There is a simple, elegant and more expensive means: Buy a Yaesu az/el
rotor as for satellite operation. Connect the control box through a
SASI tracker or similar device and use Nova or some other sat tracking
program. Almost all of the Keplerian element lists include the sun.

Dave Heil K8MN
Yes, but I do believe it's overkill.

Could be. I guess it depends on how precisely the sun panels need to
be pointed at the sun. Most solar panels are fixed in position, on a
house top or whatever, just to generally catch the rays.
=======================
Yes to a fixed position due SOUTH ,but it means the panels will not
receive all that much energy or very little during the post noon
daylight hours .
It is debatable how much that is and consequently whether a rotating
system would be justifiable. However to find out and possibly advise
people ,after this test, how much more energy can be trapped ,I feel
setting up a rotating solar panel system is a worthwhile effort.
As an alternative to K8MN's suggestion a low cost (modified)satTV
tracking system might prove suitable.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

Could be. I guess it depends on how precisely the sun panels need to
be pointed at the sun. Most solar panels are fixed in position, on a
house top or whatever, just to generally catch the rays.
=======================
Yes to a fixed position due SOUTH ,but it means the panels will not
receive all that much energy or very little during the post noon daylight
hours .
It is debatable how much that is and consequently whether a rotating
system would be justifiable. However to find out and possibly advise
people ,after this test, how much more energy can be trapped ,I feel
setting up a rotating solar panel system is a worthwhile effort.
As an alternative to K8MN's suggestion a low cost (modified)satTV tracking
system might prove suitable.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

It is generally agreed that by tracking the sun one gets approx 40% more
'energy' from ones solar panels. Accuracy is not important. 10-20 degrees
tracking accuracy is suitable.

I have updated my solar page if you are interested:

http://www.flightsimulatorandhobbies.com/solar.htm

JERD
VK5JE - (Original poster)

It is generally agreed that by tracking the sun one gets approx 40%
more
'energy' from ones solar panels. Accuracy is not important. 10-20 degrees
tracking accuracy is suitable.

I have updated my solar page if you are interested:

http://www.flightsimulatorandhobbies.com/solar.htm
=============================
Tnx for above info , 40% additional energy is indeed worth it to have a
rotating system . I bookmarked your web site.
I have 2pcs 64W solar panels producing up to 8 Amperes together.
Together with a 150W max (12 Amperes) Wind generator they keep my 12V
SLA batteries happy ,except in a windless winter period (location
northern Scotland at 57 degr north)
I am now considering to put a 2V-200A lead-acid cell in series to get
minimum 14 V , since my TenTec Paragon transceiver (1980s vintage)
doesn't like supply voltage to be below 12.2 Volt
The solar panels have a rated capacity at up to 16.5 volts ,so with 14 V
(max 16 V) I can still keep them in parallel.
The batteries provide power to an up to 100W-RF HF Tranceiver ,a laptop
(via a DC to AC inverter),a Packet-TNC , a VHF- transceiver , desk
lighting and NiMH battery charger.

Frank GM0CSZ /KN6WH

I have 2pcs 64W solar panels producing up to 8 Amperes together.
Together with a 150W max (12 Amperes) Wind generator they keep my 12V SLA
batteries happy ,except in a windless winter period (location northern
Scotland at 57 degr north)

Frank GM0CSZ /KN6WH

Frank, please tell me about your wind generator.

VK5JE

http://www.flightsimulatorandhobbies.com/

Highland Ham wrote:
There is a simple, elegant and more expensive means: Buy a Yaesu az/el
rotor as for satellite operation. Connect the control box through a
SASI tracker or similar device and use Nova or some other sat tracking
program. Almost all of the Keplerian element lists include the sun.

Dave Heil K8MN

Yes, but I do believe it's overkill.


Could be. I guess it depends on how precisely the sun panels need to
be pointed at the sun. Most solar panels are fixed in position, on a
house top or whatever, just to generally catch the rays.

=======================
Yes to a fixed position due SOUTH ,but it means the panels will not
receive all that much energy or very little during the post noon
daylight hours .
It is debatable how much that is and consequently whether a rotating
system would be justifiable.

One can fairly trivially calculate this, at least in terms of the
incident energy on a flat plate. Taking into account the efficiency
changes in the solar panel is a bit trickier.

As a start, consider a panel tilted so that it directly faces the sun at
noon, and to make things easy, assume we're at the equinox. The angle
varies from -90 to 0 to 90 over a span of 12 hours. So, the average
insolation is the integral of cos(theta) from -pi/2 to pi/2 divided by
pi, or, 2/pi... about 0.63... So, pointing right at the sun would pick
up about 50% over the day. (assuming you've got view from horizon to
horizon, and neglecting the loss due to atmospheric attenuation, which
is significant)

Depending on what you consider as your energy costs, you can decide if
it's worth it. A typical solar panel installation runs about $6-7/watt,
so the improvement due to tracking would let you install a 35% smaller
installation, for the same output, equivalent to paying only $4-5/watt.
On a 1kW system, this is several thousand dollars, which might
actually get close to the cost of the actuators.

There IS a reliability and maintenance costs issue to consider though..


However to find out and possibly advise
people ,after this test, how much more energy can be trapped ,I feel
setting up a rotating solar panel system is a worthwhile effort.
As an alternative to K8MN's suggestion a low cost (modified)satTV
tracking system might prove suitable.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH