I've got 52 x 400w panels in my garden. I thought about tracking devices but the complexity, cost and upkeep were too high for the benefit. I even though of building them in a semi circle to take advantage of morning, afternoon and evening...but figured it would be best to just double up on battery. 32kwh Lifepo4 48v for $7k self built is very cheap...the frame mount was $350 using scaffolding that can adjust to the seasons but not time of day. Sometimes it is better to just add 25% more panels than go with a tracker unless you are short on space.
I run two dual axis trackers with a total of 13,000 watts and have 32KWhs of batteries and by 10:30 in the morning my batteries are full from the previous night use. A tracker lets you receive 10-12 hours of direct sun on the panels versus 4-5 with a fixed array in the summer and when using A/C all day it makes all the difference. I built my own trackers out of 3-1/2 “ drill stem with around a$1,000 all in cost and the trackers cover that $ quickly. If you have the space and no trees that would shade the panels then trackers are the way to go.
Would love to see this test again having the eco down on battery percentage to see the amount of time difference between 0-100 percent using these setups.
Great Video as always Gavin. Best channel on RU-vid his viewers ask for a video/demonstration and Bam Gavin does it. If you still have it set up it would be interesting to put a couple of watt meters on and let them run for a full day.
Gavin you are right the system with solar tracker will produce more power but what most people are trying to run away from is the complexity of the system..the tracker itself has moving parts at any given time something will break..so fixed mount installation you just install and forget about the whole thing
- a broken tracking mount is still a positionable "fixed" array. Sure cost of installation and repair, vs needing more ( 2-3x more ) panels, that is the thing to weigh up in the equation - roofmounted ststems, and available "approved" systems is also a fctor - a DIY ground mount - do whatever you want.
It breaks, you fix! Question is how often would it break? If it’s breaking every single day, then it’s not worth it but if it’s breaking once a year or even longer than that? 🤷🏾♂️ I mean….I guess different people have different ways of how they make choices. We are not who we think we are, we are what we are not choosing. Just food for the thought
I think a good comparison would be at the end of the day to see the difference in total power produced. Then you should add a 3rd fix panel the next day. Also would be more fair to have same panels. The panels on the tracker are SunPOwer and they are known to be the most efficient in the industry. The fix panels are old and very far to high efficiency. Not a very fair comparison in my opinion .. also at the end of day is when we can see in percentage how much better the tracker performed. Thanks for the video !
I agree, hook up a watt meter to each setup and see how many watts each setup delivers at the end of the day, and ideally use identical panels & controllers or a resistive load directly after watt meter, you only need a single panel on each setup to get a reasonable daily result on a wattmeter to prove your results.
@@evil17 Its pretty simple just to do the calculations yourself mate, of course the tracker is going to produce more power as its directional. What else do you need to know? The only issue with trackers; your limited by weight on the actuator and sub-assembly.
