Solar One of Engineering.com; Getting its Insides Made
By Corporal Willy, September 24th 2009
When I posted my last article I ended it with some pictures and text describing some interference problems that could affect my Solar One operation possibly. Well, I have to add another event that happened now. Very early last Sunday morning after cleaning up after my pests, uh, I mean pets that we have (a very talkative parrot & terrible the terrier puppy) I brought out the garbage to place in the garbage cans in the same area as Solar One is located in. I don’t know what the odds are for something like this happening here while living in a desert, but that whole area where I have been working got flooded. Yes, water everywhere as I walked in ankle deep water sinking down into the gravel, I quickly picked up the lumber that I am using to build Solar One with because it was getting ready to float away.
During the night my next door neighbors main sprinkler pipe that feeds many other individual branches burst open and really flooded his yard. Of course this Solar One area being adjacent to that yard had water coming up from under the cement block wall and ground. After splashing around in the water like a puppy trying to save my lumber and being miserably wet so early in the morning, I quickly ran inside to call my neighbor on the phone. This is before 7 am on a Sunday and I was getting ready to go to church. I went back out there to check Solar One that was fast becoming the world’s second “Leaning Tower” to see what I could do to prevent it. Weighing in at well over a ton now it was obvious that I was going to have to wait for the "desert tide" to go out before doing anything. After talking to my neighbor and getting the water valve shut off, I went inside to grab my camera and get it ready to take pictures. The water level was about ankle deep when I first felt it before seeing it with my arms full and I should have taken pictures then, but I was busy scurrying about to protect Solar One. Unbelievable right? Well take a look.
As mad as I was with this latest event I did indeed unplug that extension cord there that you see stretched out behind my car before venturing into this marshland now. The end was out of the water but I took no chances. I had to think like an electrician because I am a retired one.
I don’t think even “Loyds of London” would insure this project now. The ground did dry out and I put a hydraulic floor jack under the leaning side and was able to repack more gravel under it. So if it does somehow become famous someday, it won’t be because it is leaning.
“Time to make the donuts” and that is exactly what I have been making here for some of Solar One’s insides. One of the key pieces in this build is going to be a Tuntable in the exact center of the Mechanical Section bottom area. This is all being built from ½ inch plywood basically so I need a way to make the wooden turntable of 1 inch thick lumber turn on the X axis. How do I accomplish this without a gooey mess like greese. The light bulb goes on and I come up with an idea to accomplish that. Not very easy to find those things I needed to do it with and it cost me dearly besides, but I got them and of course it was Wal-Mart in the kiddy toys section.
Yup here is my solution set and there were a lot of these sets needed to fill up this area. They were common during my time as a kid but the kids today are too busy playing on their computers. Well it works and the Turntable Mechanism turns with only inch pounds of force. That will of course increase after I place the combined total weight from the Solar Mirror Array of 54 pounds. But right now it is like the difference in driving a car with and without power steering. I used ¾ inch glass marbles and that did the trick. Please excuse my feet. I wanted to get the best angle for this shot and I could not back up anymore. They are clean, I washed them in the recent flood we had here.
The marbles are not packed in tightly. There are gaps and room for them to move around. I was told that too many marbles would create more drag and after thinking about that from a great professor friend of mine in mechanical engineering, I agreed with him. I might have to reduce the marble area with another bigger ring then that smaller one in the middle. Perhaps I will make one to size of somewhere in the middle of the big one and the small one. I cannot just take out marbles because I do not want the Turntable to tilt. But it must stay on the level as much as possible and right now even the wind could move the array around on the Turntable like a sail on a boat. It does really turn so much easier now but it is noisy. Sounds like a lot of marbles. Go figure. But it woun't be turning fast like I move it with just one finger.
I have that more or less accomplished at this time but cannot finalize the assembly until I make my main drive gear. Here is the conceptualization of what I am talking about down below here and this gets mounted to the top surface of the Turntable in the upper right picture that you just looked at. Remember this is my conceptualization and although it is going to look pretty much like you see it, the spacing and dowel stick sizes could change. I have these pieces all cut and before assembling them I have to do some sanding of the parts. 5/16 inch dowel pegs are going to be used that are 1.5 inches long. Yup there are 144 of these that will be needed. In this conceptualization picture the pegs were 3/8 inch and I did not like that so I used smaller dowel sticks to make the pegs. According to a very good friend that follows my every move on this project, like many of you do, he told me that there is a 2.5 degree move or shift of the sun’s path across the sky every ten minutes. So I used my MCAD program to help me solve the layout of those pegs and I have a circular pattern of 11.5 inches of radius from the center and when plotted out on the sketched graphics area that gives a ½ inch separation on centers of each peg, if I did this correctly. I also used SolidWorks to help me design a much smaller gear that will mesh with this bigger drive gear so the configuration should look like the picture down at the bottom of this next group.
There will be some trial and error used to construct this part of the drive assembly. I’m not even sure it will look like this in the final assembly. I might have to make chisel points to the small gears teeth to accomplish this pretty close tolerance. But “fools rush in where Angels fear to tread.”
All of this has been rather time consuming but when working with wood there is a lot of chance for error. Different materials and a much better workshop could accomplish things faster and more accurately. Plus, this particular design is unique and as a prototype there is a lot of unknowns here as well.
Stay tuned because things will be getting done almost all at once because the parts that I am making now are needed for other parts and assemblies so it will all come together eventually. At least everything is washed down and standing up straight, again. Bye for now.