Let's Control It

Hi all,

I am planning to build an automated chicken door, based on Wemos D1 mini.

Currently I am in the planning phase and creating shopping list.

Which motor and motorshield is recommended to work with ESPeasy and D1 mini?

I would like to operate the door by:
- light sensor and/or time
- manual button pressing
- mobile

Magnetic reed sensor should identify the endpoints.

Has anyone done this already on ESPeasy and has some ideas/tipps for me?

thx

noone?

You can make just about any motor work with ESPEasy. Just a matter of the correct relay setup and such. Same with limit/position switches.
The big question here is the actual door hardware to use. What kind of door? How big is it?
These are questions you must answer B4 we can recommend much.

thx for your reply.
door will not be heavy. size 25x15cm. I assume it will be from plastic.

Would like to use the Wemos motorshield, but there is no plugin for this available at the moment.

For position switch I just odered reed contacts.

I've made a ckicken house recently.
As the roof was ready, i had the idea to use an old solar panel. So i've rebuilt it, but the dimensions of the house did not fit...
Anyway, this opens so many opportunities (self-sufficient door, camera, light, rfid, ...) that i'm glad i did it.

Instead of a motor shield, i just used 2 relais.
The door is controlled according to sunrise and sunset (and manual).
Currently there are no end switches (only runtime based), but i will change that in the next days.

This is the motor (3rpm):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Electri ... 67513.html

thx for sharing.
how many RPM does your motor have?

It's stated 3rpm

uh, that is slow.

I bought a motor with 80rpm. hopping it is not too fast...

The rpm depends on the voltage - also, it's stronger the less rpm it makes. And i didnt want to behead the chickens

Before building, i've made a rough plan, to estimate space and material better (yellow means removable).

moebius wrote: ↑17 May 2018, 13:27 And i didnt want to behead the chickens

Having raised chickens, I don't think the plastic door is heavy enough for that, but I would not put it past a chicken to put their head in the door as it closes.
They are not the brightest of animals.

Years ago we had a TV with automatic doors which opened or closed when you turned it on or off. It used a very simple motor driven cable system with "limit" switches. The limit stitches were simple spring loaded lever switches and a nuts/bolts on the cable. When the door closed, the nut/bolt hit the switch and turned the motor off, protecting it from running until it burned out. Same on opening. Easily adjustable, just move the nut/bolt a little.

The design in the picture is pretty good, but I would think about a sensor in a side so it will report if the door itself is not closed when it is supposed to be.
Opening and closing can be triggered by a daylight sensor, you just need to have an adjustable light level and wait a few minutes after your sundown. Not too long or you risk something looking for a snack. We had problems with foxes, bobcats, Owls and a really stupid snake which fit through the chicken wire until it ate a few chicks and could not get back out.

Also keep in mind chicken crap is extremely corrosive and if I remember correctly will kill off any plant life for several years. But it is a good fertilizer after something like 5 years.

https://hackaday.com/2017/07/15/irising ... coop-door/

)

Apparently Google does post this topic high when searching for chicken doors.
Last two posts are from users with 1 post and links to where you can buy them.....

Unsolicited online advertisement. Maybe we should come up with a word for it...

Deleted them.

Here comes an update of my project working now nearly 2 years.

Realized with D1 mini and Wemos Motorshield.
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... otorshield

Achivements:
- door triggered by sunrise/sunset
- 2 manual buttons to open/close door
- intergartion with FHEM home automation
- Telegram message on door open/close with webcam image and temperature
- Tablet and mobile integration

Here are some pics:

something I was searching for a very long time was a winch for the DC motor.

I recently designed one for other purpose, but may be this helps some else:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4120449

Please if you could help I'd be grateful. I saw this thread and didn't see the point in making a new one. I'm not the best DIYer out there and I need a coop door opener. Asked around, didn't have much luck, so I went online and found this one https://popular.reviews/coop-door-opene ... treme_ASTx
Can you guys, if you have experience with coops more than I do at least (I have none whatsoever) tell me if this is ok to go for or give me other recommendations? Thanks and sorry again if I'm not supposed to ask this here.

Gene1Randal wrote: ↑19 Mar 2020, 11:59[...]
Thanks and sorry again if I'm not supposed to ask this here.

FYI, the comments that were deleted were made by newly created accounts that had links in their signature to sellers and were not replying with any on-topic comments.
Typical posts that will help in increasing their rankings in Google, but in essence just spam.

@TungstenE2
I´m very interested into your Chicken Door Project.
Do you have any codesnippets or the clean code for me?
I will use this with some modifications for my own project and won´t start by zero.

Best regards,
Tom

I am new here in the forum.
My chicken door has been running for four weeks with a rule that respects sunrise and sunset. In the evening, even five minutes before sunset, a light in the henhouse goes on to show the chickens the way. After the door is closed, the light goes out. Now comes the next challenge. In order for the chickens to lay eggs in winter, they need at least 14 hours of light. That means that if the sun time is not enough, this must be supplemented with artificial light. For this purpose, I would like to formulate a rule that first outputs the difference between sunset and sunrise in minutes. If this value is smaller than 840, the light in the barn should be turned on accordingly before sunrise.
So I am looking for a possibility to convert the sunrise and sunset values, which are output as time, into minutes. Can anyone help?

You could simply take a 14h offset from the sunset? Only limitation is that you need to be sure the sunset is after 14h