Stage 2 Off Grid Tracking Solar Panel Installation

6-21-08 Tomarrow I will be finishing the digging of the footer to hold the Zome Traker unit on the steel pole with eight BP-585 solar panels. The hole is about 3' by 3' by 4' with rebar and pvc electical piping to be installed and ready for the concrete to be poured next week. We will add a second Outback MX-60 charge controller. arcandspark

6-27-08 Tomarrow I wanted to pour the concrete base 3'x3'x4' with the twelve foot pole that the Zome Tracker unit will mount on top of. This will provide an additional 720 to 800 watts of solar charging capacity to the system. But the concrete company does not deliver less then four yards on Saturdays so this projuect has been put on hold, so I will be able to make it to the meeting, see you there.
arcandspark Dave R.

7-18-08 Found a concrete company that would deliver less then four yards of concrete. We only needed 1 1/2 yards for the Zome Works Tracker support footing. We got the concrete poured and I finished it Friday. The pole is more than ten feet high so I will need to cut it down some.

7-19-08 I had noticed one of the twentyfour batteries was reading very very low Friday when I did my battery voltage check. The owner has been telling me that the battery system is not lasting as long as it use to. This is one of the two batteries that had been allowed to fall well below the minumum voltage about a year or so ago when the owner had a generator failure and the batteries did not recieve a charge for over five days. I had by passed the first bad battery last year. Now the second one had to be bypassed. The system is now running back to normal and the solar panels are now showing that the batteries are actually being charged from the battery voltage that is now going up during the sunlight hours instead of holding steady, due to the bad battery cell. Now we can start to install the Zome Works UTR085 tracker unit which will track the sun as it moves across the sky with no motors, no power, only gravity and freon inside a sealed two tank system. I will add photos to my photo files as the work continures.

Check out the photos at http://alternativeene...

Dave R> (arcandspark)

9-21-08 Update on how things are going with Stage 2. Well we pulled the UTR085 tracker unit out of storage unit and unpack it. After fighting off several scorpions I found the tracker unit had some rust on it from sitting in the box for the past eight years that will need to be taken care of, but for the most part it looks good. The pole is installed and after welding four more mounting bolts to the cernter section for added strength, I mounted the main piviot section on the top of the pole, and bolted it into place, aligning it with True North. I finished many small items that have been needed to be taken care of so I can not install the 24 volt DC water pump, its breaker box and finish hard wiring all the temperatory power inside the battery shed. The ten Photo Watt solar panels that were installed during the first stage of the project suvived Hurrican IKE as it blew through Fairfield Texas. Many large trees on my friends property did not survive and he was lucky there was not real structural damage. Next week I will paint the tracker frame and start assembling it. My friend had a large number of the blue polypro water barrels, both 55 gallon and 30 gallon if anyone is looking for barrles that will last in direct sun light. We installed a single 55 gallon drum and it is already full. He will use it for the animals and the garden. I will put more pictures up on the site next week.
Dave R.

9-27-08 Update on installation of the Zome Solar Tracker system. This weekend we painted the iron work and installed the main frame assembly. we are about 90 percent complete with the tracker assembly. You can see pictures of the unit in the photos section or click on this link and go through the pictures.

http://alternativeene...

The frame assembly is a lot larger than I thought it was going to be. We will install nine BP585 solar panels on the unit. It was tracking the sun across the sky easily with no motors and no electrical systems to move the structure. It uses freon in two tanks located on the outside edges of the frame. Reflectors are used to heat and cool the tanks using the suns energy. The freon boils and the liquid moves to the cooler tank. Then gravity does the rest of the work making the frame move. The whole trick is to have the assembly centered and balanced just right for best performance. This will provide an additional 750 plus watts of charging power to the system. Next week we will dig and install the electrical PVC pipe and run some lightning protection and copper grounding cable with several ground rods underground. Dave R.

Get ready for Stage Three... Stage Two will be the complete installation of the Zome Tracker with nine 85 watt solar panels. These will be connected to the Stage One solar panels providing almost 60 amps of charge capacity from the MX60 Outback MPPT charge controller. It should be completed within the next three or four weekends. Major family medical issues have been slowing down the progress on this project. Stage Three will include the installation of a 24 volt DC water pump that will provide continuous water pressure using power from the DC supply instead of the AC supply. Stage Four will include the installation of a wind generator and free standing tower, Stage Five will include the installation of a second smaller generator that will provide a minimum amount of power to keep the system running. It will act as a last resort minimum fuel useage backup power source. Other projects may follow like solar water heating installation, co-generation system, rain water collection, spring fed creek water cooling system, remote controlled gate with wireless PIR activated video security, and more. Dont forget you can see pictures by clicking on this link

http://alternativeene...

