THE OZY MADE SOLAR "CAMPA-TRACKA"

Inspired by a bushmans Needs, For Fellow Ozy Bushmen


more about campa-tracka V2
How to get the best from V2

AxeTracka Programmed Solar Sensors
New Sensors Supplied with CampaTracka V3 & V2

The "LED.AxeTracka" Sensors
Looking for unboxed & boxed sensors?Go here
For now, the price is the same but after April 1 they will sadly need to be increased slightly.
Well, after many weeks of hair pulling and testing various ways and means of propelling my CampaTracka's from east to west in search of ever more sunshine for your solar panels, I have eventually got my new sensors working how I wanted.
The LED driven Sensors operate a tiny Programmable Micro Chip which is smaller than a regular post stamp. Called a Picaxe 08M, the microchip, as mentioned, is programmable. This has enabled me to do many things with the led sensors.
First and best of all, I have been able to have an adjustable reverse inhibit in the program. This simply means that if the sun is coming through trees, especially early mornings, the sudden bursts of sunlight followed by shadows are now largely ignored by the sensors.
I have set the delay for east inhibit at 8 minutes.
So what does all this mean to you?
To keep it simple, the sun would need to be shining on the east LED uninterrupted for over 8 minutes before the tracker moves back east. Now I realise many of you will be asking, "why even have it track east if the sun only goes from east to west?" Good point. But you really do need east tracking, this is because, as stated, if the sun bursts through the trees it can sometimes send the tracker into complete confusion and send it halfway or even more to the west. If this happened your solar panel would be without direct sunlight, waiting for hours until the sun caught up to your panel again. This way, if the sensor is confused and sent west too early and or too far west, it will wait until four minutes have expired then head back to find the sun again. So you do indeed need east as well as west tracking; especially when camping, as we all know, you can't always have your panels in a nicely cleared area.
Ok, so we have the east inhibit working. I have also included an auto return to east feature which sends the tracker and your panel back to face east at the end of the day. This way your panel is facing the sun before the sun comes up again. Gaining even more valuable sunshine. And as we all know, sunshine equals more amps in batteries and more amps equals colder iced tea that afternoon. Or whatever else you tea totlers like myself indulge in at the end of a hard day out bush.
As the name Programmable suggests, the picaxe can be altered if you are this way inclined. However, if you wish to play with the program you will void all and any warranty. This is not because I am evil and mean. The trouble is that if you don't get the programming correct, the picaxe will try to do 2 or even 3 things at once. If this happens, guess what? the picaxe usually dies in the process. I know this from trying to get the incredible little doohickie working myself. So if you wish to have a play with the programming, then feel free to do so. And yes, even if you have a problem doing so you can still email me for help. Not that I am an expert on them. But I won't ignore any reasonable plea for help.
If you wish to have a play I will even include a CD with the program which I wrote included. But as stated people, if you play, throw the warranty away! The software for programming the picaxe is freely available from http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/picaxe/ where you will also find a huge range of picaxe chips and cables etc.
THE DOES AND DON'TS.
When you first connect the picaxe sensors it may or may not take off in search of sunlight that instant; so please keep fingers and hands away when it starts working. And please, try to avoid the temptation of shooting your hand over and over the LED sensors. You can actually confuse the Chip and it will become agro with you and never talk to you again. Just kidding!! Geez. But please don't allow every one who walks past it wave their hand over it. it can jam from too many signals in a short space of time. Mind you, you would need very fast hands to do so. But it is after all, a micro chip, so if left to do its job it should give years of loyal sun chasing.
The little red button.
On the back end where the cables come out for power etc you will see a small red button. This is a manual parking backup in case the picaxe has already decided to ignore you. The auto east return should happen within a few minutes of sunset. virtually right on darkness. if for some reason this does not happen, wait until it is truly dark, and if nothing happens throw it in the campfire.. haha, got ya there!! Ok, enough of my stupidity. If the tracker does not return east at dark, simply disconnect the power and reconnect it. Should it still refuse to move, then press the red button to return it to east. Holding the button the whole time of course. Depending on the light from campfires etc, you may even need to cover the LEDS with your hand before the east parking button will work.
The above is all simply based on possibilities. I have had no trouble at all with the auto parking, but this is all explained simply incase of... Try to avoided using the manual east button as much as possible. If you must manually reset the tracker to east during the day time, you will indeed need to cover the LED sensors totally. Otherwise it may head west when you press the button. If it does this it is simply sensing light from the west sensor, which is overriding the east sensor.
This all may sound confusing, but as I said, if left to its own opinions, the picaxe will do what it is meant to do. and is always best left alone unless you are sure something has gone wrong.
But always keep this in mind also. As it is a light sensor, it will detect any source of light. this may or may not include your campfire, headlights as a local native drives in to toss you and your tracker off their land. My sad humour again. Anyway, if your tracker suddenly seems to be tracking insects or the moon at night, chances are it is getting reflections from somewhere very close by. If your campfire or anything is triggering the sensors, then all you can do is disconnect the battery at night after it parks itself.
The PCB
For now, I am making the circuit board, pcb, myself until we see how these go. I envisage no problems but I may need to make some minor alterations, so if you buy one please don't expect to rip the box open and find a very flash brightly coloured ingeniously engineered pcb. it'll frighten you most likely. But they work. And with three months warranty what do you care what it looks like inside? well do you?. However, I shall be getting some boards made as soon as I possibly can. But until then, you get my hand made boards.

I now have my own photo etching system up and running to make my own pcb's, "Printed Circuit Boards", which I hope will help speed up production somewhat.
I would also like to thank Mr Brad Collins Technology & Enterprise Faculty Teacher at the Guildford Grammar School of Western Australia for his invaluable assistance in the design of the boards, and for his sharing of knowledge on all things electronic. And his students whom helped me out by making the first few photo etched boards for me.
Also of great assistance while I battled my way through the maze of Electronics to get them working was Mr Lance Turner Technical editor of Renew Magazine Australia, which is published by the not for profit group called The Alternative Technology Association. Thank you Lance for never failing to answer any of my emails during the designing process. Lance also owns and runs his own website on the sale of all sorts of LED's, Light Emitting Diodes, called LED SALES.
Another Electronics master was Mr Armin Pauza, A man with seemingly unlimited knowledge on Lithium batteries and electronics. I have a page on this site for Armins Batteries, so check him out if you need the worlds best and most Technologically advanced Lithium Batteries.
Without the assistance of these, and others, I would never have achieved what I wanted by way of very efficient and reliable Solar Sensors. My thanks to you all.

These will be as waterproofed as is possible, however, I could not give you 100% assurance of this being the case. Simply because of the switch for a start. So do as I do when out bush, keep a couple good clear plastic bags handy for when the sky looks suspect. I simply cover mine with a plastic bag and wrap a couple heavy duty plastic bands around them. Works for me.!
If you would like a 100% waterproofed Axetracka made, simply ask ok. it can be done but the boxes and switches cost much more. But I am still looking into that one, price wise. As soon as I have the good switches and boxes required for waterproofing they shall be listed here ok.
email .