5/30/13

A Tracking Solar Concentrator for the home experimenter, Drive System, Tilt, page_35, 10/09/99

A TRACKING SOLAR CONCENTRATOR -35DRIVE SYSTEM, TILT The array must be tilted + 23-1/2 degrees from its nominal angle at the spring and fall equinox. This ability has been provided with the bearings (008) and shaft (109). It remains to build a system to anchor the array to the hub and provide this adjustment. Back in the Chapter on Siting, it was shown that the suns declination angle was a sinusoidal function of time, going through a complete cycle once per year. There is several weeks around December 21 and again around June 21 when the declination angle changes very slowly and the array can go long periods without adjustment. The angle changes at the greatest rate at the spring and fall equinox and adjustments will have to be made every few days. The adjustment could be made manually or full automatic. We compromised with a manually switched reversible motor drive. It requires you to observe the array for a moment while the sun is shining and operate the switch for a few seconds to make the adjustment. At this time, we are not offering an automatic control system for this. The motor drive uses the same gearmotor that was selected for the tracking drive system. This choice provides a spare that can be diverted to the higher need in case of failure, leaving the tilt system fully manual. The motor drives a long threaded rod in a screw jack arrangement as shown in the functional sketch figure 19. The motor and its pivoting support assembly is bolted to the mirror array rails (007) through holes you should have drilled previously. The threaded rod (505) is made captive with a thrust bearing at the motor end. The other end of the rod turns in a nut pivoted to the wheel (l07) on the hub assembly.

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