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THE OZY MADE SOLAR "CAMPA-TRACKA"Inspired by a bushmans Needs, For Fellow Ozy Bushmen |
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How to figure out how many amps = how many watts etc, at bottom of the page Then when reading the latest edition of Renew Magazine it hit me like a bolt of lightning... "Why the hell do I have 160watts of solar panels sitting in the shed collecting dust, instead of free power"? What an idiot, I thought, then promptly fell asleep. But by 6 a.m the next morning I was wide awake and in shed, freezing my a--s off dusting off my solar panels, then measuring and cutting Aluminium and 50mm square steel tube. I was on a roll and I just had to keep going, regardless of the pain in my legs and joints from the damned M.S that has held me back for too many years to count. I had been spending so much of my Up-time designing and making trackers for every one else, I hadn't even thought of going feral with the solar. But look out power bill. I'm out to get ya.! Up-time, by the way, is how I refer to the few days I get of near usable muscle power and am not too giddy from the damned M.S. Or Multiple Sclerosis. Anyway, after reading that article in Renew Mag about this guy going Gorilla Solar, a term used for illegally feeding power back into the grid, I thought why be illegal about it??? They can't stop me from running my shed lights and Soldering station from my own solar panels, can they?!? Well stiff S- - t if they can. I into it.! By the end of day one I had the altered top half of my newly designed V4DA dual axis tracker rather crudely mounted onto 7 feet of 50mmx50mm steel box which I remembered was in the shed, also collecting dust. Below is a snap of the reworked V4DA top half chopped and cut and altered to do the job. 
I decided against going full blown overthetop dual axis and made up a circuit board with two cheep push button switches to adjust the north-south axis, and have used my standard Axetracka sensors for the east west axis with the usual 6 minute east delay and 200ms west delay and auto night time return to east. Not because I am too miserable to spend the few dollars, but because I am almost always home and it gives my brain that little extra to think about. Maybe one day. .   NOTE: 1 No doubt you have seen the 3 small solar cells above, I am experimenting to see if they keep the small dedicated 7ah battery going. Which they should because the trackers only draining about 50ma when not moving, and around 0.8 amp when it moves, and when moving it only does so for a daily total run time of just under 96 seconds. So We'll see how long the little cells keep the batt going for. They should add about 5 days in total to the actual run time, if not I'll simply add a couple more to it. They are remarkable little cells which pump out 4.5volts at 50ma each. A lot of people ask me why I use a dedicated battery; the answer is simple. I just prefer it that way so that if anything did go haywire with the tracker, it won't drain the main battery bank will it. Inside the Garden shed As you can see by the Volt & AMP Meters, I like to be able to look and see what's doing what. The top amp meter tells me that panel # 1 is pushing in 3.5 amps. I don't have panel # 2 connected yet. It shows 2.7, but I have checked with two multimeters and those little amp meters are out of whack quite a bit. No wander they were so cheep on ebay. I also like to avoid fires and sparks so I have fuses all over the place just to be sure. The volt meter tells me it's pushing upward of 13.5 volts into the system. And though you can't see it here, there is another volt meter which shows how many volts are in battery bank. If you look at the battery box I made for the Camper "see below" it also has an amp & volt meter that does the same when camped out bush.  
 The camper battery box is connected into the system for two reasons; firstly to give me more amp hours inside the shed in our ever cloudy winters down here, plus when it's time to go bush for a spot of the gold fossicking I can simply pull the anderson plug and away you go. In total I have 6 x 40 AH 12 volt batteries to give me 240 ahrs or around 2800 watts on hand. Of course you can even get more volts or amps etc by connecting the panels and batteries other configurations, but I think I'll be happy the way it all is. For now at least anyway. Using a 300 watt inverter to run my 40watt soldering station and a 20 watt power supply on the test bench, and two 18 watt lights above my head equals just 96watts drain, But keep in mind I am so far using only one 60watt panel, but it will hold the batteries remarkably well because the soldering station and power supply are not used daily. I usually use both items for about 4 hours per week or less, so with all them batteries charged up I could solder away for days before worrying about it all. But I will now also have a special power point in the workshop handy for plugging the small 200 watt drill and cordless drill charger into. It all adds up to make the power bill a little less burdening every 3 months. Would I try the so called "Gorilla Solar" by illegally feeding into the grid to slow my meters down somewhat? No, it would not be worth getting fine for in my opinion. Or would it???? Ummmmmmmm................. In summery, I guess I am suggesting that if you have panels collecting dust in the shed, why not get them working on that bar fridge in the shed or the lights or something to help lower your power costs a little. The chief of keeping all this stuff where it belongs  I'll add to this as I get it all properly set and all panels conected. And yes, I will let you know how much it saves me in power bills. But that will take a while yet. You might also find these little numbers below come in handy when trying figure out how many amps = how many watts etc, and visa versa Power = Volts x Amps (P=VxI) so 12volts X 5amps is 60watts. or, 60watts div by 12volts = 5amps or 60watts div by 5 amps = 12volts You can change the formula around so you can find W, V or I (so long as you have 2 of the 3). Remember volts times amps equal watts |