Solar Tracker Controller

[mackrackit]

You might try pulling a few samples then average them before acting. It will make up for the stray cloud.

[tenaja]

Another way to add hysteresis is to require a return direction change to be greater than an advance direction. So, if your last move was to the left caused by a "1x" reading, and a cloud causes a desire to move right, require the reading to be "1.1x", so it's 10% more than the last.

[dirtbiker5627]

I would also like to add a small adjustable potentiometer to adjust the hysteresis but I will add that in later. I want the tracker to adjust its position every minute but I do not want to use any extra energy overadjusting. I need it to move to a certain position but when it gets there I want it to stay within certain limits instead of doing small oscillations trying to find an exact spot.

[mackrackit]

You could think telescope.
Every minute so many steps on an encoder.
The sun is pretty predictable

[ardhuru]

Also, perhaps a larger than usual capacitor on the ADC pin would make it slower to react to minor, quick fluctuations.

Regards,

Anand

[Ioannis]

I sure would place a large capacitor in this case but also an averaging routine.

Melanie had a suggestion on an older post about having 16 samples, sort them, ged rid off the 8 values (4 top, 4 bottom) and average the rest 8. Maybe for this project this is overkill, but i.m.h.o. the best solution.

A noise can always sneak in.

Ioannis