Dave R (arcandspark)

Update: 10-18-08 Family health issues have slowed the projects down, but I did work on the Stage 2 project some. Today was a perfect solar day, no clouds, the Fixed array output was 57 volts at 13 amps and the MX60 was providing 27.7 volts at 27 amps. I am installing 1 1/2" undergroudn CPVC electrical pipe from the Zome Trackers breaker box to the Fixed Solar panel array breaker box. I did the math and it looks like the system is going to work out perfect. I will be wiring nine 85 watts panels on the Zome Tracker so they can be paralleled with the output of the fixed solar panel array. This should allow the Outback MX60 charge controller to output almost 54 amps at 27 volts. We used a trenching machine to dig the first ditch for the fixed panels. This time we are digging this ditch using hand tools. In Texas Red Clay it is ending up being real back breaking work. The Zome Tracker is working perfectly, tracking the sun across the sky, even though it does not have any solar panels mounted on it yet, it is good to see it tracking the sun. I pass a couple simular Zome Trackers on the ride to work that I see being used by the gas drilling riggs. I will add more pictures next week. Dave R>

11-15-08 Update on Stage Two. Today I welded brackets on to the 8" steel pole that allowed me to mount the Hoffman box on so I can install circuit breakers and the large connection terminal block insice, along with the Delta Lightning Arrestor unit. The CPVC electical under ground pipe is finish and connected to the exsiting Solar Panel System. Now I need to install the 2/0 copper cable and install the breakers and then start installing the solar panels. The Zome Tracker unit is tracking the sun across the sky perfectly, and it still just amazes me how simple this design is and how well it works. Today we were getting 27 amps of charging current at 27 volts into the battery banks. The other day my friend called me and asked what Absorb Mode was. I asked what he was talking about , he said the charge controller was showing Absorb Mode on the LCD display. I told him the MX60 was working perfectly, the unit had completed a Bulk charge and was in the Absorb Mode which was the second stage of the three stage charge. I was glad to hear that the system was working so well. It ment to me that my design work had paid off, and everything was working as planned. I told him he was almost at the break even stage, meaning the solar panels were almost able give back to the batteries as much as he had used the day before. I can not wait until we get another 750 watts of solar panels on line. Stage 3 will be the installation of a 24 volt DC water pump system which is half compled already. Stage 4 will be the installation of a 50 foot self standing tower with an 800 watt wind generator on it. I am hoping for a suplus of power. Dave R. (arcandspark)

12-04-08 Update: Due to illness in my family and in my friends family, along with Secturity issues from a crane fire at the coal mine in Fairfeild, all work on my friends system has been put on hold for a while. I am ready to install the 2/0 supply cable from the Zometracker panel to the Fixed panel along with all the grounding. Also ready to finish wiring up the meters on the Outback input output breaker box so voltage and amps can be monitored Dave R. (arcandspark)

It will be interesting to see how the production will be enhanced with the Zometracker.

What equipment will you used to monitor the voltage? Any logging or history capabilities? You seen the new outback logging equipment?

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Was this with the GNB batteries? If so this was like what happened to our batteries in a system that was build in Sri Lanka. They were New batteries when we got them but that had been in unconditioned storage (w/o charge) for more that 3 years. They charge up well and worked for many years but then the started to drop like flies over the months. But our batteries were kept outside (85~90F) and my friend actually opened the and attempted to top up the water..... Not a good plan for AGM batteries!



7-19-08 I had noticed one of the twentyfour batteries was reading very very low Friday when I did my battery voltage check. The owner has been telling me that the battery system is not lasting as long as it use to. This is one of the two batteries that had been allowed to fall well below the minumum voltage about a year or so ago when the owner had a generator failure and the batteries did not recieve a charge for over five days. I had by passed the first bad battery last year. Now the second one had to be bypassed. The system is now running back to normal and the solar panels are now showing that the batteries are actually being charged from the battery voltage that is now going up during the sunlight hours instead of holding steady, due to the bad battery cell.

Dave R> (arcandspark)