You have to remember, Mr. Ricker's an inventor, and has two patents already; The solar business is world-wide, and an improved, commercial tracker can be the better mousetrap that everyone has been waiting for; there are many benefits to having an improved tracker. From a solar engineer: "Another advantage a tracking mount adds to a dedicated solar device, is that if tracking is not used and operation is desired in the morning/evening, the solar panel must be enlarged to have enough power output to run the device at shallow sun angles. A problem with oversizing the panel, is that excessive output may then occur at noon. This can cause undesirable conditions where motors etc run too fast or hard, often causing burnout. To avoid this overpowering in the system, extra expense is encountered by oversizing the motor etc, or adding regulator electronics. A rule of thumb that ive seen for solar electric engineering is to always size the panels so that at maximum output directly into a load, that the system will encounter no overload, or overcharge. Stationary panels are at maximum output generally twice a year, so the rest of the time output is reduced, meaning that a safely engineered system can lack enough power to run away from times of peak output.
So the tracking has safety benefits as well.
A cheap solar yardlight that tracked could use a smaller collector, or a larger battery, and would be less likely to ruin the battery.A solar run motor would have more consistent output throughout the day, smaller solar panels or a bigger motor could be used, and properly sized panels would ensure that the motor wouldnt be overpowered.
Note that solar conditions can vary signifigantly and rapidly. For strict safety and equipment protection, I always keep in mind that I've observed panels outputting over twice their rated output. this condition of double output is rare enough that i use a fuse or breaker rated at twice the panels output rating. using a smaller fuse, the fuse would blow often. Thus the motor is rated at nearly double the panels specified output listed for standard typical solar intensity, since it needs to handle what is fed into it until the fuse or breaker trips. An 80watt panel powers a 160watt maximum rated motor, an 80watt panel hooked to an 80watt motor is a recipie for disaster.
An inverter unit designed to deliver gridtied AC power also has a maximum throughput rating, so it can be thought of like the aforementioned motor example. These typically have built in regulator/control circuits that prevent overload, but prevent overload by not delivering availiable power. We want to deliver and use availiable power, thats what its all about. The inverter should be rated to deliver twice the solar arrays output rating, to avoid power rejection by the regulator circuit in such units, as well the collector being on a tracking mount."
(MMMW)
$ 0.02?0.002 (11.11%)
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