Progress report

We have been enjoying (finally) some wonderful solar heating weather here in southern Ontario, Canada. With the exception of a couple of violent storms which included lightning and tornados, we have had one beautiful hot day after another.

The DIY solar heater has been working flawlessly, tracking the sun when it was visible and providing free heat to our large swimming pool which reached a peak of 82 degrees F/27.7 degrees C. The kids say that the pool has never been this warm.

I've continued doing time lapse videos and posting these to youtube. Because the array moves so slowly (the sun moves 15 degrees in an hour) it is difficult to see the motion without timelapse. Here is another example:
There are currently 11 of my videos about this project on youtube. Please check them out. I am "georgeplhak" on http://www.youtube.com/.

The plans are coming along - honestly!

Time lapse video

I am using a web cam to capture pictures every 15 seconds over about an hour. I need to work on the focus. A sunnier day would have been nice. Here is one of the original frames. Click to enlarge.

What is interesting about this particular piece is that it was mostly overcast with a few bursts of sun. I had thought that the sensor didn't wander when there was cloud cover, but apparently it does. This is impossible to see in real time unless you have the patience I guess? When the sky is a solid gray, the sensor does not seem to wander. When there are clouds that obscure the sun for a time, the sensor may be mislead by the "silver lining" of the cloud which is brighter than the portion of the cloud that covers the sun. The good news is that the sensor recovers promptly when the cloud moves and the sun is clear once again.
Here is another attempt made this morning. The duration is about one half hour and the sensor is swinging the array from the west to catch the morning sun. Unfortunately, the sky clouded over AGAIN.

More soon.

waiting for sun

So far this summer the weather here in southern Ontario Canada has been pretty disappointing, at least from a solar point of view. Here is the forecast for this week for example (click to enlarge). Except for a few beautiful sunny days, temperatures for the last few weeks have been below seasonable norms and the sun has not been seen for days at a time.

It will be next week sometime before we see the sun again here.

When you are considering building your solar heating or photo voltaic system, it may be easy to imagine the free solar energy you would reap on a bright sunny day. However the reality averaged over the season or year may be quite different.

You can look at existing sources on the web to see what the expected solar "insolation" is for your area. The reality here in southern Ontario is that the sun shines in a clear sky only about half the time. This is from my observation but not very scientific.

Hopefully where you are has great solar potential.

My plan manual is nearing completion. I may be about two weeks away from having it available.