I am designing a system to have solar panels track the sun, but only with one axis of rotation that will tilt the panels from east to west.
I want to connect the panels together so that one motor could rotate multiple panels. I was thinking of a something like a bicycle roller chain and sprockets. Where a long chain goes around, say, 5 sprockets that each rotation a solar panel, and wraps around again forming a loop.
I am not sure if the chain will have enough contact with the sprockets, especially on panels that are in the middle of the chain system. The chain would basically be resting on those sprockets from the weight of gravity.
Is this a good design choice for such a system? Is there more cost effective way to accomplish the same thing? Should I supply tension to system so it has good contact with all the sprockets?