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Powering a solar tracker

foTONICS

Sep 30, 2011
332
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Sep 30, 2011
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332
So I am working on this solar tracker circuit for my final project (I posted on here a couple weeks ago asking for help regarding a couple of things).

I want this thing to power itself without relying on any type of battery system, what kind of erratic behaviour can I expect as the sun starts to dip and can't deliver the appropriate voltage for the system?

It's gonna be a small system running off 12 volts from the output of a regulator, 1 open collector comparator, and a couple power transistors to form an H-bridge to drive a motor forwards and backwards.
 

GreenGiant

Feb 9, 2012
842
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Feb 9, 2012
Messages
842
well if you have an undervoltage protection circuit in there then once the sun gets below a certain point it will just stop moving.

You should probably have some sort of battery in there for if a cloud goes by the sun, or just enough to move it back to facing east after the sun goes down or something.
 

foTONICS

Sep 30, 2011
332
Joined
Sep 30, 2011
Messages
332
should my undervoltage protection circuit be before my tracking circuit or just before the actual motor, or both?

ive attached a picture of something i came up with after a little research and after running it through multisim it still seems to let some voltage through (even when I decrease the Vin to less than the value of the zener diodde) am i missing something with this circuit??
 

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