I go out and move my twelve 100 watts panels manually for now. It does make more power to face them into the sun. I made square tubing frames for some of the panels, so that two of them are in a frame. When I bought panels, I would go to buy two more, and they would be out , so , I would buy another brand, so, I wound up with five different sizes, four different brands, ten are mono and two are poly. It's like when you go to the salvage yard and they have all kinds of cars. We have hail, storms and high winds sometimes here, so I kind of have to hide the panels on the East side of my room out here in the barn. So about 4 : 30 PM when I still should be getting sun on the panels, they start getting shaded by the barn, so I lose about 3 hours a day from that...if I move the panels farther away to get sun longer, they put out less amps from longer wires. I'm using two in each frame to get 24 volts...right now it's showing 30.2 volts coming in. Chance of rain tomorrow, 615 watts coming in at the moment. That's about what I will get today because of clouds. 800 watts of my panels are 40 feet from the controller. If they were all on 15 foot wires I would be getting 1000 watts. This winter I will hook the panels up with shorter wires to get more amps. The sun will only be out for a few hours anyways. I'm charging 20 marine batteries that I got at AutoZone...8 are the 90 amp and 12 are the 105 amp. I had to buy the smaller ones for awhile to afford my Aims Power inverter/charger. It is a 24 volt 2000 watts. It came out to 1000 amp hours of battery. I sure got tired of buying them. I would like to have some trackers, but the wind here in OK would probably just break a bunch of stuff...be glad you live where you can have that kind of stuff. The way the buildings are situated, I am in the worst possible spot on this property for having panels. They are either being shaded or too far away. Next door there is a pond with trees that shade my panels in the winter mornings. I get enough to get by on, but my system would put out more if I had a better exposure. If I put the panels where the sun hits them all day, they are so far away that I don't get enough voltage. I can't just do what ever I want to because it is my uncle's place, and I don't know about building something permanent and then having to leave it. He is an old man who likes to mow the yard. I keep it weedeated around my panels so that he doesn't have to try to get close to them and get wires in the mower blades. I don't want to be a nuisance to a gripy old man, lol. My solar isn't the biggest or the best, but I'm doing okay for a homeless guy. I'm figuring it out as I go. I don't have to can a bunch of food because my freezer is going to have power. I can run things for a couple of days if the sun doesn't come out. I'm looking at buying a generator for the Dark Winter, just in case I need a charge up. The one I'm thinking about getting is a 3300 watts Generac. It takes 800 watts to run the Aims charger. I need a generator to run the welder...it takes 2400 watts or a bit less. So it has to have a 20 amp plug in on it... I have been off the grid for about 17 months.
It'd be cool on the roof of you RV. Of course you wouldn't be able to drive under any bridges or trees. You'd have to stay out of any aircraft flight routes too. Seriously, I'm surprised the fixed panels didn't pick up anything. Possibly because they're in series? I have four 100 watt panels in parallel flat on my RV roof and will get something even at early light. I had tried them wired in series but found that getting even a little shade on one made all go dark. Anyway, that was a great demonstration on how much more efficient the tracker is versus the stationery.
It would have been interesting if you recorded the Watt-hours during your experiment without focusing so much on the instantaneous power. If the difference between the two is only 5%, then you may question if adding another panel is cheaper. Cheers.
There's also the cost of the tracker, amount of power the tracker uses, maintenance of tracker, and the actual time the sun can be tracked due to trees etc. Yes with unobstructed views of west, south , east the tracker will be the best option. Scaling up things though changes the cost/benefit ratio significantly.
A lot of people only read other peoples opinion without doing a proper research on their own. The answer to your question is LOW cost, power consumption... Just do the research.
Hey Gavin great video! There are two views in comparing these (tracking vs static) systems. (On Grid & OFF Grid). On Grid you will sell more kwh. ($$$$$) and OFF Grid less, just ($$). Off the Grid where all you are looking for is to charge the battery bank and as you draw kwh you may or may not be able to keep the battery bank at full load due to usage thus requiring more panels to compensate for your usage. So any comments on this thought initial capital investment vs return by selling power to the grid?
Well done demonstration sir! Definite proof of concept. FYI: I just suggested to a friend that she consider a tracking ground mount instead of a fixed roof mount. Low winter sun will have mature deciduous trees blocking a portion of sunlight, but the leaves will have fallen off earlier so it will be just intermittent partial shading. A tracker should maximize the light collected throughout the day and seasonally adjust for optimization as well. QUESTION: we have growing problem with hail storms here in the mountains. Is there a tracker that can go into a panel protection mode that will tilt the panels downward to protect them from hailstones, even if that cuts power production to zero for awhile.)
The problem is the cost of the trackers. Also they require additional structure if placed on the roof of a home and they are more susceptible to wind and weather. for the cost of that tracking system you could have added 2 maybe 3 more panels. The problem that needs to be solved is low cost trackers.
Thank you. I notice the tracked panel faced about 60 to 80 degrees off the fixed unit (and you large backyard unit). What would have been the difference if you had put the non tracked unit facing about 1/2 way into the path of the tracker? Yes, I know the tracker had a better azimuth, but I think the radial change would have lessened the difference. A T Burke
The tracker certainly is the better option... more time is key. I'm curious on the cost of the tracker unmounted like you have it and more importantly.. how many panels can you put on it ?? This video is great .
