Automatic chicken coop door

[plexer]

What happens if chickens are still outside when the door closes? they get eaten by a fox?

Ben

[JeffRand]

Here\'s a list of predators
http://www.raising-chickens.org/chicken-predators.html

[chickenturd]

Plexer: If the chickens are still outside, they have a chance of getting eaten by something. This should never happen because they are extremely consistent about going into the coop at sunset. At least my birds are... I know other people that have problems and have to move the birds into the coop at night.

Maudette: Thanks so much for the info. I am going to re-work my configuration to use a wiper motor I think.

[maudette01432]

Still going strong.  My door is made of pine 2x4 for the side rails and some left over oak hardwood for the door frame screwed onto a piece of luan.  The frame rails were run over a table saw twice to cut a grove that the tongue from the hardwood flooring can ride in smoothly.  I use a piece of small cable spooled around a spindle I made out of nylon rod attached to an eye bot at the top of the door.  If I can find some pics of it I\'ll post it up.

So far the only problem I have had is when the chickens leave a huge turd in the door way and the door can\'t close all the way.

[maudette01432]

On the Mosfet -make sure you get one with a low-enough Rds ON.  The one I used was 0.008 ohms 50V 100A (way overkill for this but I could switch a huge motor with the same simple circuit.

[chickenturd]

I actually bought a relay instead of a mosfet so I\'ll just use that. Do you have any pictures of your setup, Maudette?

lol @ the huge turd in doorway problem. Ahahaha, gotta love the unanticipated problems like that one..

[pjsg]

I finally got my controller working and installed. It is currently running in a mode triggered by light levels (closed in the dark, open in light). It uses a couple of relays (one for up and one for down) and a light sensor. All of these are grove modules and I used the grove shield to connect to them. I ended up buying the real grove connectors from Seeed so that the cables would fit nicely. Also, custom three ended cables were need to be able to drive two relays off a single grove connector on the shield.


The key component is a Linak linear actuator that I got off ebay. It is immensely powerful and any droppings would be squashed absolutely flat. It takes about a minute to move through the 18 inches to fully open/close the door.


If anybody is interested, I'll post some pictures....


Philip

[AndreasCueto]

When my digisparks come in, I'll be using one to build a peimar solar powered automatic chicken coop door.
Small solar panel uses small charge controller to charge a small 12v battery.
Charge controller has 12v output. Guess I'll have to find a 12v --> 5v adapter for the digispark.
Digispark will use a time keeping shield I already have to get current date/time.
Every day, the digispark will use an algorithm to calculate the sunrise and sunset times for my location. Every morning at the sunrise time, the digispark will lift the chicken coop door to let the chickens out. I'll be using a 12v motor from an automotive antennae lifter thing. It has a 12v relay that allows it to turn on for a given time and then turn off automatically. I'm not sure if the relay will trigger at 5v, but it takes very little amps.

Then at sunset time + 15-30min delay, the digispark will release the motor's relay, causing it to close the coop door.

Any ideas?

Seems very nice to me.. I do need similar coop door and will try to build it very soon.. Thanks for sharing information though.