I’ve heard it mentioned that the Avayan Electronics driver board is no longer available. There are of course many other driver board that can be used with the Sun Harvester shield. One example is the Easy Driver board. If you go to this forum link, I have posted a PDF wiring diagram that will show you how to wire them to the shield. (The link should automatically take you to where it is located, Reply #49)
I finally had the chance to document the Linear Actuator based heliostat that I built. In general, linear actuator based heliostats can be a pain, so I don’t know if you really want to bother building one. I did need to have one around for testing the program though, so I went ahead and built this one.
I hope to have a wormgear based heliostat put together fairly soon. I’ll make sure to document that one too once it’s up and running.
You can find tons more information about this heliostat on the forums here.
I have recently realized that the majority of the individuals I have encountered who are interested in building either a sun tracker or a heliostat are in fact students. For whatever reason, most students seem to prefer to communicate with me through email, which is cool, but this method of communication has a downside. Basically, you guys never get the chance to meet each other or see one another’s projects.
To help remedy this, I have created a new forum category which is specifically for students who are interested in building either a sun tracker or a heliostat.
Here are a few tips for this category:
1. Don’t be shy! Everyone here is quite friendly.
2. If you’ve never used a forum before, don’t worry it’s easy. You can’t hurt anything, so don’t be afraid to try it out. The “Help” tab in the upper left hand corner should give you all of the information you need to get started.
3. Don’t worry if your English isn’t perfect. I have probably communicated with more individuals who speak / write English as a second language then I have with English as a first language. This is very much so a multi-language forum!
5. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! Obviously, you shouldn’t expect anyone to do your whole project for you, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ask questions if you get stuck.
6. Please do share your project when it’s completed. Your work will most definitely inspire others once they see what you’ve done.
7. Finally, since you are now a part of it, consider adding your location to the Open Sun Harvesting Project’s User Location Map.
http://www.cerebralmeltdown.com/2012/07/12/open-source-sun-tracking-heliostat-project-user-map/
Thanks!
Gabriel
I’ve just gone through a bunch of the out of date documentation pages and brought them up to speed. Most of these pages were out of date because they did not clearly reference the way the Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program now uses different azimuth angles depending on whether you are either north or south of the equator.
Other pages just weren’t very well documented to begin with.
Here is the list of updated pages.
Sun Tracker and Heliostat Safety
Understanding Heliostat Targets
Setting up the Homing Switches
Choosing Efficient Heliostat Targets
Heliostat Target Efficiency Simulator
Heliostat Range of Motion Simulator
How Much Energy can you get from your Heliostat?
The Open Sun Harvesting Project page is now up and running! Also, The Open Source Sun Tracking / Heliostat Project has been renamed. Although descriptive, having to type the entire “The Open Source Sun Tracking / Heliostat Project” every time I wanted to refer to it was seriously starting to cut into my free time. It’s also not exactly what you would call catchy.
The new page no longer links to much of the older information. A lot of this I considered to be obsolete, so I took away the links to prevent confusion. A few things might make their way back in though once I have the chance to organize it. You can still find all of the older information on the Old Heliostat-Projects Page if you need it for whatever reason.
My next goal for the project page is to update all of the pages listed under Misc. Heliostat Information, but more on that later.
Well it’s taken quite a bit of work, but The Cerebral Meltdown Store is now ready for the general public! The link is www.cerebralmeltdown.com/shop for those of you who are ready to order your Sun Harvester Shield. Supplies are a bit limited, but I can of course just assemble more boards when they run out. I hope to add more products in the future, so make sure to check back from time to time for more. I should have some of the Stepper Power Control Boards soon too.
Please let me know if you have any questions or have any trouble using the store. It should be pretty straight forward to use though. If you use PayPal Express you don’t even have to sign up!
Hi All,
Here is a bit of new information on the status of the Sun Harvester Shield and supporting program.
