I had some little solar panels laying around and wanted to see if they would power the Arduino. They did. So, I wanted to see if I could make a sun tracking circuit to autonomously follow the sun throughout the day. So I did. Here is the result. If you wanna try it, you can download at: code.google.com … The code is not perfect or commented. Enjoy
luwe1
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Tags: Arduino, Follow The Sun, Google, Solar Panel, Solar Panels
don’t need arduino to make this. I think you can do this completely analog.
well for night time, im not a c++ major, but i do believe the code would be like
{{auto finding code}}}
{if(PanelA&PanelB)
Sweet I was the 100th vote! Thumbs up all the way. Great video Thank you.
Fantastic! That is so cool. Thanks for the upload
You should put all the wires and circuitry on the solar panel part, and flip the servo so the main part of the motor is on the board, with the little end (end that spins) downwards. That way it can turn 180 degrees and wont tangle xD
I purchased this chip that might be pretty cool for this project. A PIC 12F683. Has A/D converter as well. Should Practically be able to do this with little effort. Your design works fine. Just Think thats a neat little chip.
@FlyMario2 lol, you’re right. However, he would need a boost converter as the solar panel might only generate a few volts. But hey, a micro with none of the pins outputting only ***** a few µA.
@ossumguywill Thinking about it, I am sure the ambient light as the sun starts to rise would probably bring the circuit alive enough to bring it around to the sun.
This is pretty cool, it does go directly to the sun. i kinda think using an arduino for this is a little excessive as it could be done simply with other components but yeah it still pretty awesome!
@FlyMario2 with a battery. You don’t need much energy to turn a servo ~180 degrees. I bet the arduino only ***** a few µA if you were to stop using the ADCs or something. Maybe you could cut off the ground supply to all sensors with another digital pin or something, and then just wait a certain number of hours to turn back on again.
My response to the question about night time would be that this was a proof of concept. I think improvements would be required to make it a usable system. If this was to be useful you would use it to charge a battery or put the system to sleep when the light drops below a certain threshold. Use your imagination… that’s the beauty of creating things…
Nice. Question, if you were to leave this out over night it should stop working when the sun goes down for lack of power. How would it wake up in the morning and start seeking again?
Check the link in the description. You can download it all there.
Hey Luwe; I would like to have the diagram and arduino ketch for this project. Could you please post it?
Very nice setup! I am starting my solar power system using old car parts, and the sensor has only five parts, including the relay! Please take a look at my system.
sir u r great but please post a video on how to the electric circuit of it
Make it calculate the time with the sun
Very nice setup, Thanks for sharing keep them cumming,,, Nice program never herd of this till now Thanks agin
Excellent build. Great work.
Very nice work, and thank you for the vid.
NICE JOB!!!
Super cool thing!
Thats pretty damn cool. Cheers.
the internet!