+28 years experience in wind turbines, solar, grid tied and back up systems and a degree in electronics and the owner of a generator store 😅 this is just a hobby to me just having fun.
great inventions what’s the update on the shop 😅 you’re gonna break the whole solar tracker market up into a new boundaries. watching from Malaysia in South East Asia 🙌🏻 sorry for my bad English i’m non-native speakers
I just ordered an Eco Worthy tracker today. With it holding 4- 400w Trina panels.. if it works good.. I'll get a 2nd one and put my 6- 290w panels on it. I have a Delta 1300 as well.. and 400Ah of BB Lithiums on the RV.
It would be better, to do test differently. Start in the morning with a flat battery. Use only 1 panel which won't charge the battery to the full amount through the whole day(if needed shade the bottom half of the panel assuming you know what you're doing and know the schema of your concrete panel, but generally speaking half of the panel should work for most of the panels). At the sunset check the amount of energy collected in each battery to compare. if there were clouds during the day it is better to repeat the whole process just to understand about ideal scenario improvement. It is very interesting the total difference in ideal scenario with no clouds. At the same time for me it is crucial to get energy in the evening and in the morning. As result, either have a tracker or have 2 sets of panels. Todays price for panels is probably cheaper than buying a tracker. The only option is if you find or make some cheap tracker.
I thought about trackers but it's not practical where I am because I don't get direct sun on the panels until about 11:00 a.m. and then after about 3:00 p.m. it's gone because of trees. So what I did is I overpanel the system and that has an advantage because when it's raining the system actually generates significant amount of power because they're just so many panels. So I tend to favor the over panel option because the sun isn't always shining especially lately with the hunger Tonga volcanic eruption there's so much moisture in the air 10% more overall moisture over the whole planet that we are constantly in a state of rain and clouds here.
For the most accurate comparison you should have waited for a cloudless day. By noon the sky most likely will be totally clear. The tracker numbers would be even better on a totally clear day.
Based on the time of your sunrise I would assume that If you placed the panels East to West instead of North and South that would have a SIGNIFICANT improvement on output power
Gavin, you definitely know what you are doing. So when can we start buying them from you? Looks like you could make a real nice profit competing with EcoFlow's price!
@@GeneratorReviews , Super, found your channel today, subscribed w/ notifications, so I will be watching for it. You will probably sell a lot of them. We want to implement this tech, & know others who are also ready to do so.
When it’s mounted in its permanent location, I have no worries It’s been up and functioning for almost 12 years now. Three hurricanes and I’ve never had an issue.
Question for Gavin. Can you tell me what is supposed to happen with the Delta Pro when you have it set to charge to 90%? Should it maintain 90% through solar if a load is on it or does it discharge down to your discharge rate before charging again?
@@GeneratorReviews Thank you Gavin for the information. Today I have found that when I set the charge rate to 80% or 90% the DP will let it go down about 3% until it starts to charge again. So when I set it at 80% and the charge gets to 80% under a load it stops solar charging and let’s the DP get to 77% and then starts to charge. At 100% it consistently keeps the DP topped off under a load but at any other % it will totally stop charging until it goes down about 3%. Hope that makes sense. Not sure if that’s how it is supposed to work. It threw me off because when set at 100% it always keeps it at 100%.
looks great, where can i buy one and how much does it cost? What i cant buy this because it is one you custom built? There are commercially available trackers but few get sold, why is this? First i havent seen a tracker for a roof mount(not fair i know) and i suspect the larger reason is that the appeal of solar is its simplicity and a tracker takes that out of the equation. Sure tinkerers can rig up something but for the rest of us a tracker is expensive and brings complexity. I have opted to add panels and keep my system simple, robust and able to meet my needs of energy capture.
It would be hard to put it on the roof, especially if you live in the HOA community. Most trackers are DIY projects they do have some smaller ones, but they just don’t work the same.
