DIY: Solar Panel Tracker
On March - 9 - 2009
If you spend a ton of money on solar panels just to have they sit stagnate as the sun tracks trough the sky, you could be losing some cold hard cash.
Instructables has a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solar tracker that takes some easy obtainable parts and combines them to make a very inexpensive solar tracker, which could improve your solar panel efficiency by as much as 30-50%.
DIY Solar Tracker Parts List
- Several treated 2×4′s (Lowes)
- Two wheels from a free bicycle- free or almost free bikes are pretty easy to find from the local landfill or thrift store
- A piece angle iron with pre-punched holes (Lowes)
- A 12 volt linear actuator-(~$75?)- (Ebay)
- An LED tracking sensor- (~$40)( http://www.redrok.com/led3xassm.htm#led3xforsale )
- Various nuts, bolts, screws, cable and wire -(scrounging around my workshop)