Planet Arduino

While a solar panel mounted to the top of a roof, lamp post, or the side of a building will produce power, it is nowhere near optimal for achieving the maximum efficiency possible. To get better results, panels are often mounted to pivots and linear actuators/servo motors that continually move to always face the sun. But as Fulvio points out, these motors can be heavy and require extra batteries to function, which is what inspired him to create the mysoltrk to address this shortcoming. Fulvio built the tracker to be small, solid, and sturdy enough to stand outdoors on a balcony, in a garden, or the like.

Mysoltrk relies on a pair of very simple yet robust actuators that are each based around a 6V 30RPM geared DC motor, which spins a threaded rod to move an M3 nut closer or further away. When placed in the same plane and connected via a ball joint at the top, this triangle of is able to maneuver the panel in three axes.

Both motors were then wired to an L298N motor driver which is controlled by an Arduino Nano. Having to incorporate Wi-Fi or a GPS receiver would have introduced far too much complexity, so these components were replaced by a matrix of four photoresistors and a tracking algorithm that, in essence, attempts to balance the readings across all of them in order to point directly at the sun. Perhaps the most incredible part of this project is how no batteries are required thanks to the low-power motors.

For more information about mysoltrk, which was recently selected as a finalist in the 2023 Hackaday Prize Green Hacks challenge, you can read Fulvio’s write-up here.

The post Mysoltrk is a low-cost solar panel tracking system appeared first on Arduino Blog.

While a solar panel mounted to the top of a roof, lamp post, or the side of a building will produce power, it is nowhere near optimal for achieving the maximum efficiency possible. To get better results, panels are often mounted to pivots and linear actuators/servo motors that continually move to always face the sun. But as Fulvio points out, these motors can be heavy and require extra batteries to function, which is what inspired him to create the mysoltrk to address this shortcoming. Fulvio built the tracker to be small, solid, and sturdy enough to stand outdoors on a balcony, in a garden, or the like.

Mysoltrk relies on a pair of very simple yet robust actuators that are each based around a 6V 30RPM geared DC motor, which spins a threaded rod to move an M3 nut closer or further away. When placed in the same plane and connected via a ball joint at the top, this triangle of is able to maneuver the panel in three axes.

Both motors were then wired to an L298N motor driver which is controlled by an Arduino Nano. Having to incorporate Wi-Fi or a GPS receiver would have introduced far too much complexity, so these components were replaced by a matrix of four photoresistors and a tracking algorithm that, in essence, attempts to balance the readings across all of them in order to point directly at the sun. Perhaps the most incredible part of this project is how no batteries are required thanks to the low-power motors.

For more information about mysoltrk, which was recently selected as a finalist in the 2023 Hackaday Prize Green Hacks challenge, you can read Fulvio’s write-up here.

The post Mysoltrk is a low-cost solar panel tracking system appeared first on Arduino Blog.

Researchers in Thailand have developed a ZigBee-based wireless monitoring solution for off-grid PV installations capable of tracking the sun across the sky, tilting the panel hourly. The elevation for the setup is adjusted manually once per month for optimum energy collection. The prototype is controlled by a local Arduino Uno board, along an H-bridge motor driver to actuate the motor and a 12V battery that’s charged entirely by solar power.

The system features a half-dozen sensors for measuring battery terminal voltage, solar voltage, solar current, current to the DC-DC converter, the temperature of the power transistor of DC-DC converter, and the tilt angle of solar panels according to the voltage across the potentiometer. 

Data is transmitted wirelessly via an XBee ZNet 2.5 module to a remote Uno with an XBee shield. The real-time information is then passed on to and analyzed by a computer, which is also used to set the system’s time.

More details on the project can be found in the team’s paper.

Wireless sensing is an excellent approach for remotely operated solar power system. Not only being able to get the sensor data, such as voltage, current, and temperature, the system can also have a proper control for tracking the Sun and sensing real-time data from a controller. In order to absorb the maximum energy by solar cells, it needs to track the Sun with proper angles. Arduino, H-bridge motor driver circuit, and Direct Current (DC) motor are used to alter the tilt angle of the solar Photovoltaic (PV) panel following the Sun while the azimuth and the elevation angles are fixed at noon. Unlike the traditional way, the tilt rotation is proposed to be stepped hourly. The solar PV panel is tilted  in advance of current time to the west to produce more output voltage during an hour. As a result, the system is simple while providing good solar-tracking results and efficient power outputs.

Solar panels are a great way to produce power literally out of thin air, but how much power they produce depends, in part, on how they are aimed. In order to figure out just how much better his solar setup could be with active tracking, YouTuber GreatScott! decided to test this by creating a miniature solar tracking system.

His device uses four LDRs to feed position data to an Arduino Nano, which then moves the small panel to properly face the sun.

The tracker/panel was placed next to a stationary panel lying flat on his roof, and after a 2 ½-hour test, he found that the moving configuration generated 15% more energy. Of course there are other factors to consider, including time of day and how much power the tracker itself consumes, so be sure to see the experimental project and his thoughts on the results below.

As part of a thesis project, Belgian student Bruce Helsen built a dual-axis tracker for optimizing solar panel use. Although adding a tracking system to a larger installation can be pricey (and likely not the most cost-effective option), it can certainly come in handy for smaller units.

Helsen’s dual-axis tracker fits two 12V 150W solar panels for a 300W peak output, and has a few key features: it turns to make sure the panels are aligned with the sun for as long as possible, it measures the panels’ voltage and current then calculates the generated power and energy, and it sends that data from the monitor to ThingSpeak for analysis and logging. There’s also an LCD to display the readings.

The panel’s two axes are controlled by a pair of inexpensive linear actuators. It uses an Arduino Mega for a brain, and an ESP8266 for transmitting the data over to the cloud. Light direction is detected by a homemade light sensor housed inside an industrial lamp enclosure. A 3D-printed crossbeam separates the sensor into four quadrants, with a light-dependent resistor for each. By comparing the average LDR values, the panel is able to point in the best direction.

Looking to monitor your solar energy? Check out Helsen’s project page here.