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Get it right!

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rossw:
Had one of those "oopsee" moments.

I remember when I was making my solar trackers, thinking "That's funny, I thought I had one more of those to make".

Well, couple of days ago (and it really justifies having a power meter on EACH piece of equipment) I did one of those routine checks on things and thought one of the arrays was waaay down on power. Better go have a look.

This arm *WAS* straight.... it held the linear actuator:


The steel had fatigued and in the 60-odd kmh gusty wind the day before, had given up the ghost.


The instant I saw it, I knew what had happened, and remembered the year-earlier event of being surprised that I was one piece ahead of where I thought I was.... I'd counted the template! Worse still, I bolted the template in on the finished piece!  It was only ever supposed to be to check my maths, that the geometry worked as I expected!
Here's the template, made of 3mm (1/8") thick angle, against what the other trackers were made of:


It didn't take very long to cut, clean, shape, mark and drill and re-install the part


I was dead lucky that I didn't lose one (or more) panels in the process. It wouldn't have taken much more wind for the remaining thin piece to give way entirely.

I can't believe I never *noticed* it was the wrong piece ever since it went up. With nobody to get your back, you have to be super vigilant. Check your work. Better yet, get someone else to check it for you.

bj:
   Everybody gets lucky once in a while, guess it was your turn.
   That is a classic photo of fatigue.
   Makes me feel good that Murphy lost out on this one.

philb:
Good save!
I never thought of putting a power meter on each array until now.
Thanks for posting your mistakes as well as your tracker.

rossw:

--- Quote from: philb on February 07, 2012, 06:51:51 pm ---Good save!
I never thought of putting a power meter on each array until now.

--- End quote ---



I also have a meter to display the actuator current. Lets me see if anything has stuck or is getting sticky. It's the one on the far right here. The centre-off toggle switch is for manual adjustment of the arrays, if I want to.






--- Quote ---Thanks for posting your mistakes as well as your tracker.

--- End quote ---

One never likes admitting to them, but hell, they DO happen. And if someone else can benefit from your mistakes, why not share?!

bvan1941:
Geez, You do some nice panel work and got to say it's a nice "visual" of your system too!
very nice !
Bill

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