Solar Tracker parts for mini servos by fastmike75

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

Here are the pieces to make a Arduino solar tracker out of mini servos. Will point the gnomon to the brightest light. These servo holders where designed around the Tower Pro MG90S Servos, but sure will fit other mini servos. The gnomon is 3.150" tall, 1.100" square at base.
Place (4) LDR's (light dependant resistors) in the Gnomon and control 2-axis servos by percentage of light each LDR receives. The gnomon shades the LDR's if not at the right angle. By reading the two axis (up-down and left-right) of the LDR's, make the servos move away from the LDR's with less light toward to LDR's with more light, until they all receive light equally.
From the servo angles you can calculate the angle of the sun. If you wanted to get serious you could use Arduino board with GPS or Compass to get perfect angle and location on LCD. Following the sun at the proper angle makes solar panels much more efficient. Arduino board could run linier to control solar panel angles in real time.