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Remotely turning East/West for Solar Tracker with Smartphone
I have purchased a tracker unit about 5 years ago from a company that is no longer in business. It's a Copperhill Atrax 10kw Ground Mounted Tracker. My problem is that I cannot find any tech guys to help me maintain my unit.
For 5 years, it's been pretty solid. It wakes up in the morning, points to where the sun should be, and if the sun comes out, it tracks it all day long. If the sun is not out, it still moves based on where it 'should' be if the sun were to come back out.
Recently it started getting a little wonky on me. I had a guy that has worked on them before come out but he's still learning on these systems and is not having much luck after over 10 visits.
The main issue now is timing. Where I'm located, right now, the sun comes up around 7am. The panel is pointing at about the 10 am position, and, it's laying flat. Usually, doing a reset on the tracker box fixes this as it brings it back to home position and tilts it vertically. However, because the time is 3 hours off, it doesn't turn west far enough. No idea why it's going back to the flat position.
Ultimately, I want this fixed. However, I don't know when that will be.
So what I've done to reset this while not home is hooked up a Belkin Wemo to the tracker box. Now I'm able to watch my surveillance camera and reset it. That part works awesome, however, with this new issue, it doesn't travel west far enough.
The company that installed it were nice enough at the time to install an override east/west travel switch near the inverters. This works great MANUALLY as I can move it west and it sees the sun and then is good for the rest of the day.
My main thread question is, can anyone give me an idea on how to make that east/west switch controlled remotely by either phone app or on the internet? I believe it's a reverse polarity switch as you use the same control knob to turn and hold left and it goes east. You turn and hold right and it goes west. Default is spring loaded back to the middle which is off.
Any help with any of the above would be EXTREMELY appreciated.
For 5 years, it's been pretty solid. It wakes up in the morning, points to where the sun should be, and if the sun comes out, it tracks it all day long. If the sun is not out, it still moves based on where it 'should' be if the sun were to come back out.
Recently it started getting a little wonky on me. I had a guy that has worked on them before come out but he's still learning on these systems and is not having much luck after over 10 visits.
The main issue now is timing. Where I'm located, right now, the sun comes up around 7am. The panel is pointing at about the 10 am position, and, it's laying flat. Usually, doing a reset on the tracker box fixes this as it brings it back to home position and tilts it vertically. However, because the time is 3 hours off, it doesn't turn west far enough. No idea why it's going back to the flat position.
Ultimately, I want this fixed. However, I don't know when that will be.
So what I've done to reset this while not home is hooked up a Belkin Wemo to the tracker box. Now I'm able to watch my surveillance camera and reset it. That part works awesome, however, with this new issue, it doesn't travel west far enough.
The company that installed it were nice enough at the time to install an override east/west travel switch near the inverters. This works great MANUALLY as I can move it west and it sees the sun and then is good for the rest of the day.
My main thread question is, can anyone give me an idea on how to make that east/west switch controlled remotely by either phone app or on the internet? I believe it's a reverse polarity switch as you use the same control knob to turn and hold left and it goes east. You turn and hold right and it goes west. Default is spring loaded back to the middle which is off.
Any help with any of the above would be EXTREMELY appreciated.