We’ve made some great progress last week. We considered buying and using a vehicle trailer as a foundation for the solar tree to make it mobile, but after advising from Kurt, we saw that it was unnecessary. We have come up with a good sliding design for the lower layer of panels that eliminates the [...]
Archive for the ‘Solar Tree’ Category
3 Oct
Solar Tree — FA11Wk1
The Solar Tree team had a great first meeting for Fall quarter. There were a lot of old faces and a couple new ones. We recapped the project from its beginnings to its current stage and discussed how we would move forward. The current iteration of the Solar Tree (incidentally, no longer a tree) is [...]
31 May
Solar Tree — PV Team — Sp11Wk9
This week the PV team worked to compile all the information gathered this quarter and prepare for the presentation. Besides some final research on environmentally sustainable and US-produced panels no new work was done. At this point we are pretty much wrapped up for the quarter, unless there is anything specific needed by the other [...]
30 May
Solar Tree – Outreach Team – SP11 Week 9
1. We moved forward with the discussions with Dave Weil to decide on a location and access rights to tools for the solar tree over the summer. Kristin Hansen will be setting up a meeting ASAP. We’ve also got some preliminary interest in building over the summer. 2. No concerns yet 3. Pending the finalized [...]
22 May
Solar Tree – Outreach Team – SP11 Week 8
1. This week, we talked to Dave Weil to discuss where we can build/store the solar tree over the summer. He was under the impression that would be taken care of between us and the Engineering Department, especially for tools. Joseph referred the considerations to the leadership of the Solar Tree team, and we have [...]
22 May
Solar Tree-Structure-Sp 11 Wk 8
Accomplished This Week: This week we came up with a finalized structure!! (Pictures soon to come) We have generalized having 10 solar panels on the top of the structure producing ~620W and about 3 panels on the base of the structure producing ~1 kW. There are some modifications to be mad, but we have a [...]
22 May
Solar Tree — PV Team — Sp11 Wk8
This week the PV team took a step back from the panels to analyze the full electric system and necessary components. The system design depends on whether or not there would be battery back up for energy storage or not, but the basic components would be PV panels, inverter and circuit breakers, and possibly a [...]
16 May
Solar Tree – Energy Storage – SP11 Week 7
What you accomplished for the past week This past week we researched costs, weight, and dimensions for potential batteries. Battery Systems of San Diego, a distributor of Trojan Battery quoted their batteries at ~$325 per 6V battery. If we assume a 1.5 kWh charging system, the total cost would come out to approximately $2000 (~36 [...]
16 May
Solar Tree – Structure – SP11 Week 7
What you accomplished for the past week This past week we split the team up to work on the design of the Solar Tree. We have had a lot of ideas, but they have been too “big” for the scope of the project. So we have scaled down the design in order to make it [...]
15 May
Solar Tree – Outreach Team – SP11 Week 7
1. The Outreach Team has been attempting to recruit students with autocad experience to help with the structural team’s designs. So far we’ve gotten a few folks to show some interest, but the preliminary interest fizzled. We’ve re-established our connections with ecoSolargy, a solar manufacturer based in Irvine, for the purposes of acquiring some solar [...]
