I hate have the big ugly roll of solar cover always sitting around, so we went in search of a way to hide it. We were building this raised deck as a jumping platform and had an idea to hide it under that. I found a guy online (Michael Wade) who sent me designs he had on his build and I modified them a bit and wow it came out awesome!
The solar reel is bolted to an aluminum frame. I have two (weather rated) electric actuators mounted to push the platform up and down. The actuators are triggered with rocker switches and it is all run with a low voltage 12V DC power supply. The power supply is mounted in the house, run out and under the deck. These actuators are actually designed for raising hatches on the motor compartment on large boats. Some final work still needs done to clean this all up, but this is the season constructions ends!!
The solar reel is bolted to an aluminum frame. I have two (weather rated) electric actuators mounted to push the platform up and down. The actuators are triggered with rocker switches and it is all run with a low voltage 12V DC power supply. The power supply is mounted in the house, run out and under the deck. These actuators are actually designed for raising hatches on the motor compartment on large boats. Some final work still needs done to clean this all up, but this is the season constructions ends!!
