We have designed and built a Horizontal Control Unit to turn the solar panel collector in the horizontal plain. We purchased a worm gear winch and got a windshield wiper motor off an old Toyota at the Pick A Part junk yard. We got some metal sheets that we cut and bent into shape to attach the wiper motor to the worm gear winch.

We made a small adapter to connect the wiper motor to the winch so the wiper motor can turn the winch when a voltage is applied to its leads. The wiper motor will turn either in a clockwise or counter clockwise direction depending on polarity of the voltage applied to its leads.

We made brass bearings for thrust and and axial at the top of the pole and axial about seven inches down from the top for the Antennae/Collector Base Unit to set on and rotate around the pole.

We mounted the Horizontal Control unit close to the top of the Solar Panel Concentrator Pole. The Antennae/Collector Base Unit is mounted on the top of pole. We wrapped a small serpentine belt around the bobbin on the winch and attached it to the back side of the Antennae/Collector Base Unit.

Next we will design and build a Position Control Unit that will track the sun and control the Horizontal and Vertical control Units so that the Antennae/Collector Base Unit is always facing directly toward the sun. Then we will determine how to build a photovoltaic panel into the Solar Power Concentrator.

We redesign the base of the antennae/collector so it can move in both a horizontal and a vertical directions. We removed some of the excess hardware and bolted the pole adaptor directly to the cross member frame. The pole adaptor will rotate around the pole to give us up to 270 degrees of horizontal rotation and the cross member frame is bolted to the circular frame with brass bearings to pivot on. This will give us up to 90 degrees of vertical movement. We should be able to track the sun from morning till night and morning till high noon and back to night.

We drilled two holes at the top of the pole adaptor where we will add two grease zerks so that the pole can be lubricated as the collector rotates around the pole horizontally.

We will fit the top of the pole with brass strips drapped over the lip, circeling the top of the pole. The pole adaptor will fit over the pole at the top of the pole.

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And it is not like other money oriented website, the info here is very useful.

I am definitely bookmarking it as well as sharin it with my friends.

We purchased eight 2×4 by 8′ boards to make a tripod frame structure to lift the pole and satellite dish. We laid three of the 2×4s together with the 4″ sides together and made a mark about 2″ down from the top on all 3 boards as a drill line. We drilled a 5/8″ hole through all 3 boards. We also got a 12″ by 1/2″ pipe and two 1/2″ end caps that we could screw onto the ends of the pipe to keep the boards from sliding off. We pushed the pipe through the holes, placed the end caps on the pipe and then spread the boards apart.

We set the tripod frame up with each board being one of the legs. The center leg could be adjusted anywhere from 1 foot out to 5 foot away, but the other two legs could not be spread far enough apart to make a steady tripod. We took the tripod down and removed the pipe.

We then spread the outside two boards out from the middle board about 3 feet apart at the far end and the near end the boards were held together. The outside boards made about a 30 degree angle with the center board. We remarked the tops of the 2×4 boards again with a guide line on the top of each board. We re-enforced the tops of the boards where we were drilling the holes with two pieces of 5/8 plywood that were about 3″ x 4″ We then re-drilled the 5/8″ holes through these two 2×4s and the plywood at the angle marked on the boards.

We had to get a new pipe that was 18″ long as the 12″ pipe was now too short. We pushed the pipe through the three boards, put the end caps on and now we were able to spread the tripod legs apart about 5 foot per side. This tripod was much more stable.

We took two more of the 2×4 boards and nailed 2 inch spacers between them and put a pivot point stop on the sides of these two boards in the middle. We put these two boards over the center board of the tripod so that the stops would hold them from sliding up or down over the pipe on the top of the tripod. These two boards could be used like a teeter totter to lift the pole and dish up.

We then lifted our 13 foot pole up and slipped it into our hole that we had dug out before. We slipped a circular wire mesh over the pole and into the hole and braced the pole straight up. We used a level to make sure it was straight up and down.

We mixed 5 bags of concrete mix, one at a time and poured concrete into the hole. We stomped the concrete to make sure it didn’t have any air holes trapped. We need to extend the cardboard sides up about 1 foot further and add one more bag of concrete mix.

The pole is now set and ready for the Solar Power Concentrator to be fitted onto it.

Also, your Products section is password protected; I guess maybe you will unprotect that later when you sell your guidebook. Anyway, good luck on your project! Sounds exciting!

Hi zipfly

Thank you for your comments om my blog. I will look into adding more photos and maybe some video.

The guide book is free, when you sign up for our newsletter you can click here to sign up and get the password.

I will make that more clear as well.

Again thank you for your comments.

Brutus

With this in mined we dug a five foot diameter hole in the ground five foot deep. We purchase 200 feet of the cooling hose that is designed to be buried in the cement of a driveway to keep your drive way from icing up in the winter time. We also purchased a 14 inch diameter by 4 foot long cardboard tube that is designed to pour cement into for a footing. We placed this tube in the center of the 5 x 5 ft hole. This hose comes in 25 foot rolls and 100 foot rolls. We got one red 100 foot roll and one blue 100 foot roll. We also got a splice kit to splice these two rolls together.

We placed the blue hose at the bottom of this 5 x 5 ft hole making about 3 turns from the out side edge to tube in the center and then covered this section of the hose with about 6 inches of dirt. We then unrolled another 3 turns of the blue hose from the center tube out to the edge of the hole and again covered this section with 6 inches of dirt. We did this about 6 times and had all 200 foot of hose buried in the ground around the tube. We had already spliced the blue hose to the red hose to make 200 feet of hose.