building automatic chicken coop door? Answered

Love the locking action, that's a clever feature. Was there supposed to be a video ?

Steve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zsx5YHeeX0

Most excellent door and self locking !!! ... !!!

Kudos for your perseverance

Thanks for sharing your door.

Best Regards,

A

Hey there, yes i built the door, the motor has a shaft on it, what i need is help with thr wiring diagram, and if u can make it as simple to read as possible.

Thanks.

How do you plan to make the door open/close? What are your requirements, constraints, and goals?

Hi Max thanks for your input i already figured it out, the door is complete and it works with an adjustable light sensor something i picked up on ebay for $10 and it works beautifully. i do plan on doing something with arduino later on.

here's a link to the video of it complete.

http://youtu.be/1Zsx5YHeeX0

Thanks.

If you want something that lets you manually control the direction of the door w/o feedback control (as in a electrical stop) than this should work fine. The green represents mechanical control, the switch can be a DPDT w/ a central "off" position. Preferably, the switch should be the type that is temporary and will spring back to neutral after pressing it either way.

If the door hits either wall bounders, it will not stop on it's own, so you will have to let go once it reaches either endpoint.

To accommodate that, You will need to add the push buttons on either side of the door boundaries and have them wired in series so that they act like an OR operator (this button OR that button is pressed, motor stops because the circuit is broken.) Then there will have to be a spring near it too if it pushes the button, the motor stops and the spring punches the door back off the button, so that way the circuit is no longer broken. It is simple in theory, but I'd imagine it would be a pain to get working nicely. It might not be super reliable either, as there is a lot that can go wrong with a mechanical design.

There are so many ways to go about doing this, and some methods are better than others. Pick your favorite.

After having a bit of a think w/ this, Here is a quick idea I came up with. The H bridge driver is a simple H bridge made with N AND P channel MOSFETS. When a negative voltage w/ respect to ground is applied, then it will make the motor rotate one way, and if all the gates are positive w/ respect to ground, then the motor should rotate the other way.

When the door is is one position (B1 is pressed and B2 is not) and B3 is pressed by you, the voltage on the input of the H bridge driver will be positive, and the motor will rotate and move the door toward the other switch. The capacitor will hold the charge until the other button is pressed, since while the door is moving neither B1 or B2 is pressed. Once it reaches the other button, it will change the polarity of charge on the (non-polarized electrolytic) capacitor, causing the door to change it's direction and begin going the other way. You need to let go of the button B3 by that time.

You can see the small problem with this, and you could set up an arduino or some other sophisticated circuit to fix that, if you want full automation.

HI Steve, i wired it up and it didn't work. i followed the wiring diagram and nothing. in the bottom of the drawing it says the join the neutral coming from the timer is that correct?

give me your thoughts. Eli.

Use Iceng's modification to my original. The drawing of the relay on the left in my drawing is incorrect.

Also, the switches are drawn as if the door is "mid way", not touching either switch. At that point, the switches should be CLOSED. When the door touches them, they should OPEN.

+1

Could you have meant this ?

I coldnt find those relays at radio shack, i posted pictures of the relays i was able to pickup. Can u let me know if that works. Thanks.

http://www.radioshack.com/12v-dc-10a-dpdt-relay/2750043.html

Might be too heavy for what you really need,

or.

http://www.radioshack.com/12vdc-10a-dpdt-plug-in-r...

or

http://www.radioshack.com/12vdc-3a-dpdt-plug-in-relay-and-socket/2750206.html

What are the signal in the bottom left Relay?

It is symbolic of how switching occurs inside the relay.

Yes, I redrew this about 20 X and tried to use US relays - I must have missed that left hand one !

Thanks !

Hey Steve, what type of relay is it? can i get it from Radio Shack?

That's why it says "Relays 03P10 from Radio Shack" in big letters at the top....

Now whether Radio Shack STILL carries them, I don't know.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301203536880?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

i dont know who the manufacture is but this where i got it.

Thanks, now I think I understand how and what that PCB can do....

hi there,

My chickens name are roast 1 roast 2 etc. i dont think chickens are pets their are food. they lay pretty delicious eggs. back to the door. i wired it up and it didn't work. i followed the wiring diagram and nothing. in the bottom of the drawing it says the join the neutral coming from the timer is that correct?

give me your thoughts. Eli.

Replace the timer with the switch,

if your wiring is correct the door should open and close when you change the switch.

BTW do you name your chickens ;-D