Unless you are way up north solar trackers aren't economical. If you buy solar trackers they appear to at least double the price of the install for around 1/3 more power. They make sense if: Your stupid power company up charges you based on installed capacity, but depends how much. You have limited room for solar panels. You're spending other people's money. You think they look cool. That's what mine looks like now, builds up and peaks for about an hour. Then there's single axis vs and dual axis. Do I really want the trouble of dual axis? Maybe not... Small difference in kwh production, big difference in complexity and fragility. I think I want me some single axis trackers.
The mid-day power out-put is about the same, BUT it's that 1.5 hours in the morning and again in the late afternoon that make the difference. Single axis trackers are the way to go!
When I looked at trackers for me it made more sense to add a few more panels to compensate. I could see the value of trackers on a smaller system where getting every last drop of sunlight would make a big difference. I look at things like "Hmmm do I really want to add one more thing that can break and that I have to maintain?"
I built my trackers (3) of them used on my system from 2007 to around 2015 when I quit trying to keep the fool controllers (went thru several different ones over the years) running the linear actuators. I finally decided "this is nuts", took all the panels down on trackers, replaced the oldest 175w panels with new 300w panels on a fixed ground mount system and said "never again." It made some economic sense in 2007 when panels were $4/watt. Today at 50-75 cents/watt, it makes almost no economic sense. I've got some really nice, heavy, (1 dual axis, 2 single axis) trackers currently sitting in my scrap pile. Last photo is my current setup. 60 panels of various makes and wattage from 250-300. 16,000w total on this arrary (another 6kw on my shop set up that is 100% off grid). 5,000w on micro inverters, 5,000w on one center inverter (Sunny Boy) that both backfeed the grid. Last 6,000w on dual Outback inverters that are house backup, battery based. I've made an unbelievable amount of changes, revisions, additions and just plain experimentation over the years since 2007 and I'm STILL doing it. My next revision is probably to gut the 5kw Outback setup for the house backup and go with an EMP shielded Sol-ark 12w and lithium batteries for the house. IF I keep this stuff up, I may actually finally figure out what I'm doing......
Non-electric automatic solar tracker: 1.Hinge the solar panel to swing along the best arc from sunup to sundown, or through the hours of usable sun. 2 Install two identical freon-filled expansion tubes, one on each side of the solar panel. The ends of both tubes point at the noon sun when the solar panel points at the noon sun. 3. Connect the rams of the tubes with a combined linkage that can swivel the whole shebang if one tube gets hotter than the other. 4. Run a flat sun-shade panel along the inside of each expander tube. How it works: When the panel points directly at the sun (noon) both expanders get equally hot. Their rams extend equally and lock the panel against rotation. Neither tube is being shaded out. At night, when neither expander is being heated, both rams will be equally extended. Thus, the panel automatically resets to the noon position at the end of the day. In the morning, only the east-side expander gets sunlight. Its ram extends and swivels the panel toward the east. The west-side expander is fully shaded. Its ram is retracted by the motion of the panel under the force of the east-side expander. As the sun climbs, the east expander is gradually shaded out by its sun shade and the west expander starts getting heat. At this point, the panel is slightly lagging the sun. The west expander starts swinging the panel to the west. As soon as it overshoots the sun, the east expander starts getting heat again and starts pulling the panel back until it undershoots the sun again. Then the cycle repeats. The panel will slowly "hunt" back & forth across a few degrees of arc all day long, strafing the sun as it goes. The taller the shade panels, the longer the hunting arc. One tracker can push a whole row of collectors. With the right linkage it doesn't even have to ride a panel. Ain't no pictures available for this. My save on this setup was lost about eight computers ago. The article is hiding in the Mother Earth News somewhere in the early 1970's. It's searchable, I'm sure. Good hunting. This Post Is Worthwhile Without Pics.
Generally you have the land it's not worth it to buy solar trackers. Now it's cheaper to buy and rack more panels. My power company decided to come back and up charge for my grid tie based on your name plate watts. So if I can build single axis trackers mostly out of crap I have laying around it might be worth it.
