Home Built Solar Tracker

This is a solar tracer that I built from scrap metal and some new square tubing and new tracker sensor from Red Rok. It works perfectly and adjust to the sun location about every 45 seconds. This is one of the biggest returns for what little bit of time that it took to build the project. If you have a welder and basic skills, I highly recommend you build one of these. I have no plans, I simply read and researched how to buld this on the internet using other peoples various designs. I took these designs and used the part that I felt would work best. The resuslt was very functional. Has been working perfectly for a year now.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Solar
• Tracker
• Panels
• Do it yourself
• home made
• home built
• free tracker
• red rok
• red roc
• how to build a solar tracker
• solar project

[foraminotomy]

I appreciate the educated ballpark calculations.

[foraminotomy]

This is 1200 watt system. Thanks for your comments.

[bonds911]

this is what i wanna do someday... congratulations...

[Resistoon]

How does this hold up during windy rainy weather, stability wise?

[anderwan]

@bonds911 Google "builditsolar grid-tied" for what looks to be a very good resource.

[anderwan]

@DonMega187 Educated ballpark calculations:

- This is a 1200W system, so let's say it averages 3KWh of energy per day on average, or 3KW * 3600seconds/hour * 3hours = 10.8 MegaJoules.

- Let's say the force of the actuator is 100lbs (444Newtons) and it moves the attachment point a distance of 1 meter each day, requring 444N * 1m = 444Joules of energy.

- On average, the energy required to track is around 1/100,000th the energy put out by the array.

[DonMega187]

how much does the moving itself consume electricity?

[gbcanuck]

Great job! Are you concerned with high winds?

[TheKilog69]

Thats a great job i hope my project turns out as well as yours.

[Xringer]

Nice job! How many watts of PV you got there? Looks big!

I have the Redrock on my 500w tracking array and really like it.

I used the post and mount from an old satellite antenna.

Some DIY stuff (and pictures) is on the EcoRenovator forum under "Solar Tracker Project".