Nema34 and suitable power supply

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hi I am new to this forum and seeking some advice. I'm planning on building a CSP (concentrated solar power) and want to power it with 16 steppers motors Nema34 with MA860H driver with a rated current of 7A. I want to run this motors at 36v. my questions are:

  1. what would be a suitable power output for such a setup?

  2. is it possible to share one power supply with multiple drivers?

3.How adjust the motor driver to limit the current at or below 5.6 amps to protect the motor.

hopefully someone can answer me

2

  1. Where is the datasheet for the motors? Need to know this.

  2. Yes.

  3. The MA860H driver has the jumper settings printed on the side, just pick the
    best match current setting.

BTW 16 steppers will burn up a lot of power all the time - is this a suitable choice? Can
you explain how your design works and needs so many motors?

4

my project is to make a linear solar concentrator based on a fresnel mirror. The principle of a Fresnel concentrator lies in its plane (flat) mirrors ( 16 mirors be used on my project) called "compact linear reflectors". The idea is to approximate the parabolic shape of the collector by a succession of plane mirrors. Each of these mirrors can be rotated to continuously redirect and focus the sun's rays towards a fixed linear absorber tube.
Simalary what is shown on the below link.

Industrial Solar Fresnel Collector Video - YouTube.

I wanted to program the mirror to rotate by ARDUINO MEGA one after one on clockwise (CW) from right to left and GO BACKWARDS from left to right conterclockwise (CCW) the rotation of the mirrors is ensured by a Nema 34 motor with the driver (MA860H or DM860D driver).
I am at the begining of the project (just theorique ) so I have not poject photo.

5

I appreciate your help. this is the data shit used . see the colored line on table

Nema 34 8.pdf (190.7 KB)

6

Are you sure you want to use steppers for solar tracking?

Steppers use power all the time, to hold position.
They could use more power than your project is generating.

Actuators (linear motors) could be a better solution.
Leo..

7

Hi,
With 16 flat reflectors, you will need 32 motors, Az and El to track the sun and reflect into your reciever.

Tom... :grinning: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

8

Steppers are a really poor choice for this, especially lots of very large ones (tend to burn
10W or so each constantly).

Standard DC gear motor driving the mirrors, absolute encoder on the mirror shaft seems
a good solution to me - absolute encoder on the mirror means the system won't need to home, and DC motors can be powered down most of the time, just powering up briefly
to move the mirrors every minute or two. DC motors take only as much power as needed.
By ensuring the gears used are not back-drivable you prevent any issues of strong winds
pushing the mirrors out of alignment (steppers will skip eventually).
Another approach is to link the mirrors with a suitable mechanical linkage so only one gear motor
is needed - this could be simpler and cheaper I'd have thought.

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