Automatic coop door - more details and pics

What an adventure this door has given me lately!

UPDATE: I had trouble again with the door and started from scratch with a new screwdriver and redoing all wiring. I have written a better step by step instructions on BYC (backyard chickens) that can be found here. I made a few changes so if you want to recreate go to that article. Otherwise feel free to read about all my problems below.

If you don't feel up to tackling this project we now sell them pre-made. You just need to mount it over your current opening and plug it into a timer and you're all set. The door shown in this write-up was my original. I left it because the component are more visible.

Pre-made door

It would work then one night I'd look and it wasn't shut, or one morning I'd get up and go out to feed them and they were still locked up. I took it off and brought it in the house twice trying to fix the problem. First it was the timer, it stopped keeping time. So I put a different timer out there that we had. I went to set it and broke it. So I had to buy a new timer. Wolf said to get a heavy duty outdoor one but when I looked for one at WalMart, all of them were dusk to dawn only, not setable. Since the timer is inside the coop, I didn't think that would work too well. So I ended up with the same one as I originally had. It allows me to set in 15min increments. 

So after a new timer it still didn't work. I did a little troubleshooting and discovered the power supply itself wasn't putting out power. I found the power cord was chewed almost in half - thank you goats! (pic posted on our facebook page) Even cutting before the damaged part, I still couldn't get any power reading from the power source though. So it took awhile to find my box of spare cords but eventually we located it and was able to replace the cord. Finally I thought I had it fixed for good. It worked great in the house so I reinstalled it in the coop just in time for me to leave town for a few days. Wolf checked it in the morning the first day I was gone and said it had opened. Yeah! But that night it failed to close. Boo! When he checked on it he found a tangle of wires hanging everywhere. He had to close it and go back to letting the chickens out each morning and putting them away each night. Luckily I was only gone for 3 days this trip. When I returned I took the door down and brought it back into the house. He wasn't kidding when he said it was a jumbled mess! One wire was completely off the door laying on the ground. And two wires must've crossed somehow because the batteries had overcharged and split their wrappers. It looked like wolverine had gotten to them!

Since the batteries had overcharged I was afraid something had happened to the control board. Since I needed both new batteries and a new control board I just bought a whole new screwdriver. Found the same style at WalMart for $9. The one pictured is actually the first one but the second was almost identical except for the color and accessories. Sorry, I didn't take pics of the new screwdriver since I knew I had these.

Original screwdriver

This time Wolf suggested I not cut the handle off and instead try to fit everything back inside once I made my modifications. So that's what I did. Here is the first screwdriver with it's handle cut off. Here you see the rocker switch that was on the screwdriver originally, the power control board, the and battery pack. A difference with this one was that it had a little light bulb in front you could turn on to light what you were doing. The new screwdriver had the exact same rocker switch and battery pack, but the board was slightly different. Overall though, close enough to be called the same.

Original screwdriver guts

I had to remove the wires from the old batteries and board and move them over to the new board. I tried to draw a diagram of where everything came from so I could put it back together. Unfortunately in all the movement wires get ripped off the relay so I decide to take them all off and redo them. I get it all staged where I think wires should go, hold them in place with clips, and test. Nothing. Great. Try something else, wires start heating up. Not good. I go back to the pics I took originally but they don't show enough. I resort to finding the original page I used as my guide and copied down the relay schematic. I try that. Bingo! 

As I was putting a wire on the switch (not the rocker switch but my manual on/off switch) it got the metal connector too hot which melted the plastic on the switch and caused the metal piece to fall out. So that switch was out. I thought that's ok, I'll just wire it directly and not have a manual switch. I have it all wired and somehow a wire on the board touches another wire on the board and starts heating up the wire to the batteries. It starts melting. I'm trying to grab the wire and it's burning me and sparking as I rip it off the board. I'm panicking, thinking I'm destroying my new batteries and board. Luckily the only damage was the melted wire covering on the battery line. I let everything cool and tape up the bare wire. I go to put things back together (after 8pm at night now) and I don't know where the battery lines go on the board, or where the wire from the plug goes. Great! I stare at it for a long time, take voltage readings, etc. No a-ha moments come to me. I leave it for a day to give myself time to think about it.  

I realize I need a switch because wiring it directly like I thought would work, obviously didn't (or maybe it wasn't that but I wasn't taking a chance). Next trip to WalMart I pick up a switch from the automotive section ($2). Now I'm ready to get down to business!

Today I look at the board again ready to just experiment and since it's still light out I can see the board actually has a + and - on it telling me exactly where to put stuff. Yeah! 

I clip the wires onto the board and the new switch and test. Everything works great. My batteries are almost dead but I got enough out of them to know it worked. I go to work soldering everything in place. Test one last time and it appears to still be working but the batteries only have one little turn left in them. No problem, at least I know it's working. I go to work putting everything carefully back into the screwdriver body. Since I took the original rocker switch out it left a nice big hole for all my wires to come out of. I secure it to the wood frame and test. Nothing. It's ok. I'm telling myself it's because the batteries aren't charged enough. I'm going to let them charge overnight and fingers crossed everything works in the morning. Boy what a pain it will be if something came loose inside!

This time I also cut my wires to a good size so I don't have a lot of extra hanging around and instead of taping them down I stapled them to the wood with our handy staple gun. It looks much neater but hopefully it will be enough to keep the chickens/goats from ripping them off. Wolf suggests I paint it with resin to cover the wires but I'm hesitant to do that in case I ever need to replace anything. 

Here it is finished.

Finished door

Here are the parts of the door.

lower limit switch with door (white part) closed

upper limit switch with door closed

The relay wouldn't fit inside the screwdriver of course so it stayed in the chicken proof container. Which is just a tupperware container with the lid screwed into the wood, and a hole cut in the lid and side of the container so it can close over the wires. I hot glued the relay down to the lid so it wouldn't move around and possibly loosen a wire.

Relay

 Here is my modified drill bit. The inspiration post used a spool but I found the door went up and down too quick and increased the chances of it bouncing at the bottom and not triggering the limit switch which causes the screwdriver to keep spinning which causes the door to switch direction and go back up until it binds up at the top and starts burning out the motor. I wanted a nice controlled ascent and descent so I went with a long screwdriver bit and a hose clamp to clamp the string onto the bit. This has come in handy more than once when I'm messing with the door and it gets bound up. I can just unscrew the clamp a turn or two and pull the string out. I have the wood on the end because I found the string would wind itself up the screwdriver then fall back down loose and it caused the string to get all tangled up. 

modified drill bit 

Once everything was all done I made myself a nice diagram of the electrics in case I ever need to repair it again, or possibly make another one for our breeder/meat bird pen in the future.

wiring diagram