Single Machine Sun Tracking / Heliostat Electronics Set Up

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This page shows off a single machine sun tracking / heliostat electronics set up. You may have already found it, but, if not, there is a more elaborate electronics system here which includes things like shift registers for increasing the number of controllable machines, relays to allow multiple machines to be controlled with just one set of driver boards, and switches to change heliostat targets.

Not surprisingly more elaborate also means more complicated. To try and make life a little simpler, the system on this page leaves out some of the extra bells and whistles and instead keeps only the bare essentials. Should you ever wish to include some of the previously mentioned “extras” they can, of course, still be added later down the road.

There isn’t a whole lot of extraneous information on this page. Instead it focuses on an electronics system which is as “plug and play” as possible. The extraneous information, however, does exist on the Open Source Sun Tracking / Heliostat Electronics page. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to at least skim through it and focus on the parts which are only touched upon briefly here.

Program

Please note that the electronic system on this page requires a slightly different version of the Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program. You can download it by clicking the link below.

Arduino_SunTracker_V096_Simpler_Electronics

The only noticeable difference between this program and the one on the Open Source Arduino Sun Tracking / Heliostat Program page is the way the stepper motor driver board code is set up inside it, so you can still refer to the documentation there for learning how to use it.

Arduino IDE 1.0 (or higher) Code

If you have updated the Arduino IDE to 1.0 or above, you will need to use this program instead of the one above. Arduino_SunTracker_V096_Simpler_Electronics_Arduino1 (Alternatively, you can also download an older version of the IDE and just use the above program)

You will also likely need to replace the line “#include <WProgram.h>” at the top of the Flash.h file (download link is in previous section on this page) with the below syntax in order for the program to upload.
#if defined(ARDUINO) && ARDUINO >= 100
#include “Arduino.h”
#else
#include “WProgram.h”
#endif

Arduino

The first thing you will need is an Arduino microcontroller. There are a myriad of different types that will work, but I would recommend either the Arduino UNO or the Arduino Duemilanove.

RTC

The RTC (real time clock) is what allows your Arduino to keep accurate time. I’m using the one from Adafruit. The sun tracking / heliostat code given on this page is specifically set up so that the RTC can be easily plugged into the Arduino’s analog pins. The tutorial given on the Adafruit site for soldering the RTC together gives an example on how to connect the RTC in this manner. Below is a somewhat uglier picture that I took of the set up.

Limit Switches

The limit switches are used to allow the machine to reset its position. Here is a picture of the schematic. Note that they are wired normally open, or NO.

Here is a picture of a test circuit I built to make sure the limit switches were working before attaching them to my heliostat.

This picture shows a simple way of attaching the resistor in the above schematic to the Arduino.

Driver Board / Power Supply

Like the Arduino, there are also many different driver boards that will work with this system. You can check out the Wiring a Step/Dir Type Stepper Motor Driver Board to an Arduino page for more info on what I’m using and how to set it up. It is probably the most involved section of this system, which is why it has an entire page dedicated to it.

Stepper Motors

Most any type of stepper motor could probably be made to work with this system. Two things you should pay attention to when purchasing yours are holding torque, which is basically a measure of how powerful the motors are, and whether or not they are unipolar or bipolar stepper motors.

The amount of holding torque your stepper motors will require largely depends on the size of your solar machine. If you are building a mid sized machine (around one square meter of collection surface), I would say around 80 oz. inch of holding torque would probably be adequate. Of course, you might be able to get by with less if you can build an especially well balanced machine. On the flip side, having more holding torque means that you can get away with a machine that might not operate very smoothly. A lot of it depends on your building skills. Once you decide on how much holding torque you need, the next step is to decide on whether to get a bipolar or unipolar stepper motor / driver board.

If you buy a bipolar driver board, you can use bipolar and also unipolar stepper motors.

If you buy a unipolar driver board, however, you cannot use bipolar stepper motors because there is no way to wire a bipolar stepper to a unipolar driver board. Note: A bipolar stepper motor only has 4 wires while a unipolar stepper motor typically has 6 or 8 wires.

I recommend the bipolar driver boards because you can use both types of stepper motors with them. Also, bipolar driver boards only need four wires to hook up each stepper motor (stepper motors with more than four wires can typically be wired as a four wire stepper), which means that you will save on the cost of wire and also have a little less wiring to do.

Also take note that there is a ton of information on stepper motors available on the net. A quick Google search will give you more than you will know what to do with.

The End

That covers the bulk of the information for a single machine sun tracking / heliostat electronics system. Have a question? Did I leave something out? Go ahead and leave a comment below.

 

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