Solar One of Engineering.com Progress Report

Corporal Willy posted 2009-10-31

Solar One of Engineering.com; Progress Report

By Corporal Willy, October 31st /2009

   Happy Halloween Everyone.  Not everyone will know what I am talking about with that Halloween thingy.   But we here in the USA have a day where kids and some adults dress up in scary costumes and go to homes and knock on the doors and then say “Trick or Treat.”  The kids usually look pretty cute in their costumes and we give them little candy treats and send them on their way.

   Well Solar One of Engineering.com, has been patiently waiting for me to get time to work on it.  It has been covered over with an orange plastic tarpaulin and has survived some amazing weather and turn of events.  My next door neighbor’s main sprinkler feed water line broke and flooded his yard and of course mine too.  That water saturated ground created a “Leaning Tower of Pisa” for me with Solar One.  I did what engineers would do.  I panicked got on the phone and called my neighbor up at 6:25 am on a Sunday morning and told him that he had a really big leak.  I was wide awake of course because my feet were very cold when I brought out the garbage and stepped in the ankle deep water.  A hydraulic car lift was used after the ground dried out to tilt the ton and a half solar project back the other way to where it is once again vertical.

 

 

That is what I stepped in when it was dark out very early in the morning before the sun came up.  Surprise, surprise and this is right after we had three days of terrific winds to deal with.  I thought we left those hurricanes in South Florida when we moved here to the desert region.

Now for some progress updates.  Well I found out the hard way that I can no longer see well enough to  cut out gear teeth using a few different materials so I had to come up with an alternate plan.  I’m mostly blind now in one of my eyes and that was my best eye.  The pictures down below will prove this point with my best try in cutting a Plexiglas toothed gear for a pendulum clock.

 

So I had to go back to the SolidWorks graphics area and come up with a gear configuration that I could make.  “Where there is a will there is a way” and this is my idea with some help of one of my engineer physicist friends that gave me the idea.  He is a member of this community and a good friend too.  But for now here is the configuration.

This 18 toothed Drive Gear will mesh with the Main Drive Gear that you will see down below here.  I was able to build this after a few unsuccessful attempts with bad procedures which could be a whole article in itself but I learned from my mistakes and finally was able to build this small drive gear.  Essentially this will be rotated 2.5 degrees every ten minutes in order to keep the Solar Mirror Array Assembly orientated to our sun.  You will understand better when you see the Black Colored Main Drive Gear that is permanently mated to the Turntable Assembly.

That small Drive Gear will be positioned concentrically with its base support up close and personal to the big Black Main Drive Gear down below here.  Yes, those little Drive Gear Teeth do indeed mesh with the pegs in the big black Main Drive Gear.  Those little teeth were cemented into place and I did not want to disturb them for a picture until they are all securely dried in place with the Elmer’s Wood Glue. 

I know it has been some time since I posted an update and I wanted to show you some other steps I took to reinforce the 2 inch PVC vertical pipe.  It took some time to come up with a proper way to do this that would not interfere with anything else that needs to be mounted inside of this Mechanical Assembly area but this design will work.  The 76 Solar Mirror Array, its supports, various pipe and fittings, Turntable and mounting hardware weighs in at about 60 lbs.  Everything is sitting on a bed of glass marbles to reduce the frictional forces incurred.  Estimated foot pound energy needed to provide the necessary torque for rotation is 10-15 lbs.

Here is my anti-friction system.  Marbles and they weren’t easy to find these days.  Kids don’t play with them anymore.

 

 

Here is the way that I mated the PVC piping with two hole clamps to the three foot round platform table.  Quarter inch bolts, nuts, washers for spacers and the picture explains it better than I can type it out for you here.  The 2 inch Tee was drilled out with a large hole saw so that the three foot horizontal PVC pipe with end caps would slide easily through it.

Some pictures of the building of the big black Main Drive Gear before mounting it to the Turntable.

 

 

 

Here are some of the pictures I took of the very time consuming procedure for making the small Drive Gear.  All these gears are very time consuming but absolutely necessary for the design of Solar One to work as planned.

 

 

 

So where am I right now?  I am at the point that I will be bending the ¾ inch Electrical Metallic Tubing Pipe for my Cam Guide Rail Assembly.  If you remember I had to design a sextant in order to confirm the sun angles in the sky before building this Cam Guide Rail.  Pictures down below here.

So now I will be working on some more of the internal parts and pieces to start bringing this all together.  I have had some starts and stops because of extreme weather conditions or obligations that I had to fulfill with our youngsters in our schools.  I even had to take some time off to be presented with an award for my work as a mentor and volunteer in our schools.

 

 

With over 400 Dignitaries, State Senators, School Officials and Mr. Walter Ruffles our Superintendant of Schools that presented the award to me.  Wow do I look bald now these days.

But work goes on and hopefully as things calm down I will buckle down to building this quest of mine.  Bye for now.