Subject:
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Re: Solar Cell Output in Direct Sunlight
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 27 Mar 2001 02:10:03 GMT
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Reply-To:
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micahx@&stopspammers&kih.net
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Viewed:
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2397 times
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Will Middelaer wrote:
>
> In lugnet.robotics, sjbaker1@airmail.net writes:
>
> > I agree - and another factor is the angle of the panel to the incident
> > light. The amount of light varies as the cosine of the angle of the
> > sun to a line thats perpendicular to the panel. Building some kind of
> > a mechanism that tilts the panel into the light might have some payback.
>
> The experts say that such a scheme can increase total power collected by up
> to 40%, though I'm not sure if this includes the power required to drive the
> steering mechanism.
>
> See:
>
> http://www.energyoutfitters.com/wattsun.htm
Steve and I discussed this a bit in private email. Since this posting
was delayed by over 24 hours from crynwr.com to LUGNET, and Steve
emailed me a copy of the reply as well, I assumed it was private
correspondence and replied in kind. Here's most of what was said:
Steve Baker wrote:
>
> "Micah J. Mabelitini" wrote:
> >
> > Hmm, it would be interesting to see something like that developed
> > exclusively with LEGO. It would require two degrees of freedom; perhaps
> > drive a pan and tilt mechanism with two micromotors, or somehow rig it
> > up so you could drive both the pan and tilt off a single motor. I
> > suppose you could use an RCX with some sort of light-seeking program to
> > control the panel mount, but of course if you're implimenting an RCX
> > anyway it would just be easier to eliminate the solar cell altogether.
>
> Yes - and it would probably be more compact/lighter/cheaper/easier to
> just put a bunch of different panels onto the vehicle - all at different
> angles - on the grounds that one of them at least should be pointing in
> something like the right direction.
>
> > Even if you could somehow impliment a pan and tilt mechanism with no
> > overhead like an RCX or large motors, the weight of the mechanism itself
> > in addition to the locomotion and chassis hardware might be more than
> > the solar cell can handle.
>
> Yes - I agree - but if your panel ends up facing away from the sun,
> the loss of power is very significant. I think this is a major problem
> for mobile solar powered equipment.
--
Regards
Micah J. Mabelitini - LUGNET #918
accutron@kih.net
BrickDreams - http://www.users.kih.net/~micahx/brickdreams/
RCXbug - http://www.users.kih.net/~micahx/rcxbug/
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Solar Cell Output in Direct Sunlight
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| (...) The experts say that such a scheme can increase total power collected by up to 40%, though I'm not sure if this includes the power required to drive the steering mechanism. See: (URL) (26 years ago, 27-Mar-01, to lugnet.robotics)
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