Our solar powered automatic door is a thumbs up with our chickens. They are released early in the morning while we rest or do other things, and they are shut in safely at night. We can control the door and see inside the coop with our web cam from the house or from any location, over the internet. But we prefer to set the timer to open and close the coop door automatically.
My husband did the electronics
There is no design to share, I’m sorry, my husband did the electronics but has not had the time to scketch it all out. But here is how it works and hopefully you can make a similar switch box from my description.
We don’t have AC power in the barn, that’s why we got interested in solar charging a marine deep cycle battery (that we already had) to run the door. The coop door doesn’t use much power since it only works twice a day. So a smaller battery could work — batteries that power automatic gates, etc. We have sun year round. It is rare for clouds to hide the sun more than 4-5 days.
Battery powered drills worked well for us, it is shaped right and is strong, and usually someone has an old drill they cant use because the original batteries have failed.
We opened the drill case and soldered our wires directly to the drill motor. Their were too many problems trying to work through the drills trigger — it overheated, etc.
You will need two double pull, double throw relays. The first relay is to reverse the polarity of the wiring and tell the drill to move up or down. The second relay is used to trip the trigger switches on top and bottom. Wire the relays so when the door rises the top trigger switch cuts the power to the drill. And when the two relays are energised then the drill is reversed and the bottom trigger switch is active and shuts off the drill when the door closes.
When wired correctly, the door will rise when the wires are in the open position and go down when in the closed position. We used a 12v DC timer to open and close the door.
“Flex Charge” part number PRG TMR 12V.
Look online or at a local do-it-yourself electronics/computer parts store for large switches that are easier to work with.
Please note the double pull double throw switches need to be rated for 12v to energize the relays correctly.
Also, If the voltage drops below 12V, the relays might not work correctly — such as your battery is too weak. The drill will work, but door movement won’t function right. So be sure when you are testing and trying out your design, your voltage is strong.
The door panel itself can be made to suit your situation. We used cabinet slides to mount the lift door onto the panel (Home Depot). The plywood has to be free of warp or the door will bind. But there are other ways to do it.
We looked at quite a few of the door designs on UTube and that is where we got the ideal of using a DC drill.
Our door is not predator proof, we have 4 dogs and donkeys charged to take care of coop security. Keep in mind that if a racoon were to lift the door enough to “release” the bottom switch, the drill would be activated and lift the door — so, your design might need a locking mechanism. There is a clever passive design on UTube that uses wood blocks that drop down into notches as the door closes to keep racoons from lifting the door.
One last thing, the door is kinda heavy, so to avoid accidents with the chickens, we set it to close well after the chickens have chosen their roosting spot for the nite.
Post time: Jun-20-2017