Array technologies: ATI has supplied more than 20,000 trackers to residential customers and nearly 3 gigawatts to commercial and utility-scale markets around the globe. They have money to tinker and throw into R&D.
MMMW does not and is supposed to be developing a more cost effective product. If MMMW R&D was to be compared to Array the MMMW product would no longer be a lower cost cost option and would lose its competitive advantage.
Look at the MMMW product video and keep in mind that I have 5 years experience in manufacturing and machining. It's a light sensor, bulk galvanized railings make up the panel framing and tracking cut to length and attached, one actuator(hydraulic cylinder if I'm not mistaken), probably a couple limit switches to control range and safety(pinch points, excessive load, etc), a couple industrial lazy susans and basically a cable system (for daisy chaining units). Per Rickers own admission, its mostly off the shelf materials.
You could build this in your garage in a few weekends. Hiring an electrician to do the electronics for you would cost you a few hundred bucks. If you want to get fancy, pay a mechanical engineer a couple grand to look it over and then implement any suggestions they have.
From what I gather from available company data that is about where we are at this point. Total cost for the three weeks to get to this point $25 - $50k and that's being very generous. Even if you multiplied my estimates by ten to cover any discrepancies, the product would still have been done over a year ago and have cost less than half what Ricker has spent so far on this project(cost per what very limited information I could find available in financial statements).
This leaves the unanswered questions......Why has this taken years to get to this point and where's all the money going?
Ricker hasn't answered any hard questions covering what I have discussed in this post. I would imagine that he won't.
Anyone get a response regarding UL listing yet?
