Part 3

Know your shadows

Today i got out and fly my drone and took some pictures that i overladed in a 3D drawing of my land i made in SketchUp. Now i can se and animate all shadows from buildings and trees any time and day of the year. Why? I want to put my Solarpanels so there is never any shadows reach it.

This is the reason why a Solartracker is a good idea in the northern parts of the globe. If mounted direct in south i would loose many hours of sun-power. This way i got the sun direct into my solarpanels 18 hours and 27 minutes at summer each day without any shadows on it and 6 hour and 15 minutes the darkest day of the year without any shadows.

Cant be better than this.

Part 1   Part 2  Part 3   Costs and links  

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Costs, links, drawings

Wind Speed and Wind Direction

Ther is many different wind speed and wind direction sensors out there and most of them ar cheap plastic and they have different output signals, analog, pulse, pulsewith etc. But i think they are quite easy to make by myself by using a smart magnetic sensor that can measure the direction a magnet is turned with a good resolution. The same sensor can be used for measuring speed up to 8500 rpm. And there will be only 4 cables to both sensors since they can be mounted together. But there is also an Old Style sensor that always work.

There is 2 circuits i found that can do the job:

https://www.melexis.com/en/product/MLX90393/Triaxis-Micropower-Magnetometer

or

https://www.allegromicro.com/en/Products/Magnetic-Linear-And-Angular-Position-Sensor-ICs/Angular-Position-Sensor-ICs/A1335.aspx

Parking in High Wind

If you cant turn the panels more than +120 to -120 degrees, what to do when the wind is blowing from behind?

Normal operation, no problem

High Wind within the turning range -120 to +120 degree is easy, just tilt the panels down to 10 to 20 degree roght through the wind.

If the wind is comming from outside the range -120 to +120 degree. Tilt the panels inverted in the opposite direction. Can only be done if the mecanichal is made for it.