Solar cooker gets some wheels
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The big dish gets some wheels
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Wat to make a portable Alt energy system that demonstrates the many ways that the sun can be used as an energy source. Hope to have it at the Garlic and Arts festival on Sep 29-30, so I need to get moving on it.
The problem with the dish was that it was not movable, and is pretty high of the ground, so when the sun is high, you need a stepladder to cook.
I have made several small solar trackers that use a right angle driven wheel on a 3 wheel platform as a horizontal tracker, and have been wanting to try out a full sized version. Last year I built the motorized wheel,but had not progressed much since then. (grid Charger) so I needed a break from all the software and computer stuff I have been doing, so took July 3 - 4 to get moving on this.
Bought a 5X8' trailer from Tractor supply, and proceeded to hack off the rear gate hinges.
Disassembled the old dish mount, and used the electric bucket truck like a crane. I want to get the weight to a minimum, so a balanced vertical tracking load without the huge counterweight is where I want to go.
Started by digging out some rolled square tubing I had from another project, and plasma cutting the old pivot attachment angle plates off the thing so they could be reused.
The curved tubes will bring the dish pivot point to the actual CG, and since we will likely be hanging different weight things from the dish focal point, I will provide a way to adjust the CG to easily rebalance as required.
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