Comments on: Building a Sun Tracker

By: zainab

zainab — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:14:07 +0000

Hi
I am electrical engineering student in university of Bahrain. I am having my senior project this course it’s about sun tracking using microcontroller 16F877A
I saw your project and I was very impressed, so I thought maybe you are the right person that can help me in doing this, if you would do it I would appreciate it very much.
Basically my idea is to sense the sun light, rotate the motor and supply the load which is a small fan the extra voltage will charge the batteries
Right now I already have the solar panels and the 16F877A pic I need to think about the motor, the sensor and the batteries I will charge.
• What do you think about the whole idea?
• I am thinking to use a DC motor instead of stepper motor because my panel is small and does not drive much current. What do you think of that?
• What type of sensors do you advice me to use?

Can I have more information: papers ,websites ,circuits anything would be helpful
Thank you

By: vidhya

vidhya — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:28:19 +0000

how do you use those variable resistors in the above circuit? what is the voltage you are giving at each point. reply is must plz….. urgent

By: solarpanels

solarpanels — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:49:03 +0000

Hrmm that was weird, my comment got eaten. Anywho I wanted to express it’s good to know that somebody else also highlighted this as I had problems locating the similar information in other places. This is the very first place which helped me understand why. Thank you.

By: ranvir singh malhi

ranvir singh malhi — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 13:34:32 +0000

i need a 5kw solar grid for house so help me to make solar grid and wring diagram thanks

By: calvin smit

calvin smit — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:28:48 +0000

How does the motor reverse for the next days sun? Would i use a limit switch at the end of the day to reverse the motor and move the panel back to the east?

By: Darma

Darma — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:26:24 +0000

This “sun tracker” has no circuit to change polarity on the DC motor. This means that it will turn only in one direction, thus, spinning day after day !

By: AL

AL — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:36:15 +0000

Eric the resistor above the motor is 40 ohms on a circuit the same as this I found a few years ago.

I have built 2 of these and each time the 33 ohm resistor connected to the emitter of the 2n4401 has fried while adjusting 10k potentiometer, no idea why, I found a much better circuit recently that uses two ne555 timer IC’s

Hope this helps and gets more feedback.

By: Terry Hamidi

Terry Hamidi — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:33:59 +0000

Very nice drawing explanations. I can not wait until I build it.
Can you please give some ideas on how to build the mechanical portion of the project?

Thank You

By: Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 03:35:56 +0000

On your parts list, you have 1 x 33R Resistor, but your diagram shows 2. The parts list also has 1 x 100 R resistor, but the diagram shows a variable resistor above the motor.

Could you please clarify?

Thank You,
Eric Johnson