Free Heliostat Plans

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Free Heliostat Plans: Part 4

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Parts List
Part 3: Building the Heliostat Frame
Part 4: Making and Attaching the Nut for the Threaded Rod
Part 5: Coupling the Threaded rod to the Stepper Motors
Part 6: Making and Attaching the Stepper Motor Mounts
Part 7: Mounting the Mirror / You're Done!

Making and Attaching the Nut for the Threaded Rod

At this point, the heliostat is mostly finished except for attaching the stepper motors and the threaded rods, both of which help the heliostat move.

Circled in blue in the picture below, you can see what type of part we need next. Essentially, this is just a coupler nut that the threaded rod inserts into. As the threaded rod spins, the whole heliostat rotates while the nut stays in one place and pivots.

What you see in the picture below is basically what the part looks like. I checked several hardware stores to try and find something like this already made, but had no luck at all. The hardware stores where you live might have something though, so you can skip these steps if they do.

You will need two of these, one for the altitude and one for the azimuth.

I started out by first taking a coupler nut and stuffing pieces of a paper towel into it.

I then centered the coupler nut on top of a 1 1/4" long 5/16" bolt and used a drop of hot glue to hold it in place temporarily.

Note: If I had the chance to start over, would use a longer bolt for this, say 2".

Next, I centered the glued together coupler nut and bolt inside a plastic cup.

I then filled the plastic cup about 3/4" high with casting resin and allowed it to harden. (I forgot to take a picture of this step.)

The picture below shows what it looks like after the resin had hardened and the plastic cup was removed.

Finally, I removed the resin around the ends of the coupler nut with a drill. The paper towel stuffed inside was also removed leaving the inside of the coupler nut clear of resin. While doing this, it is important to make sure that the threaded rod can be inserted all the way through both ends and that it turns freely once it is.

These two parts are screwed into the heliostat's altitude and azimuth braces. Obviously, this is done before the threaded rod is inserted into it like in the picture below.

The blue circles in the picture below show where on the heliostat these two parts go.

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