1. First off, I should have several more of the shields in stock soon. I’m just waiting for a shipment of small coin cell lithium batteries to arrive. Hopefully, the package will be here by the end of the week, but a big snow storm is headed for my area, so there may be delays.
2. Currently, the Sun Harvester Shield is $63.00 without screw terminals and $66.00 dollars with screw terminals. I hope to bring the cost down to the $50-$60 dollar range in the future by doing bulk electronics orders, but I’m not sure when that will happen. Suffice it to say that if you buy it now you might pay a little bit more, but you will also receive your board much sooner. You’ll also help the project grow at a faster rate because the faster I sell these boards the faster I can reinvest in bulk orders and also reinvest in more products related to sun tracking and heliostats.
3. I recently purchased an HD camera and am planning to do some tutorial videos on setting up a heliostat. Some things are much simpler to explain with a video then they are with text and pictures. There is quite a bit to say on the subject, so it’s probably going to be a fairly long video series. I definitely have my work cut out for me. 
4. I recently uncovered a “bug” in the Arduino Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program. If you don’t have a “target changer” potentiometer wired to the Sun Harvester Shield, your heliostat(s) will randomly switch between different targets.
This is easy to fix though. The first and most obvious option is to just wire a 10k ohm linear single turn potentiometer to the board.
If you don’t want to wire the potentiometer to the board, the next option is to edit the code a little bit. To do this, just go to the “TargetControl” tab in the Sun Tracking/Heliostat Program and look for the line
if (analogReading>800){targetsUsed = 5;}
Just below this line, insert the following.
targetsUsed = 1;
That’s it!
In the next version of the program, I will add an option to the settings so that you don’t have to do this manually.
5. Also, if you are one of the testers for the Stepper Power Control Boards, don’t use a voltage higher than 18V for your driver board power supply. Paul, one of the testers, found that using a 32V power supply would cause the Stepper Power Control Boards to turn on even when they are supposed to stay off. I need to research this further, but for now you may want to stick with a 18V power supply or less. This is the highest voltage I have tested without issue. Higher voltages may also work, but I haven’t tried.
The Arduino Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program has been updated to Version 0.9.8. You can download it and read about the latest changes on the forums here.
Also, the documentation for Using the Arduino Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program is now finished.
I have a couple of the Arduino Sun Harvester Shields ready for sale if anyone is interested. They looks pretty spiffy in their new shade of blue don’t they! Those who reserved their boards early have already ordered, so whatever is left over in this first batch is fair game.
I’m currently selling them either with the screw terminals (left) or without them (middle). The both function exactly the same, but I know that there are some people who prefer to solder the wires directly to the board which is why you have two options.
If you want one, just send me an email saying that you are interested and I’ll give you the link to this site’s new store. My email can be found at the contact link on the left side of this page.
Once I have built up a bit more stock in the store, I’ll go ahead and make the link public.
I have just received the first large(ish) batch of Arduino Sun Harvester Shields from the PCB manufacturer. 25 in total. I haven’t assembled any yet, but everything looks good so far.
I hope to have them available for purchase in about a month, maybe less. I still need to set up a station so that I can quickly test them, buy a stencil for quick assembly, and buy the electronic components. Once all of this is finished I’ll be ready to assemble and ship them out.
If you would like to know when they are in stock, send me an email and I’ll add you to the contact list. My address can be found at this link.
Note that I haven’t ordered any of the Stepper Power Control Boards that are used for controlling multiple machines yet, but let me know if you are interested in them.
Letting me know what you want ahead of time is a huge help because it gives me an idea of how many of the electronic components I should order. If enough people sign up, I’ll be able to justify buying more components. Electronics parts are typically much cheaper if you buy them in larger quantities.
I plan to sell the Arduino Sun Harvester Shields for roughly $70 USD each, not including shipping. The exact price depends on how much of my time it takes me to assemble them and how large an electronics order I’m able to make.
Thanks for your help!
P.S. I have started a companion forum thread here. That is the best place to ask questions on this topic since everyone can benefit from the answer.
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