Badlands Bob
Well-known member
I could see this evolving into a fully automated system. Program your controller with the date, time and GPS coordinates and it will automatically raise and lower the solar panels during the day to optimize power.
Tilting Solar Panels
- Thread starter Kevin Means
- Start date
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I am curious as to what the cost of the tilt & lock systems did to the cost of the solar on the roof not including any equipment below.
I am working on a remote tilt and lock myself and getting it close to going up on the roof. I lift 7 panels onto their short ends on a single frame with four 12" stroke actuators. What I did pretty much doubled the cost of what is on the roof but I was not about to climb up there twice a day.
I am working on a remote tilt and lock myself and getting it close to going up on the roof. I lift 7 panels onto their short ends on a single frame with four 12" stroke actuators. What I did pretty much doubled the cost of what is on the roof but I was not about to climb up there twice a day.
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Kevin Means
Site Team
That's going to be true in most cases, but the added battery capacity needed to store all the power generated by 1600 watts of solar - especially on sunny days - is going to be expensive and take up a lot of space, or the excess power generated will be wasted. Additionally, it will likely be impossible to install that much solar on any RV's roof, there's just not enough room. Most of the panels will have to be portable. (Nothing wrong with that.)gatorcq said:
Kev
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Kevin Means
Site Team
A fair amount was spent on R&D (I still have to total everything) but when the build specs were finalized, the retail cost of all the parts used to build each system (not including solar panel) was about $90.00. The patent, however, cost a LOT more than the entire R&D process.Frankedj said:
By the way, during the R&D process, we tested two designs with multiple-actuators (2 or 3 actuators) but ultimately abandoned the concept for several reasons, including: Complexity and cost - more parts = more money and potential problems; We determined that the solar panels installed on the roofs of (most) RVs did not require the lifting capacity of more than one actuator; Despite our best attempts, if one actuator failed - for any reason - the functional actuator(s) destroyed the tilting device, and I'm quite sure, would also have destroyed, or certainly damaged the solar panel had one been attached (We were using a dummy load.) I also think there's a good chance that the RV's roof would have been damaged due to the twisting affect. Those actuators are strong!
I think a multiple-actuator device might be OK for one-off uses - as long as someone were willing to visually monitor its operation every time it was used, but for production models there was too much risk. JMO
Kev
