Solar Tracker Installation | ECO WORTHY
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ก.พ. 2024
- Solar Tracker Installation | ECO WORTHY
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We are Ian & Julie, undertaking the biggest project of our lives - the children have grown up and have started their own families, so now it's our turn. Join us as we create our tiny 1 acre homestead from scratch as well as self constructing our off grid sustainable home. We take on new skills along the way from laying a concrete slab to roofing and electrical. Follow us on our off grid journey to a totally debt free life allowing us to live self sufficiently as well as earning a small income from the fresh organic produce from our land here in the heart of the French Pyrenees.
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I can remember as a kid reading about all kinds of crazy solar trackers that DIYers had come up with themselves, so seeing such a sturdy, readily available kit shows just how far private solar has come. Good job on the install.
This seems really simple and it worked straight away. Just need to bolt on the wind sensor and it will be done.
Nice bit of kit Ian I am sure Ecoworthy will take on board your comments regarding cable concealment routing seems obvious will make a better install.
I am kicking myself for not doing that😬
That tracker is absolutely amazing. Definitely going to get a couple when the time comes!
I am happy with it and if I didn't have a big south facing roof in the plans I would have 2 or 3 of these for sure.
Hi guys, hope Tyson is fine with the honking going on.
That's a nice tracker, noting between the panels and the sun, you'll have a great steady charge coming.
Cheers 👍💪✌
Cheers Rob - he is fine, used to it really but had to wait until it finished before bringing him home ♥️J.
Thanks really good , and thanks to comments i now know why a few of my solar panel strut clamps seized .
Thank you 👍🏻
Time well spent!! Love this system.
I am impressed with it - 😀
Wow that’s awesome. Great installation you two. 👏👏👏
Thanks guys - I was worried about the concrete but it seems to be holding 😬
Nice Job!
Thank you 👍🏻
anytime you use stainless bolts on anything you need to use anti seize. stainless to steel, stainless to stainless. that will solve your problem! worked as an assembler for machine company, and we used it on everything. hope this helps.
Cheers I know now - I thought I was having a trouble with them.
You two are adorable. With a few tweaks, I'm considering mounting this kit on an RV. Cheers from sunny California.
Thanks ☺️ - that would be an interesting project for the RV.
nice job with the base
Thank you ☺️
On ss bolts it is good to use some anti-seize paste. This will help if you have to take something apart some day. I must say it is a very nice tracker. Good luck with it.
Thank you - yes I have now learnt my lesson with the bolts 😬
Good job
Cheers Billy
Wow I can't believe I'm the first viewer today sorry you guys couldn't make the rally I was looking forward to following that
hahaha, no worries - we are now following our team mates and planning for next year
The stainless steel bolts and nuts are galling. To help prevent it you need to use anti-seize such as copper-slip, and tighten the fasteners slowly, never use a impact driver. Hope this helps.
Yes, it seems this is a common problem with this install.
Correct
So sorry about the rally I’m sure that’s heartbreaking. Great work with the install, galling is fairly common with stainless steel hardware if you ever run into that again lots of anti-seize before tightening anything down will help.
Good tip on the galling (not heard that before) - it was such a pain cutting them all off.
man sorry y'all couldn't participate in the rally the whole way through... but at least y'all got the solar panels up and running that's a plus 👍 give the puppies and Tyson a hug from me in westmoreland county virginia usa 💖
Thank you Peg, we were worried about leaving the animals in winter but it turns out this week is more like spring weather - it would have been perfect.
Nice job guys. Companies like Eco Worthy will send their gear to people like you because they know how finicky you are (in a good way), will properly detail, install, and comment on the product, Also, you will show any work-arounds necessary for your particular installation, that puts them in the best light possible. Some might do a poor job on it and blame the equipment when it doesn't perform as designed, when it's actually the installer's fault. 👍
Cheers Doug - I am pleased as this is very useful and came at the right time as I was going to make something up. It is still tracking great and I have full power 100% each day, which is way more than before. 👍🏻
Hi Julie and Ian - I must admit I tune in to your site for your homesteading adventure not the Monte Carlo rally so unfortunately I have to say your loss (and I do feel for you) is my (and perhaps a few others) gain, this episode looks to be very interesting. Keep up the good work😊
It was our holiday, just with a car.... back to normal service now (with no holiday ☹️)
Great video, nothing like a space agency guy building a solar tracker! Like others have said, would love to see a 6 month review.