Yep Uncle, there was a commercial version of that available at one time. Problem I see is it would have to operate pretty freely for the weight of a canister of freon moving from one side to the other to actually MOVE the array......so what happens when a puff of wind.....or a REAL wind.....hits that huge sail ? Hard to appreciate how much sail/surface area you are putting up with ten 250w panels (34"x60" = 14sqft each = 140 square feet total......the size of an average sized bedroom floor !) I built a temporary scafold just to install one of my arrays. I used 8" sch40 pipe, heavy steel tubing, and shock absorbers off a Ford truck to help dampen movement on one axis. And I'm sheltered on the non-wind side of a mountain. Be plumb scary to put that thing out where it gets real wind.
Mine limits me to 10,000w name plate rating, one of the reasons I initially did it. 10kw won't cover my electric bill. What I decided was to add another 12kw 'behind the meter' that runs part of my needs off grid and they haven't got CHIT to say about what I do there, or how I do it, or how much I do. I'm approaching the point that if they piss me off, I'll tell 'em to come get their wire/poles/transformer off my place and operate off grid.
Ah your power company was playing games with name plate watts. So you play games with them by putting the panels on trackers. If I put all 10kw on trackers they will make significantly more electricity then what I use.
We used those freon - based trackers at a mine site for powering remotely mounted communications equipment back in the late 90s. Solar panels were big bucks back then. The trackers worked well, but in northern Nevada the winter time winds tended to beat the hell out of them, even though they had a shock absorber style dampener. The fulcrum rode on a pair of pillow blocks that just didn't seem to stand up too well. Suppose it would be OK in an area with subdued winds. They're still available from a company called Zomeworks, but for the money you're better off just adding moire panels. In today's reality of cheaper panels, I'm a little surprised that the prices for those trackers haven't come down. Update - just visited the Zomeworks web page and they no longer manufacture the passive (freon type) trackers.
I moved mine to a south facing slope and mounted them as close to the ground as possible to keep the wind from getting under them.
Yeah....it was Zomeworks. Couldn't recall the name of the commercial unit, been a long time since I looked. I used a 2" steel shaft and 2" pillow block bearings on my mount. Never had an issue with the mount or the array as such....but the electronic controllers were a dadgum constant issue. Never found one that would keep working for the long haul. Anybody that wants the leftover controller stuff is welcome to a box of them for the cost of shipping....and my best wishes......
What do you got in the box? I would like to set up 1 or 2 panels on a tracker as a test and see what they do.
It's laying down at the shop....I'll try to get a photo/etc tomorrow. Looks like rain all day anyway....
I thought about pillow blocks but they seemed like overkill, but then most hinges leave a lot to be desired. So overkill it is.
So I hunted around the shop, and there was only one controller, without the sensor. Must have thrown more away than I thought.
What was causing them to fail? Could it be the DC burning up the contacts? I'm guessing the trackers follow the sun about 200 degrees moving east to west throughout the day, that's a lot of movements every single day.
I don't know why. I bought these boards from a guy out in Seattle area. Originally, the trackers were connected directly to one of the blue output points to the linear actuators. They would last about a year and quit. Finally, he came up with the relays on the left. Worked a while longer, but still would fail. He finally got to the point he was tired of me sending boards back for repair. I have no electronics background to tell you what ON the boards failed......if it doesn't pretty much 'plug n play', I'm screwed. My gate openers were the same way. I originally installed some Genie openers. Same thing....they would work a while, then just quit. New board from Genie about 100 bucks. I got to where I knew the parts lady on the phone personally. I found a set of OSCO (no longer in business) openers that except for the radio receiver board, were completely mechanical switched and built like a tank. They have been operating now for 20+ years with only the occasional switch or motor belt needing replacing. The radio boards are Genie 'universal' type, which fail from time to time (they go 5 years or so), and I keep a few of them in stock.
