A look at the Software

The software, which the THG team programmed in-house for this project, controls the entire operation of the live test. These screenshots show the complexity of and the many interdependencies between the individual applications.

Our Editors Weigh In

Although we were confronted with many problems, we were able to solve them by improvising and with a little ingenuity. I hadn’t allowed for the influence of the weather, which forced us to modify our simple wood construction several times. This was especially hard on our nerves, since the rotating solar-panel assembly had already worked twice before, and we were forced to take it apart completely. I was able to make our array turnable using a central mount with a 10 mm screw. The first design failed completely due to friction. A 15 Euro battery-powered screwdriver that was on offer at the time gave me the idea to have the panels rotate automatically. 10-millisecond bursts allow us to position the panels with great precision. That we were able to create this project in such a short time frame was only possible thanks to a certain ingenuity on our part and the fact that there is a hardware store literally across from our lab. One thing we hadn’t counted on was the diameter of the wiring that we would be needing. After a round of calculations, we suddenly realized why the cables of our initial design had become so warm. I can honestly say that I am both pleased and fascinated that we have built a PC that is completely independent of a power socket. I had a lot of fun designing an building the Solar-PC and look forward to the next THG project.

The Solar-PC is the biggest, most comprehensive livetest that we have ever undertaken. Programming the applications for data collection and analysis as well as the rotation-control program for the solar array took several weeks alone. What made matters even more difficult was that we could only test the components under real-world conditions - simulations were simply out of the question. All data relied on the power generated by the solar panels. If the weather was bad, testing the results was basically impossible. The result was that errors based on faulty results would often find their way into our applications.

I enjoyed the work on this project immensely, even though its realization was not always easy and we were often confronted with setbacks - both where the solar panels and our assembly and the programming of the applications were concerned.