Most definitely - it is working constantly at the moment so it will be good to see how it wears. 👍🏻
I was going to do a drinking game where I had a shot every time Ian used the word PLINTH, but I was hammered 5 minutes in.
P....L....I....N....T....H 🤣
@@HomesteadingUncontained hahahaha
That looks like a great system. Having the tracking feature will make much better use of the panels. For the price as shown in the link it is well worth the investment. BTW - I noticed the lack of snow for the WRC Monte and seems not much around for the Historique? Cheers Dave.
No snow at all - we bought snow tires and had them spiked too. It looks like sunny holiday weather down there at the moment.
I know how you feel, I did parts of the 76 and 77 Cyprus rally (Beat 2 Alitalia Mirafioris over several stages in a SEAT 127) I had a very good navigator). When I left Cyprus I did get to Marshall (comms) some UK rallies in North Yorkshire for 2-3 years). Then my life got busy (divorce).....rallies were not in my thoughts.
haha, yes, it has only been in the last few years we have been doing them (loved them when I was younger) With this little car it is more affordable but the Monte Carlo was a once in a lifetime event for us..... but now it will be twice in a lifetime for the entry fee 🥲
Hello ian an julie
Cheers Liam
If you make it higher and larger, it could be a great sunshade too.
I was going o strap Julie to it so she could get an overall tan.
Please review in a few months I have seen a lot of these fail hoping they have addressed issues. Thnx!
I think on the pivots - I have watched quite a few but I think they were the older models - I will put some grease in there too.
hello, congratulations on your installation. I have a question how is the solar tracker electrically powered?
The control box requires a 12VDC supply. Luckily I am using an Ecoflow power station so this has a 12V output and I just ran a 2 core cable out to the mount (alongside the DC solar cables.) It has been working non stop for a few weeks now and it has really made a difference.
Should the wind speed detector not be mounted higher? In its current location I imagine that the wind speed at the panel will be higher (possibly substantially higher) at the panel. I am assuming that if the wind-speed is too high the tracker partks to minimise the force applied by the wind to the panel.
Yes, I am lazy. I need to fabricate a bracket to get it mounted higher on the post. This is one item that should have been included in the kit. But it does work where it is - we had high gusts the other day and I counted the timing and it parked it self right on schedule 👍🏻
i wondering what about winds, thats a big investment to fly away, what are the safe guards, i mean they tie down planes at the airport,
It has a wind sensor and when it goes above a certain straight it will park parallel with the ground. It works pretty well.
@Homesteading Uncontained
Ian, with your 550w panel if it were fixed against the wall you would normally get around 60% of it's rated wattage for 3-4 sun hours which is normal for your location but with the dual tracker you will get around 80% of it's rated wattage for 6-8 sun hours.
So 60% of 550w = 330w x 3-4 hrs = 990wh-1320wh per day but now you'll get 80% of 550w = 440w x 6-8 hrs = 2640wh-3520wh per day. That's a 266.6666667% increase in wattage from the same panel because it's tracking the sun automatically from morning to night.
How this happens is that there will be a longer amount of time that the panel will receive 95% of it's rating or sometimes even 100% of it's rating & then the mornings & late afternoons it tapers down to a lower percentage. This is how it increases the amount of wattage gained during the day.
Thanks for that - really good to see the calculations 👍🏻
@@HomesteadingUncontained Welcome
👍👍
👍🏻
How thick did you make your cement slab? Apologies if you said it in the video.
