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Forum Index : Solar : Tracking angles

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Privatteer
Newbie

Joined: 09/06/2012
Location: Australia
Posts: 39
Posted: 03:13am 08 Jul 2012
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I am honest enough to admit I made a mistake and deviated from my original plan.
Due to the available aluminum lengths being 5.5m not 6m I shortened my center pivot to make the 2 inside supports reach one side of the panel. One of those inside supports also picks up the attachment for the east/west actuator.

As you can see I now have far more travel on the North/South than I can use due to the East West arm hitting the main pole.
So now I need to work out the compromise of vertical angle vs East/West for this unit.
Location is 33° 21' South and if I have worked it out correctly the sun is about 35deg at this time of year from horizon.
N/S arm currently can go from about 10deg from vertical to horizontal.

Any calculators I can use to make it easy to compare the different angles and production estimates??





The heavy design is due to intermittent winds I get. North side is facing up.Edited by Privatteer 2012-07-09
 
Tinker

Guru

Joined: 07/11/2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 1904
Posted: 04:03am 08 Jul 2012
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  Privatteer said  

Any calculators I can use to make it easy to compare the different angles and production estimates??



I found this site useful:sun calculator

Hopefully you get to work around your miscalculation - its not easy to visualise the mechanical tracker limits unless you build a scale model first.
Klaus
 
neil0mac
Senior Member

Joined: 26/12/2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 210
Posted: 12:00pm 08 Jul 2012
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  Privatteer said  
So now I need to work out the compromise of vertical angle vs East/West for this unit.
Location is 33° 21' South and if I have worked it out correctly the sun is about 35deg at this time of year from horizon.
N/S arm currently can go from about 10 deg from vertical to horizontal.


I realised that I was looking at a similar restriction when designing. My solution was to put the pole on a rotating base. I now have (theoretically) 360 deg. azimuth rotation (east/west) and 15 - to 150 deg. tilt. (The extension beyond the horizontal is simply to allow the array to be 'flipped over' for cleaning access of the top panels.)
 
Privatteer
Newbie

Joined: 09/06/2012
Location: Australia
Posts: 39
Posted: 01:16am 09 Jul 2012
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Thanks Tinker, that link was actually pretty useful just to be able to quickly calc different sun positions.
.

 
Gizmo

Admin Group

Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5078
Posted: 02:49am 09 Jul 2012
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Yeah it is a good tool. I just used it to work out the sun angles at my place.
I added it to the Links page. Thanks Tinker

Glenn
The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ
 
brucedownunder2
Guru

Joined: 14/09/2005
Location: Australia
Posts: 1548
Posted: 11:34am 09 Jul 2012
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Very Nice and easy to work with ,that sun -earth thingo .. Thanks .

Glenn ,your place should be allmost the same as here ?.

Thanks for posting that ,Tinker..

Bruce.
Bushboy
 
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