Welcome to Garys’ Web Page    (Updated  May 2025)

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Smith Domain Incorporated

How to make a Simple Solar Tracker

     The schematic was in the January 1995 Silicon chip and was almost perfect for what I wanted to do, but after construction, I found that no mater how much rail voltage was supplied, it only gave 7v output to the motor drive, so I had to modify the schematic so that it can take in and give out a rail voltage of up to about 30v. The reason was that I needed a higher motor drive voltage, to drive the 36v actuators that are mainly used for the tracking of satellite dishes, the actuators do actually run OK on 12v, bit slow but OK.

       I put a charge circuit for the charging of say a 12v 4Ah battery (Max 1A) to run the actuator facing back to east after the sun has set. The FETS used in this H pattern then it is capable of switching 6 amps. The light duty actuators take 0.5A each, and the heavy duty actuator take 1.5A each.

     This is the Bill Of Materials (BOM) for the tracker with JACAR part numbers

DOWNLOAD the pdf files of my Version 15  mods if you have one of my boards

Tracker Finished and Working

Tracker mounted in the box

Tracker’s printed circuit board

 Download Solar Calculations in Excel,

or go to NOAA, The calculations in the NOAA Sunrise/Sunset and Solar Position are based on equations from Astronomical Algorithms, by Jean Meeus. That is, tells you anything about the SUNS MOVEMENTS.