................................--- Mount For Six 80 Watt Solar Panels ---
.......................................................................................--- Part III ---
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All of the holes, and there are a lot of them, are chamfered.
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More brackets ....
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... that were used for the rear frame, arrows.
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The piece above and ....
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.... these two were made and they are used to ....
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... connect the rear frame to ....
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.... the front frame as ....
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... shown above. Notice the wood diagonals are still in place. Soon they will be replaced with aluminum ones and similar ones will be added to the rear frame.
At this point the framework is complete with the exception of being able to mount the panels and to mount the frame to the boat itself.
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I made a wooden frame the represents the panel and the mounting holes that are in the panel, 3 arrows...............
It was used to make sure there was clearance for all of the panels and also the mounting holes allowed me to mark the areas on the frame where the panel mounting pads need to go.
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I drilled two holes where each mounting place would be mounting, one at each end of the mount location then I .....
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.... milled a slot between each set of holes.
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Above is a stack of the frame pieces with the slots milled into them.
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Pieces of aluminum were place in each slot and ....
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..... welded into place on....
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.... both sides. The outer rails had tabs on only one side, but ...
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.... if the frame member supported panels on both sides the pieces went all the way through as above.
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Above you can see all of the tabs welded into the frame. Also note that the diagonal braces are now metal. The really stiffen the whole framework up.