It is pretty deep - I put it at 50cm I think so it is a lump. Not going anywhere 😀
That solar tracker piqued my interest. I want to eventually run most of my shop off of solar and eventually feed power to the house as well. The shop roof is a great place for panels but I'm trying to keep the weight on the roof to a minimum for other reasons. If I can get her to ok having a solar panel tree in the back yard I think that might be a possibility if it can hold enough of the size panels I can get locally. Grass only grows here in TX for a short period of time so ground mount is Ok here as it's usually bare dirt most of the time
Plan is to at minimum have enough power to run the minisplit, lighting and outlets in the shop. Running a welder or air compressor is a big ask without a really big battery system etc.
Been watching the farmers over there and am hoping they can make a change as they are under attack all over the planet now. Was there any way you could have taken the van and the trailer on the rally and at least used your hotel etc and you could have been a backup trailer in case someone broke down?
Take a look at the YT channel named ‘Country View Acres’ (in case you are not familiar with it)…. Has done loads of solar works for both his home and shop (all 100% DIY). He has his panels on a barn roof, but runs minisplit, outlets, lighting and more from a sizable battery bank in the shop/barn. In addition, he has configured it to run the essentials in his home during power outages. Sounds right up your alley 👍
We do follow them - they are on Grid there and we have a similar set up at our current property, but the new property were we are building is not connected to the grid - this is all temporary while we build and once he house is up there will be roof mounted panels..... I hope 🤞
We designed the roof to have panels but that is the next phase - this is temp power for now and now we can get i consistently it will help. Yes, the Supermarkets need to sort themselves out but that will lead to more correct prices on the shelves for the consumers, who will not be too happy I am sure. For the Rally, we had to make the decision not to incur any more costs, so travel, food, fuel etc.
Please what was the specification of the solar panel. How many watts of solar panel. What type of solar panel?
Not sure on the model but they are 550watts and there will be two of them
Hi ian an julie i have 3 arreys each of 50 polycrystalline solar panels at 550kw it produces 82.5 kwh of power the 3 arreys do like yours follow the sunrise to sunset to get max output this all feeds into a victron system and batterys . It powers the house and 3 greenhouses workshop and animal barns . I also have a wind turbine as back up in deep winter . Are you going to have this tylpe of system gthat you have just installed for your shipping container house as this is in my opinion far better than on a house roof ect . You following the sun with tilt and turn maximise solar generation it will depend on planning i belive . I have over 25 acres and no neighbours so to speak in Highlands of Scotland . Now you should get good power generation and if your batterys cant take it all you can add batterys nice video sorry about monte carlo
82.5 Kw is massive - my final plan is 20 on each roof so 40 panels at around 500watts each. But they will be static as the planning here is tough with the Chateau behind us. But I may sneak in a couple of these later when I am a little more established 😉
woohoo!!! now a wind turbine just above this not blocking the castle
I want one for sure 👍🏻
Nice video as always, but Is really 'Tyson is scared to death' everything to say about farmers protests?
Not really but we do not go into all that
Looks like you work at NASA. 😂
I worked for the European Space Agency on tracking the Ariane launch vehicle. Loved it 😊
Way too much cost and effort for about 30 % more output from a single Panel. It would have been much easier and cheaper to buy an additional panel. Costs less and would boost the harvest by 100 %.
It is only for one panel at the moment as the power stations I use can only take in 500watts. But when I get my full system in I will add a couple more panels to the tracker and get a full 1500watts for most of the day. (ultimately there is 20 panels going on the roof)
@@HomesteadingUncontained if you get 20 panels on the roof, you shouldn't need Solartrackers on the ground for 3 or 4 additional panels. It is much easier, cheaper and more durable to get the same gain from additional panels. Solartracker is just for fun. Have fun 😉
I did ay the Ecoflow cannot take more than 500w, so more panels at the moment will not work. The tracker provides me over 400w for 8 hours a day. that is multiple charges for these machines.@@WolJaJa
@@HomesteadingUncontained Ecoflow fits for mobile use. For the same money you can assemble a 11-14 kWh LiFePo Battery diy for stationary use, that really takes you over the night in the whole house.
You like to use and test technical gimmicks. That's ok, but cost a lot of money and time for little benefit. That is, how Hobbies are. It is fun, but it is neither economic nor ecological.