Making a sun-tracking solar panel
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
- A solar panel that automatically tracks the sun is something I've always wanted to build, and now the time has finally come!
microcontroller software and electrical diagram:
akiotv.nl/ware...
(AKIO TV) MMXXIII
/ actual_akiotv
Way back in the 70's and 80's I played with a BASIC program which determined sunrise/sunset times for my location. I am sure by now that those types of programs can calculate the exact location of the sun at any time (I knoe that automatic telescope programs exist for even hobbiest). If you could scan horizontally and remember highest voltage output, then return to that location and then scan up and down vertically, you then have the location of each axis for the current sun position. We do that with radio direction-finding). Still, very informative and pretty easy for even the layperson to follow your build. Thanks! (By the way, here in Hawai'i twice a year, in May and July, the Sun passes directly overhead. On these two days, around local noon, the Sun will be exactly overhead, at a 90o angle, and an upright object such as a flagpole will have no shadow.)
Very simple yet effective, I like it! Great work my guy!
I want to do something similar with a large array, but use photovoltaic switches in a "shadow" box to trigger the program, with a reset to a dedicated position at night. I really only want the panels moving every hour or so for a large array (10-12 panels)
Hello, not only your videos are very interesting. I have learned a lot and I appreciate the way you teach things and explain how it works. Moreover it's a way for me to improve my english as I live the other side of the channel. I imagine this takes you lots of work to produce this kind of video. So thanks for that and keep up this work as it is very valuable.
Thanks for the nice comment. It is indeed a lot of work making these videos, but I enjoy it far too much to stop :)
Good stuff, man! Well done. Thanks!
Will this rig be joining you on a certain racetrack in France? I was wondering if the extra yield was more then the motor and components consume but I will just have to wait for the weather to clear up for those results (which might take a while). Anyways, wonderful project! Briljant execution.
Not sure if this rig is portable enough to bring, but the solar panel itself probably is. And indeed it seems like we're going to be stuck with this weather for a while haha.
Thanks for watching Rogier :)
I like It's elegant design! 👌
glad you like it :)
Very awesome video. I always look forward to seeing your videos. Keep it up :D
Thanks a lot!
just use 2 LDR's with a wall between them. Compare them and then adjust the solarpanel.
that would work too, but the solution in the video needs no extra parts (since was going to install the current sensor anyway for power monitoring.)
The automatic sun position tracking is cool, but in my opinion, it is enough to rotate the platform in accordance with the current time.
I thought about doing that, but that method brings up some unexpected issues, making it more complicated than you might think:
- the position of the sun isn't entirely consistent with time over the year, it changes depending on the date. This can be fixed either with a huge lookup table with all dates/times and corresponding positions, or computing the position using some non-trivial math (ok let's be fair it's probably not that hard but thinking about orbits/timezones and stuff is a complicated mess).
- most microcontrollers don't have an absolute clock. This is also the case for this arduino: it doesn't know what time it is. you could add a clock module in the control box to fix it, or transmit time information to the controller using an external source (perhaps a computer).
When you realize you need to take care of all that, you might as well do what I did, or perhaps use some simple light sensors instead.
@@AKIOTV Some LDRs would make your system more efficient as you would not have to scan through the maximum so far to get the correct position
I agree that the clock method would need you to know where on the earth you are to get it to work correctly.
The sensor system also ensures the panel is looking at the part of the sky that is producing the highest energy not assuming that that is the correct position using a clock.
It is very informative to me .Do lots of new things like this👌👌
@@keerthanaravi6225 I like these projects, there's lots more to come
Nice work!. Think about reducing the gearing so you have way more precision in rotation and, factor in Wind!!!. Have bolted position adjustments!.
You're right about the precision, I think there's something to gain there. Luckily I don't need to change the gear ratio for that, just a software update will do. The controller now moves the motor 16 steps in one go, I think I'll change that to 8 or so. (much smaller movement is easily possible on the motor side of things, but then the differences in power output from the solar panel become too small for my current sensor to reliably detect.)
I wasn't that concerned about the wind, since the location it's in is very well sheltered from the wind. There happens to be quite a storm going today and it's still standing as I write this haha. I may still bolt it down just to be safe though :)
Very nice 😁👍🏻
What kinda wire did you buy for the microcontroller?
You mean the thin ones? Those are from some 5-wire cable I had laying around. They're actually quite nice.
i found the wind will turn the panel many times and that why i use a worm gear assy instead. the wind can't turn it.
@@georgebaker8108 Clever solution. I've not had many problems with the wind though.