This week I was working on the racking system for the solar panels. I designed a track like the picture below.  The track on the left is designed to be installed on a different area than the one on the right.

 There are two track for the solar panels rack. One of the tracks will be on the far right or far left of the rail and the other track will be connected to the support beams that hold up the rails. I designed one track to utilize the ribs on top of the railing as support and the other one to utilize the support beams. Each track will use the same “CAM LOCK” mechanism that is essentially a 90 degree lock and opening mechanism As Shown Below. On the track connecting the support beams; there will be three of these Cam Lock that connect to a support plate on each of the support beam .

 

For the support best track, there will be a connecting mechanism that slides inside of each support beams, and becomes drilled into the support beam. The connecting mechanism allows the cam lock to tighten the support beam plate as shown below.

I am now working on a gearing mechanism that allows a robot to turn the central Cam lock on the support plate and results in turning the two exterior cam locks; reason for this is to make labor close to non.