What most people don't know is that solar panels work BEST when aimed perpendicular to the sunlight ! Any angle LESS than that and it only makes a percentage of the power ! A tracking unit is the ONLY WAY to get maximum power ALL DAY !
do you have the tracker connected to the grid? it would be interesting to see if you plug in the tracker to the power box to see if your getting a net gain by using it
@@GeneratorReviews Yes. I just now figured that out by watching your RU-vid with the mobile system in the driveway. I just purchased two of the Eco Worthy brand. I don't anything yet, but I learn fast. They are on sale for $498.00 delivered (I will use my own panels of much higher wattage). Thanks for getting back to me.
Trackers might be awesome and efficient. But theyre just way too expensive. For the price of a tracker I can buy 6+ additional 400W modules and point half of them west, half of them east. Thatll be more energy produced in the end, because the west and south string and the south and east string will both produce Power for some hours.
A little off topic.......... Can you use the Eco Flows to power each leg of split phase 220VAC? In other words, if I used one like a generator and plugged it into my "Generator In" fixture and then created another "Generator In" fixture for the other leg of my house, would I get 220VAC for the appliance that need it or would it be out of phase? Are the Eco Flows pure sine wave? Thanks!
I see you have the tracker mounted on a movable cart. Other videos I have seen they mount into the ground. Do you have any problems with it mounted like that? I like your idea better.
if 20 mins is only the difference between the tracker and fix..... i think the fix is still the winner for charging still the batts, cost effective and low maintenance........ in my own opinion, the tracker is best if you have a huge battery banks like 50kw of storage
Yes, trackers will bring in more power. But at what cost? Greatly increased complexity. Much more expensive. Questionable life span. Repair part availability when something does break. It would be cheaper to have 2 panels facing east, 2 facing south and 2 facing west. Solar panels are relatively cheap and no moving parts. The tracker would still produce more power but is it worth it?
Impressive, but this adavantage shown is only in the eary morning hours and in the late afternoon. The advantage on the entire day is (as much as/as low as) +27% with a solar tracking on one summer day and +34% in the entire year average, since in winter time and around noon there is almost no benefit with tracking.
I have to disagree with you because if I double my solar power to 600 watts on a fixed mount, my battery bank will not be charged in one day. With 300 watts on the tracker, my battery bank is full and that’s real world testing especially when it’s cloudy.
@@GeneratorReviews The difference depends on the Date, Latitude and angle you chose for the fixed mount panel. If you choose a disadvantageous angle for the fixed panel, then you could have the double yield with the tracker. A full data set and chart would give the correct answer !
Most people just assume this thing. They haven't set up a test rig just like Gavin's did. Do your test and come back with a receipt to back your claim.
You have missed the most important part of a tracker for off-grid and that's the time the system needs to use the batteries, with a lower depth of discharge and thus less battery degradation which is your highest cost.
Here comes the dumb questions Why can't you have fixed facing both directions to accommodate for what the tracker does, and when it's charged can you keep power you didn't use that day?
The Brand windy nation, HD linear actuator input voltage 12 to 24VDC 750 pounds max load 1500 pounds static load Stroke length 18 inches Travel speed, 0.2 in./s.
great vid , but i hear you saying i can put more panels on the tracker...the add a panel thing is not about getting the best efficiency per panel , we all know it is more efficent ... it is more like ...I have $1500 to spend on the solar side of my system, lets say $100 a panel to keep it simple , so 10 panels and a tracker ...or 15 panels without , same cost , what will put out the most power over the entire time of the day ...
The tracker will always win even doubling the panels. Tracker mounted 1000 watts of solar on a tracker 1000w x 8hrs = 8 kWh Roof mounted 2000 watts x 5 hrs sun 2000w x 5hrs = 10 kWh I guess it helps when I built the tracker myself the only cost I had were the controller and actuators, which I think I paid like $200.
@@GeneratorReviews nice , I was thinking 500 ish as thats what they sell for on amazon :) yours looks as profesionally made to me , I did see later in the comments you made it your self , nice job :)
