Free Heliostat Plans

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Free Heliostat Plans: Part 7

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!

Mounting the Mirror

The only thing left to do is to mount the mirror on the heliostat. There is a couple of different ways that you could do this, but either way is pretty straight forward.

In the next two pictures, you can see that I cut a groove in a board and used it to hold the top part of the mirror in place.

Here, you can see both boards which are holding the mirror in place. The bottom one is just pushed up tight against the mirror and screwed in place.

Here's another way to hold the mirror in place which is probably a little quicker to do. What I have here is a wood screw, a nut, and a washer screwed up tight against the mirror to hold it. Also, a little piece of rubber from an old bike tire is between the washer and the mirror to help keep the mirror from being damaged.

Note: The only reason I'm using a nut here is because the hole in the washer was too big for the wood screw.

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