Solar Panel Tracker Circuit
This is simple and practical analog solar panel tracker circuit. Using four LDR as a sensor in detecting the light source arranged as illustrated. When the light hit the LDR in a certain position, it will activate the circuit and trigger the relay to turn the slewing motor in the right direction until the sensor is fully shaded under its cover stopping the motor to its rest condition.
The solar panels are operating at optimal parameters when they are at the perfect right angle to the sun. Unfortunately this is accomplished only if solar panels are rotated by the sun. This is the purpose of this Diy solar tracker system or if you have an Arduino board then you can build this one that uses a servo.
The solar tracker circuit uses a window comparator to maintain the motor in a idle state as long as the two LDRs are under the same illumination level. In this case, half the voltage is applied to the non-inverting input of A1 and to the inverting input of A1.
Electronic components:
T1, T3 = BD239, BD139
T2, T4 = BD240, BD140
A1, A2 = 1/2 of LM324
Diodes = 1N4001
When the sun position is changing , does the illumination level on the LDRs & input voltage for the window comparator is no longer half of the supply voltage thereby the output of the comparator generates information for the motor that rotates the panels for tracking the sun.
