellite dish parts and concepts

[XeonPony]

Here is why I needed to overhaul the Azimuth drive to begin with.

Need to revers engineer the circuit, easy enough to repair as just the rectifier module that blew but over all circuit is functional still.

[Mary B]

Here is why I needed to overhaul the Azimuth drive to begin with.

Need to revers engineer the circuit, easy enough to repair as just the rectifier module that blew but over all circuit is functional still.

(Attachment Link)

(Attachment Link)

(Attachment Link)

maybe a PWM motor driver instead of an on/off design? Can ramp speed up and have less stress on everything. How my antenna rotors work, they ramp up speed for 2 seconds then ramp down to stop. With 150ish pounds swinging in a circle that is a lot of force on the central mounts/motors...

This is what I rotate... 2 of the 4 antennas mounted, still needed to add the coax lines(4 of them), power divider, preamp... it adds up fast for weight



The finished antenna array tracking the moon(and I can track the sun to measure sun noise to measure receive performance)

[XeonPony]

PWM drive is partly what caused it, the old set up used a magnetic break for the motor when off, at times it hung and just acted like a flyback and all sorts of issues.

Worm drive self locking, so ditched the pwm idea all together. there is no band aiding a bad set up, simply strip and make it proper.

Nice set up. Most I did was CB, still have the gear and want to set it up again, used to get a god skip to honalulu

[Mary B]

My rotors are a double worm gear design... huge amount of torque and braking. One in the pic has over 8000 foot pounds or rotating torque and 24,000 foot pounds of braking.

[XeonPony]

Well second relay board suffered the same failure, the azimuth drive fly back diode bridge burned up, caught it before damage got too bad, so will remove the rectifier bridge and MOV and will replace with a larger heavier duty rectifier and a power resister.

and hope that deals with the issue, atm I am shooting from the hip and guessing they used a weak component and it breaks down due to the number of switching cycles the tracker goes through.

Will post pictures when that happens, till then focusing on fabricating my live stock scale

[XeonPony]

largest progress on the tracker, added a pilot light on the dc side to alert me should the PSU ever die.

Need to add in a heating system for cold weather, it has a 50w pad heater but I want to reduce the power level, so going to use a 25w PTC element.