Mini Garage door opener?

[Frunple]

Looking for a motor to attach to an internal halyard flag pole. I'm figuring a garage door opener will be perfect with it's limiting circuitry and "toggle" operation but I don't want a full size for obvious reasons. Anyone ever seen a smaller one around or something with the same characteristics?

 

[Neurorad]

You can probably get a used GDO from local GDO installation companies. Call a few. They might know of a smaller version than 'standard'.

The GDO installation company said they'd dispose of my GDO for free, but I think I'll hold onto it, and tear it apart. They're scheduled for today.

 

[apostolakisl]

I built a "mini garage door opener" for my chicken coup. It uses a motor for a car window. It is controlled by an rf relay I got on ebay that is in turn controlled by my Elk. It has limit switches for open closed.

The relay board I used has 8 relays on it, but only 2 are needed. I use the "click to turn it on/click to turn it off" mode on the relay board. It also has a "press and hold" mode as well as a "one on at a time" mode. When the one relay is turned on, it sends power with forward polarity to the motor and the motor turns until it hits the limit switch. One you turn the other relay on, it reverses the polarity and it goes down until the other limit switch is reached.

A flag pole would be easier to rig I would think than a door as I was dealing with all kinds of angles and gears and stuff. For the flag pole I would think a simple pulley around the halyard should do the trick. The limit switch might be activated by a stop crimped to the rope. For the limit switch I just used some little switches I picked up on ebay.

I soldered the relay remote up to relays on the Elk. The Elk now controls the chicken coup based on sunrise/sunset. I also put a light in the chicken coup that it controls.

Here is a video of it. http://youtu.be/xduiHN6NtOw It is actually slightly different as I made a few mods to it. This version doesn't have the limit switch as I was just timing it, but that had issues so I added the switch.

 

[Neurorad]

Hehe, chickens living large.