A TRACKING SOLAR CONCENTRATOR
MATERIALS
Our materials where carefully selected and in each case the supplier assured me that these were high volume items available throughout the Nation in small towns as well as large. Higher technology material could greatly reduce the weight, increase reliability some and perhaps even improve the performance a bit. To use these materials in our design would lock out many builders who lacked the resources, the skills and/or the dollars for this. I used very popular structural steel shapes, but you may wish to substitute even then. The two drive motors in the hub assembly and the fluid pump are the only items that I had to go outside my town of 40,000 for. I'll suggest various options for these items and others when we get to the appropriate section. We'll use lots of nuts and bolts, all common mild steel unless otherwise specified. These should cost about a buck a pound at a farm supply store or bolt/nut store like Bosco. I bought my mirror tiles from a local retailer and he gave me a quantity price of 75 cents, so shop around. Small pieces of steel can usually be picked up from the "drop" pile at any steel fabricator at salvage prices.
The electronic tracking system uses parts available at the nearby Radio Shack Store (one of the nearly 8000 should be nearby). An optional circuit board is available from Teton Engineering. It makes assembly easier and a bit more fool-proof, but is not essential. sorry- the circuit board is no longer available
I will not provide a detailed list of parts in one grouping because I'm confident that the type of person building our collector will do lots of substituting and innovation. Each chapter will have a list of the parts for that sub-assembly. This way we can update a chapter as the system evolves.
To make sure we are talking about the same parts during construction and any subsequent consultation, all significant pieces will be identified with a unique number in parenthesis, such as (014).
While I encourage you to use imagination and substitution, a few major items will be made available through Teton Engineering to make sure no one is inhibited from building for the lack of parts. sorry- we can no longer provide support for parts
