Looks like a plan but I guess I'll hold off a while longer, panel prices are still a little high for me, I'm not in an ideal solar power region anyway, (SE US) . We get most of our (humid) weather from the Gulf and most days the sky is 50% filled with fat cumulus clouds, also, our mains rates are still reasonable from Duke Energy (about 11 cents / kWh) so I'm gonna hold off a while.
I'm also in the SE US in St. Petersburg, FL so understand your situation. When you get ready to proceed, let me know by PM as I can supply philosophy code as to how to run the tracker.
Essentially, you let it get 5.7° behind by waiting for a shadow on the east sensor then drive it to 5.7° ahead by detecting a shadow on the west sensor but do it only once every 45 minutes. The lowest collection efficiency during that interval is still 99.5%, cos(5.7).
You should probably also have a west sensor to know when to shut down for the night. The code will turn the panel back to the east when that sensor detects sunrise.
Several years ago, I ran an experiment with a very small panel mounted on a stepping motor. The test ran from solar noon - 4hrs to solar noon + 4hrs. The panel would face straight south and take three reading on one second intervals and keep the average. Immediately after, it would slew to the calculated position of the sun and take the same readings. Cloud cover affected both positions to about the same degree. The cycle was repeated every 30 seconds. The data was printed in the serial monitor in CSV form and copied into the SciDAVis plotter program. Two graphs were plotted, fixed and tracking. The two curves were integrated over the eight hour interval and evaluated. The fixed position collected 94% as much energy as the tracking scheme. It was decided that the cost of the tracking mechanism and it's maintenance would be better spent on about 6% more panel area and dispense with the tracker.
UKHeliBob:
If there is no code required in the if clause then you don't need the else clause. You could simply invert the logic and use an if clause.
Yeah, but boolean identities confuse some people.