SunTura HD tracking in the morning vs afternoon

Discussion in 'SunTura Solar Trackers' started by TimH, Jun 17, 2013.

  1. I recently purchased the SunTura HD and I just finished setting it up this past weekend, I'm pretty impressed with how sturdy this kit is because I've got a 8 x 145w tracker and it's about 330 lbs. I'll post video when I've got it all setup (for now I've posted a photo). The project took A LOT longer than I expected. Now onto my question.

    This morning around 10am the sun was up (mid-horizon) in the sky (June in Massachusetts) with no clouds. I have a bolt mounted on the frame it to see if there is a shadow (check alignment) and it was way off, for some reason it wanted to go east and it really needed to go west to follow the suns movement. I gave it a few hours and checked it later and it was back to tracking nearly perfect. should it matter that much in the morning?

    When I tuned it I did it in the afternoon around 1pm or so, which about when I checked on it today. I also tried adjusting the LED's this morning but it didn't seem to respond in the right direction.
     

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  2. windyguru

    windyguru WindyNation Expert

    It should have been tracking just fine at 10am if the photosensor was tuned properly and there were no clouds in the sky.

    There are two things I can think of that are worth checking:

    -- Make sure there is nothing shading the photosensor at 10am. Like a tree branch.

    -- Make sure there is no glare hitting the photosensor at that time of the day. I have seen this happen when I was doing testing. Sun light can bounce off a window, solar panel, mirror or anything else that can potentially reflect light. If the sunlight is bouncing off a nearby object around 10am, extra light can hit the photosensor from a particular direction. This will cause the photosensor to move in the wrong direction, towards the reflected light.
     
  3. Tuicemen

    Tuicemen Solar Guru

    This explains why sometimes my array is pointing east or doesn't move when I think it should! :oops:
    My array being mounted close to a lake, it some times could see a bright reflection off the lake.:rolleyes:
     

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