DIY Solar Tracking System Inspired by NASA (Parker Solar Probe)

[ChrisGreaves]

This YouTube video is, to my mind, and excellent seven-minute presentation.
I get to post in the hardware forum because
(a) It involves no programming (software) and best of all
(b) Does not depend on MSWindows
Apart from the nauseous shots of zucchini seedlings at the 1m50s mark, the presentation is flawless.

(1) Note that the presentation shows snow on the ground, so this represents a place unlike Western Australia where solar tracking for solar power is not critical
(2) As a programmer I especially like the use of negative logic here, so critical to problem solving. The device works to minimize the impact of sunlight on the detectors. Neat!
Cheers, Chris
P.S. The source reference for this link mentioned that his implementation makes use of the previous owner's motion detector which, when a fox passes through, generates a signal to reset to "face East" during the night.
Cheers, Chris

[HansV]

A very clever idea!

[ChrisGreaves]

A very clever idea!

Indeed. Originally from NASA.
But I have grown fond over the years of tackling an "insurmountable" problem by examining the opposite of the problem. That seems to generate (in my warped mind ) fresh insights. I think it falls under the heading "thinking outside the box".
In this specific example, instead of pondering 'How can we get into sunlight", the question is reversed and becomes "How can we get out of sunlight".

I think it was a 1968 paper by the legendary Dutch (of course!) Willem Louis van der Poel that introduced me in 1973/74 to the concept of a single-instruction computer, and that "subtraction is a more powerful operator than addition".
That is the first memory I have of thinking "negation can be powerful". If you can subtract then you can subtract twice to get addition, but if you can only add, then you can't negate at all.
At that time I was studying architecture and the theory was that we could use a collection of Nand/Nor gates from the DEC parts handbook and actually BUILD a piece of hardware that could do ANYTHING!
Cheers, Chris

[Graeme]

Ingenius simplicity!

The NASA Parker Solar Probe is a ground breaking mission too.


Regards

Graeme

[ChrisGreaves]

The NASA Parker Solar Probe is a ground breaking mission too.

"Mind-blowing", as I read the article.
For one thing, my brain did not evolve to contemplate electro-magnetic fields the way it can contemplate oak-trees or squirrels or rivers. Mister Puzey, in 1962-63 did a pretty good job of helping me to "see" magnetism, but today, still, the closest I can come to see electro-magnetic fields is to think of them like sounds, because I naturally use sounds to speak and to listen.

To that end I think of electro-magmetic fields as waves of varying frequency (in the electro-magnetic spectrum) and amplitude (ditto). And the sun, to me, is a giant electro-magnetic generator, like a rave-group amplified loud-speaker enclosure.

Now, computers I do know about. They run on electricity and use magnetism (well, they did until those ferro-magnetic core memories became just a memory)

So now we have a spacecraft based on computing technology, dipping into the sun's electro-magnetic atmosphere.

How do you keep a computer running in a sea of electro-magnetic waves that might fry circuitry?
And how do you store data and emit it back to Earth while the craft is in a sea of full-of-power - electromagnetic radiation?
Solar Flares, we are told, can knock out power lines 96,000,000 miles away.

(signed) "puzzled" of Bonavista

[Graeme]

Sorry Chris, I missed this one.

Perhaps this will help:

https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/trave ... robe-melt/

[ChrisGreaves]

Perhaps this will help: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/trave ... robe-melt/

What fun! Thanks.

unimaginably

I usually ignore articles that use this word, ditto "incredible" and so on. I am glad I made an exception here.

The key lies in its custom heat shield

Why didn't they write that the key lay in the difference between "heat" and "temperature". I mean. First year high school physics, right?

One key to understanding what keeps the spacecraft and its instruments safe,

Gaaaah! Where are the editors when we need them?

fantastically

The stuff of fantasy. Please see "unimaginably " above.

a carbon composite foam sandwiched between two carbon plates

I know someone who is deigning sandwiches to block electro-magnetic rays!

torch.jpg

Now this image caught my attention.

IMG_20241220_100702355_HDR.jpg

And this is why! But obviously these NASA folks don't need to un-freeze door locks when they arrive home after a grocery shopping trip.

by the time something went wrong it would be too late to correct it.

This fails the test, too. It would be "too late" only if the error was not detected sixteen minutes BEFORE correction was needed. I confidently suppose that course corrections were made during the slingshot-flybys of planets.

Still and all, a good read while I ate my apple-and-oatmel.
Thanks again, Chris