Plant software for e-waste and solar-panel recyclers

A yard full of paper

A solar-panel recycler takes in trucks of old panels, strips the aluminum frames and junction boxes, shreds and sorts what is left into glass, metals and fines, and sells each fraction to a buyer. Every step leaves a paper trail the authorities can ask for. Who brought the load, what it weighed in and out, which waste code it carries, which machine ran it, what came out and who took it away.

At the recycler we built Eclipse for, that trail lived in five places. Weighing slips at the weighbridge. A sales CRM for the buyers. Spreadsheets for stock. A chat app for the team. And the national waste register, where the office typed the same loads again. Stock on paper and stock in the yard drifted apart, and a year of machine logbooks for an inspection meant a week of digging.

Two talks on one day

On 12 October 2026 we sat down twice with the recycler’s team. Once with the people who run the office and sales, about how a day runs. Once with their supplier auditor and safety lead, about what an inspection asks for. Every feature in Eclipse traces back to a line in one of those two talks, and we kept the list with its source next to each one.

The office’s ask came first: the national register stays the place where papers are issued, and Eclipse records the load, links the scans and prepares what the office would type, so nothing is typed twice. The auditor’s asks were more specific. A process flowchart for every waste type. An incoming inspection checklist. Training records with expiry dates. A quote checked against the customer’s permits before anyone says yes.

The weighbridge on a phone

The day starts at the weighbridge, so that is where Eclipse starts. Whoever is on the weighbridge opens the intake on a phone: the truck’s plate, the supplier, the waste code and photos, then the gross weight, then each item weighed apart with its price category and condition, then the tare. The net comes out big, next to the three paper numbers from the register. The buttons are sized for gloves, the screens speak Hungarian first, and when the signal drops in the far corner of the yard the phone keeps the record and sends it later, once.

Every batch that goes through the line is checked for mass balance. What comes out has to equal what went in within 2 percent, or Eclipse flags it. The yard’s stock follows the same records, and a stocktake is a walk round the yard with the phone.

Machines that keep their own logbook

Each machine has a QR label. The forklift driver scans it, taps Start, and taps Stop at the end. Who, which machine and when fill themselves, and the login is the signature. A Problem button records a leak or a breakdown with a photo. The site diary works the same way: today’s date, “same people as yesterday” in one tap, the machines that ran, a finger signature. A year of logbooks and diary prints as one inspection pack.

Planning the plant before moving a machine

Eclipse also draws the plant. Halls, tents, containers and open storage go onto the site at their real sizes, machines come from a library with their footprints and wear parts, and the whole thing turns into 3D. Run a simulated day and the planner shows the tonnes processed, the throughput, the running cost per tonne and where material waits. A second site can start from the first one as a template.

Live

Eclipse went live for the recycler in October 2026, running in their own company workspace. Sales works a pipeline built on their own stages, with the old CRM imported once. The deadlines calendar holds every quarterly return, permit renewal and fire extinguisher check, and the inspection pack is one click. Eclipse is our own product, so the next recycler starts on the same app with its own workspace and its own country’s paperwork.