Heliostat

A cost effective heliostat design that operates under all light conditions by sensing ambient light levels and directing reflected sunlight to a fixed target. Runs on 5v and 6v DC power. Good for micro power tower, stirling engine heat source, mult-junction pv, etc. Refer to "heliostat design" at youtube to build.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Heliostat
• solar
• thermal
• picaxe18
• microprocessor
• stirling
• power
• tower
• mulijunction
• pv
• solbot
• concentrated
• tracking
• tracker
• cycle

[skimaniac123]

Awesome, I have an Arduino controlling a couple of motor that should do the trick nicely. Thanks for the reply's and sharing your build.

[tomsbases]

If you need more info contact me at tomsbases @ comcast . net

[skimaniac123]

Sweet. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the plates holding the motor and spur gear are stationary on the tilt axis, with the rod moving through the plates and tilting the concentrator. For the pan arm, does the rod or the plates/motor stay still? Also, where did you find the curved and threaded rod? Sorry for the annoying questions, but thanks for posting your design :)

[tomsbases]

I wish I had done a time lapse. UR correct, tilt arm is fixed, tilt curved rod moves mirror chassis. Pan curved rod is fixed, pan arm swings, motor fixed to pan arm. Bend standard straight threaded rod with conduit bender, match to template.

[skimaniac123]

Hey, great looking heliostat, spotted it on the Sparkfun website. Would you mind explaining how the tilt and pan arms work? Is the curved wire threaded so that the gear fitted on it can move when rotated? If so, where/how did you make or buy it? Great work and thanks in advance.

[tomsbases]

Thanks for your interest.

The pan and tilt is controlled by 2 DC gear motors (300:1) that drive a gear assemply along a curved threaded rod. The gear assembly is a spur gear with a threaded nut in the center and spacer rings on each side. The gear assembly fits between a tilt or pan arm built of two plates. As the motor goes forward or reverse, it causes the gear assembly to travel along the curved rod and pushes the pan or tilt arms in either direction. Super cheap and quite accruate.

[daftrhetoric]

Beautiful design, excellent video.

[tomsbases]

Testing if my reply actually works

[MrLynchl]

send me info i want one