Solar Tracker sensor daq

[43431]

Hi

I am a High School student , we are asked to build a solar tracker as a Graduating project , the Teacher advised us to use LABVIEW + SensorDaq for this project .

My plan is

1-Two light sensor to determine the direction of higher rays

2-Acoordingly use a stepper motor to rotate the Solar panel to the side of higher value

3- use gears

4- sing axis only

but i am not sure if the current is enough to opreate the motor

It will be a great pleasure if i has ideas from you !

Check the attachment for the design

[Blake-C]

43431,

I’m glad you’re getting experience using SensorDAQ and LabVIEW, I’m sure this project will help you learn a lot. I found some resources that should be of help for you as you work on your project. Using our KnowledgeBase articles by searching on www.ni.com may help you since these articles are meant for helping users troubleshoot and work through device use and setup.

As far as the LabVIEW use goes, there are specific SensorDAQ examples in our NI Example Finder as you can see referenced here: http://www.vernier.com/engineering/ni-labview/downloads/sdaq/ The NI Example Finder can be found if you open LabVIEW and go to Help>>Find Examples. It may help to talk through one or more of these examples with your teacher. You can see ‘context help’ by using the command <CTRL+H> which will give you information about each VI (LabVIEW function) just by hovering your mouse over that VI. Looking at the SensorDAQ help page may be of help to you as well: http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/370466V-01/device_pinouts/sensordaqpinout/

As far as your motor and current, you should be able to check what the motor is rated for and then compare that value to the current you’re supplying the motor to know if you will have enough power to operate the motor. Your teacher may be able to help with the motor specifications as well.