Engineers - Help Needed (solar panel lift design)

[Wissel]

Being fulltime, I'd really like to be solar sufficient for as much of the year as possible. I have battery capacity for 3-4 days (use 100-130Ah per day) and will have 750w of solar panels.

I keep trying to come up with a way of angling my panels that is simple, but will get used. I think if I had to climb on top of the van to angle the panels, I'd hardly bother.

So I'm wondering about using waterproof linear actuators. The trouble is, even an idiot like me can see the actuators would need to be at an angle when the roof is down. I have no idea how steep that angle needs to be?

I know there are a few on here with engineering backgrounds. Hoping one of you can help here.

This is what I'd like to do:

The frame to hold the panels would be 1500mm wide and 3m long. I'd fit an actuator at each end, the ones drawn are 600mm closed and 1050mm extended. The frame would be 60mm aluminium box (I hope), so 120mm total height. I want this height as it means the top of the panels clear the top of my awning, so no shading.

This allows the actuators to be fitted at 10 degrees. Is this likely to be sufficient?

Any ideas appreciated.

I keep trying to figure this out, deciding it's too difficult and giving up. But if it is possible, and not too heavy, I'd like to fit something similar.

 

[mike mcglynn]

Hi I’m no engineer but would double glazing s/steel hinges work ?

 

[PhilMary]

Would it not be less effort on the actuators if the pointed the other direction?
I say this because as you have them, they are pushing against the hinge, the other way round there is no effort lost in pushing the hinge.
Phil

 

[138go]

Hi I’m no engineer but would double glazing s/steel hinges work ?

Yes they do .. I have a panel on the side of my shed and its held in place by two of them. During the winter the panel is near vertical. During the summer it is angled up towards the midday sun.

You will need some way of locking it down when on the move and some way of tracking the sun otherwise the panel is going to be in the shade unless you always park the same way round. For best results with a fixed panel it should face South. Be easier to just have a 100w panel on a frame on the ground and move it round. research suggests that you get about 3 times as much power if you track the sun.

 

[Figaro]

I think I'd be inclined to go for free standing panels, perhaps two hinged together to fold when not in use. They could be angled to the sun and moved accordingly.
A longish cable would also allow you to park in shade and position panels in sun when space allows and it's getting hot.

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[DBK]

You could increase the angle the actuator sits when the panel is horizontal by attaching the end on the panel further away from the panel. You could do this by fitting a triangular plate on each side with the actuator pivoted at the apex. You might need a bit of trial and error to decide how big but at a guess if you could raise it by say 100mm that might work - depending on the actuator of course.

As a guide, if the panel weighs 10Kg and you pivoted it a third of the way along from the hinge then you would need a vertical pull of 15Kg (let's not go down the Newton route!) to raise it. To calculate the push required by the actuator (which will he halved with one on each side) divide this 15Kg by the Sine of the angle the actuator sits at. For example if you could get it at 30 degrees then the push is 15 divided by sine 30 which is 15/0.5 = 30Kg. But of course you will probably not get it as steeply as 30 degrees. At 10 degrees it is 15/0.174 which is around 85 Kg so you would need actuators capable of pushing around 50Kg each - or about 500 Newtons.

You can reduce the force required by attaching the actuator the other way round so it pushes away from the hinge. If you attached it two thirds of the way along the vertical force required is now only 7.5Kg but you may struggle getting an actuator with enough movement as it will need to extend further.

 

[hilldweller]

One problem is you are tackling only half the problem, you need to park your van one specific way and even move it during the day to benefit.

You also need ensure it's safe, mile after mile.

If possible KISS, toss an extra fixed panel on.

 

[BwB]

As abve, the first thing I thought was I'd have the actuator the other way around.

 

[HandyAndy]

If you want to find the sun angle you can either use an app or a website to find the info you need.
Sun location app....

Or sun calc dot org website

 

[namwaldog]

When we were in Spain last winter we saw a MH that had a large garage door hinged on a vertical side.

They had a solar panel mounted vertically on the inside of the garage door. The panel was hinged on the top horizontal edge and a basic attachment on the bottom horizontal edge allowed the panel to be angled upwards towards the sun.

My initial reaction was "clever"; but could see pitfalls such as

Security of garage
'Camping activities' on Aires,
Strain on garage door hinge.
Reaction when windy.

But still think a good idea in principle.

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[WillH]

As Hilldweller said, install two panels, no moving parts so less to go wrong and a large degree of redundancy.

 

[DaveandJen]

I feel you have enough solar capacity and should be looking to purchase one of the very small Honda Super Silenced generators (not the crap Chinese look-a-likes) to top up your batteries during periods of bad weather such as during the winter months etc. I have lots of history with Honda small super silenced generators and they just hum, 100% reliable, and take up very little space.

 

[TheBig1]

2 thoughts push from the "hinge" side using 2 actuators and delete the hinges and fit an opposite pair of actuators to give angle left or right

like scissor lift in effect

 

[barsteward]

I know nothing but when I was in Roses in January I was parked next to a Dutchman with a Hymer.
I was really struggling to just keep the batteries above 50% with basically just the lights for a couple of hrs and hot water/heating. Anyway I noticed during the day that he had one of those very expensive looking solar tracking panels so queried him about.

Turned out he had one fixed 100w panel and the 90w tracking panel which he had adapted from an old sat dish and he positioned it manually from inside during the day. It looked a bit to me like an ordinary terrestrial type antenna and thinking about it a terrestrial antenna can be altered in the plane and rotate 360 degrees>

Food for thought if your mechanically minded.

By the way he said he always had adequate solar even in the winter.

 

[DaveandJen]

Link here to get the engineers thinking!!

Amazon product ASIN B0027DJ5RM

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[hilldweller]

3-4 days (use 100-130Ah per day) and will have 750w of solar panels.

As usual with FUN I did not read this properly before.

So I guess you have 400Ah of usable battery -- aren't you the one with a serious DIY Lithium stack ?

750W of solar - obviously you can't just toss another on one - sorry about that.

That must be quite a weight of solar or are you flexible ?

A nicer lift is if you could put a vertical action in the side of a wardrobe/cupboard.

There's no way you can rotate that lot horizontally, so that's out.

At this point a quiet genny is looking a very attractive solution.

 

[HandyAndy]

Solar trackers are also pence to build with either an arduino or raspberry pi and I think it would be better to use 4 lifting jacks, one for each corner.
That way it can fully orientate itself in any direction, no matter how you park.

 

[tonyidle]

Find an old Oyster sat. unit. That, with little modification, will give you EL/AZ adjustment either manually or add the clever stuff. If you use a large panel fit a couple of gas struts to balance panel weight.

 

[hilldweller]

If you use a large panel

Does 750W qualify as large !

 

[Spanner]

Saw this idea recently

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[tonyidle]

Does 750W qualify as large !

I think he uses more than one to achieve 750W. I wasn't considering the whole array . I have a 250W that I thought was big: I suspect the OP has 3 x 250.