Little light is all

My choice too!

Now that's min/maxing

Do the trailer jacks have that much adjustment range though?

For the $750 cost I would expect a much better solution than manual hand cranks. The manufacturer needs to send the design back to engineering for an electric or hydraulic setup. Light duty trailer jacks should work fine when used with locking pins/bolts.

sun crosses the sky and moves so it doesn't shine through the pipe.

Richard, feel free to let them be. I can adjust by shodow as long as the sun is visible, but that's just me.

I tried this idea. I waited for 4 hours for the sun to come to the pipe. When it did, it sent damaging rays straight into my retina. I now have blurry white spots in the center of my vision. Your pipe ruined my eyes!

I believe they move in those slots. Which is not the optimal method in my opinion. They should be pivoting on two points. I did a job with these about 2 years ago but dont remember exactly how those were setup.

Pretty sure you loosen the bottom bolt so the jack can pivot freely, then retighten after adjustment.

electric trailer jacks are designed and built for outdoor use.

that would be cool

Have to figure out a means of turning them that will reach about 24 feet. Maybe some gearboxes that are feed thru with an output at 90 degrees and have .5" shafts so that .5" pvc could be used with a support in the center of each run as the connecting rods. Still have to keep an eye on the system while cranking it to make sure all three actuators are working together so the array does not twist.

@@alane6555 You mean a chain? It would be stupid easy to link all these together. You don't need gearboxes. Chains and sprockets. Thats it. KISS

Yall are overthinking it. two electric trailer jacks on each end. One button on the end near the box. One boxed stitch weld (toe to toe, 4" side running ground to sky) C4 running entire length of system, attached to the vertical purlin cee's. (much like garage doors, the DBL C4X4.5 is acting as a transom or header beam) A worm gear is expensive and exposed to the elements..... Or you could do one jack in the middle, electric or manual, with the same c4 setup. You might have to over crank some to count for deflection at the ends so you can pin the pulin to the post in one of the holes, then back off the jack in the middle to pin your center post.

@Thomas Chrombly sounds good to me but now your maintenance is going up in cost. You now have three pillow block bearings, worm gear housings

@@addohm true but hardly worth the trouble

Is there a manual adjustment to the angle of that hat brim?

use one set of button controls for two electric trailer jacks to control each end of the support system.

I think he was try to "get his steps in" since he's trying to shed some weight. But I was actually thinking the same thing LOL

No it's the most reasonable rack on the market. Send me an email and I'll send you a quote. info@practicalpreppers.com

I've been comparing racking systems for about 3 months now and the Sinclair is by far the best I've seen and it's cheaper than the others. Note it is all galvanized steel, not extruded aluminum, maybe more expensive to ship but probably stronger.

If you are in an area that gets a lot of snow and have a steep angle, not a lot is going to pile up on them. And even in -30C the sun has heat in it. When I had my system in Saskatchewan the only time I bothered sweeping it off is if it was cloudy out after a snow storm. Otherwise it would generally melt off by noon. Mind you I had wind to back me up too so a lot of times the storm had little effect on my daily battery consumption. The turbine would top me up over night for the lack of solar during the storm.

you may use torque tube

9 gage (.150)

It's a great solution... and none of it would be protected from EMP which I know Engineer775 likes to take into consideration. Manual adjust less likely to have issues IMO.

@@ElPasoTom ... I'm not saying leave all the wires and electronics exposed to the weather.....thought that was obvious.

@@sabriath Not talking about leaving everything exposed to the weather, but rather any potential EMP. All those microprocessors, Raspberry Pi computer etc are all susceptible. Maybe most people don't care about that, and I do think it's a great idea, but I prefer my electronic things a bit more "hardened"

@@ElPasoTom ... EMP is a weather event as well, you know, like a solar storm? A lead box will suffice. And if you come back stating "nuclear war," then I will just retort with the fact that if there is a hit of EMP that can damage the box within a lead casing....then your panels are fried anyway. But say your panels survive the blast radius and the EMP, you are looking at nuclear fallout for years, and handcranking such device is more dangerous than a lead-lined raspberry pi that you MIGHT have to "turn off and turn back on" maybe once a week from a safe distance, like a bomb shelter, maybe wired to a simple light switch. So either it's a lot of EMP and you're screwed regardless....or it's a little EMP and it won't be affected. Which one?

