RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/SolarPanel

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Penn State Solar Panel Project

Release status: In Progress

Solarpanel1.jpg
Description
Solar Panel System to power 3D Printer for mobile use
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Solar Panel Project

Solarpanel1.jpg

Introduction

Penn State has an extensive 3D printing operation housed in the Hammond building. Located there are about ten printers that use additive printing technologies to create parts/objects. Unfortunately, without a wall outlet, the operation shuts down completely. Luckily, the EDSGN 497J class led by David Saint John has started a solar energy project that will allow the whole operation go mobile. We envision a cart that has a solar array attached to it charging a battery in order to power the printer, a monitor and a Raspberry Pi.

This page is to store and organize information on the project and also allow future students to take on the challenge with some support.



Inventory

What we have

Solar Panels: This is the cornerstone for this project. The panels will take the suns energy and turn them into useful electrical energy. Solarpanel.jpg Solarpanelback

DC Controller: This is the manager of the whole operation. It will take the inputs from the solar panels and use this energy to charge the 12V battery. If the battery does not need to be charged, it will cut off the energy flow from the panels and wait till it hits a threshold voltage where it will kick on and start transferring the energy.DCcontroller

12V Battery: This will be the workhorse of the operation. It will take the energy gathered from the sun to power all the electronics and different accessories needed to print. It will be a marine battery that will supply enough voltage and current to power these electronics.

batt

Printer: We've got em, just slap one of our working printers on

Raspberry Pi: Computer that will do a lot of the processing and will allow us to print.

What we need

A cart: literally the support for all of the above mentioned items and other paraphernalia.

Wiring: If we are going to implement the system found below in design, we are going to need more wires! In addition, we might need some structure to house all the electronics that also has plugs so we can turn things off safely and quickly

wires


Design

ChargeControlWiring.jpg photo 1.jpg

Operation

DCcontrollerinnard1.jpg IMG_0250.jpg DCcontrollerinnard2.jpg IMG_0251.jpg DCcontrollerinnard3.jpg IMG_0252.jpg


Progress