My Solar Tracker project is by no means a new or nieche product. It is something that has been explored for decades if not centuries and there are many designs and types of solar power generating systems and tracking devices in existance today. However, the concept of green energy and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is a very important one. I am focusing on the actual mechanical frame, tracking and control systems. My concept was to produce a design that was cheap to make and would fulfil the duty of tracking the sun's light to increase efficiency of a connected solar panel, or other type solar receiver. With the main aims of exploring types of motion control and mechanisms, electronics and programming needed to complete this system, whilst also trying to be somewhat innovative and intelligent with the design.
As I am working here at fablab, and this project was not intended as a profit making enterprise, and largely my ideas and concepts are built on other peoples work and examples which I have referenced and given credit to throughout my documentation. This project has taught me a lot and has been an educational experience to develop this prototype. I would like my work and documentation to be shared and disseminated by as many people as possible. You should feel free to use and develop any of my ideas or outcomes in this project and build upon design concepts, see faults make positive criticism or find better solutions! I have chosen to license these works under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.
As mentioned there is no direct intention for profit, or money making sales. In fact it has cost me a lot personally in materials and parts, so any income and support that may find me would be most welcome! I see my project as a work in progress. It could be that future iterations may hold some value for real scale use and scaling up to a full size system or array of trackers, as it seems good quality batteries are the most expensive component.
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