projects/ idealab/

High Concentration 2-Axis Sun Tracker

 

Sunlight is focused onto a small, highly efficient, water cooled, PV solar cell by a fresnel lens.  This device was intended to be used as a research and development platform for alt-az tracker testing.  Each full step of the stepper motor powering each axis corresponds to roughly 1/1000th of a degree of angular resolution.

First I designed all of the mechanical parts in Solidworks:

I then had the parts machined and then I assembled them:

Then I finished installing the motors and other electrical components and took the unit out 'on-sun' for some initial testing: