Solar Follower

by tbp2208 in Circuits > Arduino

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Solar Follower

Gemini_Generated_Image_l7iz5hl7iz5hl7iz.png

In Off grid living the primary problem is energy. Electrcity is required for many of our daily chores and appliances and each watt of power matters when living in remote locations completely off the grid this sytem aims to solve a problem by keeping the solar panel always perpendicular to the surrays efficiency can increase up to 40% this makes power output improve drastically an crutial factor for homesteading or living off grid .The best part it works on electricity produced by the same solar panel but the gear mechanism gives net power gain to the system .Below are the steps to make a simple controller using aurdino uno .

Supplies

Screenshot 2026-08-19 200750.png

The electronic components you need are aurdino board , photoresistors (3 pcs), resistors(3pcs),breadboard/PCB ,jumper wires and low torque motor.

[When working on full scale setup you can use gear assembly and motor driver of suitable scale )

Downloads

Motor Connections

Screenshot 2026-08-19 113517.png
  1. Open any cad platform like Tinkercad and create new circuit project
  2. first connect the motor to the aurdino board the connections are

GND pin - GND

Power pin - 5v

Signal Pin - Digital pin 9

Photo Resistor Connections

Screenshot 2026-08-19 113934.png
  1. Place the breadboard and insert the 3 photoresistors in the breadboard such that first pointing west second at top and third in west
  2. now connect 1 leg of each photoresistor to positive (5v) bus of the breadboard


Circuit Completion

Screenshot 2026-08-19 114157.png

connection of photoresitors and resistors to bread board

  1. Insert 1 leg on each resistor into distinct analog pins and connect second leg to GND resistor 1- A0

resistor 2-A1

resistor 3- A2

  1. now connect termial 2 of each photoresistors to these pins :-

photoresistor 1- A0

photoresistor 2-A1

photoresistor 3- A2


To see connections and design you can also use this

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/dQSqYNg93UY-sun-follower-solar-panel?sharecode=-8BRjh_ypk5rQCRm_vkZ2dFey6rXM62JvfRWXND_3dM

IGNITION

now you are ready with the circuit connect the aurdino to a device and upload the following code and simulate it as per the sorrunding adjust the default thresholds and here you go you just created the sunfollower .