| Latest revision |
Your text |
| Line 1: |
Line 1: |
| − | ALL MY PROJECTS ARE HERE: https://opencircuits.com/index.php?title=User:Definitionofis
| |
| − |
| |
| | This is using two LEDs to sense the sun and send +- or -+ logic signals to a full bridge motor driver like L298 or http://www.redrok.com/led3xassm.htm LED3X schematic. I bought his. I recommend it. | | This is using two LEDs to sense the sun and send +- or -+ logic signals to a full bridge motor driver like L298 or http://www.redrok.com/led3xassm.htm LED3X schematic. I bought his. I recommend it. |
| | | | |
| − | I changed the front end logic to 4060 and 4011 ICs here, because I want to put the sun sensor separate from the controller board so it does not weather and die again, after 8 years of use. The circuit turns on a motor for 3 seconds once every 47 seconds to move the solar panels. You could use this circuit to turn on an irrigation motor for a very short time every several hours (just cut the sun sensor output, resulting in the motor driver never reversing polarity, and select different timing pins of the 4060IC, since 3 seconds ON, every 47 seconds is not long enough for irrigation, which should be more like 15 minutes ON, every 48 hours). | + | I changed the front end logic to 4060 and 4011 ICs here, for fun. You could use this circuit to turn on an irrigation motor for a very short time every several hours (just omit the sun sensor and select appropriate timing pins and much lower oscillation frequency for the 4060). |
| − | [Update: Jan 1, 2022. This board has been in use for 5 years and it is reliable. I had another car battery go weak after five years, so I returned the ten year-old battery and kept the "new" dead car battery. It parks the solar rotator back to sunrise position reliably every night. Dec 2018: I plugged in the wall adaptor because the battery died, but the solar is providing current during daylight and the wall adaptor, which is buck-controller,
| |
| − | and not a transformer, typical of these modern day adaptors
| |
| − | so it doesn't seem to care as long as it's voltage is the same.]
| |
| − | Zener D3 went open circuit, malfunctioned and raised all the
| |
| − | voltages from 5v to 15v. So I am going to replace that with
| |
| − | a 270 ohm resistor. I guess my zener could not handle 30mA.
| |
| − | I pulled a random one out of an old VCR.
| |
| | | | |
| − | [[File:Irrigation_Timer_Sun_Tracker_photo_of.png]]
| |
| − |
| |
| − | This needs upgrading but I get an error trying to replace the file:
| |
| | [[File:Irrigation_Timer_Sun_Tracker_motor_driver.sch]] | | [[File:Irrigation_Timer_Sun_Tracker_motor_driver.sch]] |
| | | | |
| Line 32: |
Line 20: |
| | [[File:DC_Solar_to_15vdc+trickle_charge.kicad_pcb]] | | [[File:DC_Solar_to_15vdc+trickle_charge.kicad_pcb]] |
| | [[File:DC_Solar_to_15vdc+trickle_charge.sch]] | | [[File:DC_Solar_to_15vdc+trickle_charge.sch]] |
| − |
| |
| − | Why is that R4 15 ohm resistor in there? Here I am 5 years later trying to remember why, since it is not necessary, except I remember the current regulator was dropping a small voltage across itself and the final charge on the battery was thus less than 100% capacity; maybe 70%. So the 15 ohm resistor is so huge that for example: 1/2 volt results in a 1/30A trickle to top up the final charge on the battery to something higher by 1/2v than what the current regulator can do because it loses some voltage across itself. If my voltage regulator was 1/2v higher it might have been better for my lead-acid battery and then I could have left out the 15 ohm cheat, for top up trickle charge to a final voltage closer to the voltage regulator output voltage than the current regulator's output voltage.
| |
