I wanted to share a little project that I did at my home. I had recently installed a small,(200 watt) set of panels, and wanted to be able to squeeze all I could out of them. On top of a tower section I mounted a 16" steel disk that I had bored a hole through and installed a bushing in, as well as two grease fittings. Then I took a second steel disk and welded a shaft through the center so one plate would sit on top of the other. On the top plate I mounted the frame that held the panels. $20.00 at a flea market and I had an antenna rotor and control box. Simple enough to mount the motor, but I wanted it automatic. When I opened the control box I found 2 sets of switches that were operated by a small, motor-driven cam. One set was a N.O. contact. This has to close for the rotor to run. The second switch was a three-wire, form-C type contact with a common and the other leads N.O. . The second switch selects the direction of rotation. I had a very small Eaton brand of PLC that I had pulled from a junked out pump system. I wrote a simple program for it that sends the proper signal to the proper leads and so far it has been working great. The PLC has accurate timers and the rotor motor is stepper type. If a person couldn't get hold of a PLC, they could build the same system with industrial timers. If your interested, want to see a pic of something, or have a question or suggestion, let me know. Thank you very much.
P.S. Those two steel disks were supposed to be going into an axial flux wind generator, so I guess that project is delaed for now.