@@ElPasoTom what is going to protect the cells from an EMP? The whole thing would have to be surrounded by a Faraday cage, which its not.

practicalpreppers.com/product/sinclair-ground-mounts/

That is covered in NEC 2017 and you'll notice the paragraph where it says ground mounts are excluded.

@@engineer775: 690.31(a) in the 2020 NEC has no such paragraph. It does have some additional commentary that reads as follows. “Most PV modules do not have means for attaching raceways. These circuits might have to be made “not readily accessible” by use of physical barriers such as wire plastic or metal guards.” I’m always looking for better ways to do installs, but I can’t leave the wiring behind the modules “readily accessible”. Electrical inspectors will write it up. I raise my equipment so no wiring is below eight feet from grade.

Your answer is in your quote. You have to prevent access by some physical barrier-fence off the area under the panels, mount a small mesh screen or panel on the bottom of the array or similar to prevent access to the wiring on the bottom of the panels. It isn’t really that difficult or different than code for pool access.

600.00

Is it Ok to say I love you Sir. I think you just minted a new Solar superhero, as I'm already comfortable with pretty much every aspect of Solar, including sales, batteries, sourcing equipment and parts, and now, I know how to do ground mounts that can withstand 120 mph wind gusts!!! Pls keep doing what you're doing, and I hope to make you proud with my own installs. My only regret is that I can only like this once! All that being said, I may still ask for your help on my installs, and I'll happily pay to learn from watching you do maybe a couple of installs.

I would guess between 25% to 35%.

@@ek9772 I would guess much lower. Using the PvWatt calculator for middle of the USA (st louis area) the gain for a 2 axis tracker is predicted at 36% and 24% for a 1 axis tracker (probably polar tracking but can't tell). I'm going to run a couple simulations using 4 different array tilt values.

@@chrisrobey77you are right; the number that lit on my tired head was the one for a two axis tracker. Your numbers are sound and spot on. In any case, for the amount of money spent on the jacks, a 15% increase in energy production seems like a good trade off. On the other hand, there is probably some smaller array size at which it might not.

@@ek9772 some quick math is showing 5% gain over the fixed optimal tilt when repositioning once a month using 20/30/40/50/60 degree tilts

@@chrisrobey77I guess the little electric motors on one axis trackers are doing more work than I gave them credit. It seems like the other 19% is due to more than one tilt per month. The only option I can remember to an electric motor was one introduced by Zomeworks. (I really miss HomePower magazine.) They had some kind of liquid or oil that was heated during the day, as this happened, I think the liquid changed density, and it gradually tilted the array. This worked ok in warmer climates, but it did not workout as well in colder climates, but if you were lucky enough to be located in the warmer states it worked out ok. www.zomeworks.com/photovoltaic-tracking-racks/how-trackers-work/

When solar cells were extremely expensive a few decades ago, parabolic reflectors were in the discussion... Now days the complexity of aiming a mirror constantly makes it more expensive than just adding more panels. On the other hand, in theoretical future weight critical situations like a mars colony, they make sense.

no, for one thing the panel would have to be illuminated by the mirror consistently on the whole surface. plus like mentioned the control system to keep up with the movement of the sunis fairly complicated. plus the mirrors alone are probably more expensive than panels are now.

Solar panels work better with low temperatures. Light from mirrors could potentially increase the solar panel temperature and decrease performance.

@@ek9772 yes, but the increase of power is probably way bigger than the loss if the higher temperature.

@@ursodermatt8809 seems to me like an interesting experiment to try out.

You would only need 6 since they would repeat. But a nice addition.

I would guess the additional effort would have significantly diminishing returns compared to just moving them 2-4x per year.

Go Sinclair-Designs,com and they give the estimated price per watt. They say $.10 to $.12 per watt for fixed and about $.12 to $.16 per watt for adjustable. So Engineer775's 24 panel setup by my calculation would cost a maximum of about $1280 for materials without shipping or labor(8KW * .16) or as little as $960 cheap.