Back to CAD

I'm so very excited! Since starting work with renewable energy the idea of doing opensource design has been central to my task, and until two days ago the dream had become paralyzed. The problem was with code. There are many great ways to openly collaborate, but they all use code; essentially text. GitHub is one great example. But all of the designs that we have realized have been done in Google Sketchup; it was the only free, cross platform, and powerful CAD program found, and its files are all binary. But two days ago while showing a new student the git repository for the Amo-Esclavo Heliostat project I did a search for CAD and found openSCAD !

There are several good tutorials on using this package, but after watching Galvian's video I was hooked, and impressed. And aperently openSCAD plays well with the MakkerBot
project, with is also very handy to eliminate frequent trips to the metal shop. I am now planning on moving all my designs over to openSCAD!



Next we need an open, text based solution to electronic circuit creation (to replace Eagle). Any ideas?

Heliostat Links

Here is a series of links to sites with useful info on sun tracking and heliostats;

http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Secliptc.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_path
http://www.dur.ac.uk/john.lucey/users/solar_year.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_tracker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time
http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/mbs/tools/vrsolar/Help/solar_concepts.html
http://www.redrok.com/main.htm
http://www.practicalsolar.com/technology.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/eclip.html
http://www.rossen.ch/solar/miniheliostatfaq.html
http://www.barli.org/solar-storage.html
http://www.heliotrack.com/Products.html
http://www.rossen.ch/solar/
http://www.solbot.at/
http://www.inspira.es/newsroom/981130.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic
http://www.solardiy.info/?p=50
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Concentrating/concentrating.htm
http://www.aquaflector.com/technology.html
http://www.redrok.com/analemma.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_daylighting

Sundoller, active daylighting

I've seen several ways to actively track the sun and send the light indoors. Sunflower's solution is the simplest of optical design, though I'm not sure why they don't use a full parabolic (I see, it is a 2D reflector, makes sense.) And I really hate these sites that can't tell you what they cost! Call for a quote my ass.. come on, at least order of magnitude.. $1000, $10,000.. Is that too much to ask? Its like an overpriced restaurant, " if you have to ask the price, its too much for you.."