Automatic Chicken Coop Door DIY
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- čas přidán 31. 01. 2022
- Please read below for wiring instructions for the automatic chicken coop door linear actuator, timer, relay and battery hookup. Please let us know if you have any questions out our chicken coop door build or any suggestions on how to make it better.
WIRE INSTRUCTIONS:
R = Relay and T = Timer: EXAMPLE: R1 - Relay 1 Connector, T1 = Timer Connector 1.
You cannot short out anything if all wires are connected right to the time and relay as well as using a 12V battery. If the relay closes when the time is on, just switch the linear actuator wires around.
Linear Actuator
R6 & R5
Relay Wires
R3-R7
R3-R2
R1-R4
Timer to Relay
T1-R4
T2-R7
T4-R8
T5-R4
Battery Wires
R4
R7
Linear Actuator:
WindyNation
Model: LIN-ACT1BR-12 12 Inch 12" Stroke Linear Actuator
12 Volt
225 Pounds lbs Maximum Lift (Includes Mounting Brackets)
Timer Used:
Sinotimer
Model# CN101A-4
Relay Used:
TWTade
Model: YJ2N-LY
12V DC
Feel free to contact us at:
jamie@hagonshomestead.com - Jak na to + styl
Nice work!
Thank you!
Good video thanks for sharing. They sell at auto stores a plastic tube that has a slit in it for wiring harnesses and that would protect your wires that’s what I would use. Thank you so much for sharing good job God bless.
Thanks, thats a great suggestion and an easy way to protect wiring more. I have used it before so not sure why I didn't think of it this time around!
that looks like a nice and large cozy chicken coop with large chicken run. i am building a small coop. i never have raised chickens before. it does not snow here. i'm in south texas. last summer we had a couple months of 100 degree weather every day. i'm more concerned about the heat. i want an automagical door eventually also.
i just realized a way you can have it open moar. with a lever you can do it. but it may be a bit tricky to make sure it doesn't bind or anything. and also maybe with a short cable attached to the door instead of the actuator directly attached it can close on a chicken without hurting the chicken any moar than the weight of the door would smoosh her.
i think the door is acting like a speaker. it needs some um rubber bushings or something to keep the vibration from going into the door. 19:24
I would be more concerned about the heat. Chickens for the most part can handle the cold temps just fine as long as they are dry and out of the wind. Heat is another ballgame. Need lots of shade and water for sure.
@dolinick the door closes really slowly so there is very little risk of injury. We have a lot of chickens and have been using this system on multiple coops for years and have had no issues. The actuator I believe is 12 inches long so is big enough for chickens. You can also get longer ones. You do have to make sure it cannot get hung up as it does have a lot of force and could break something if it did.
thank you. i should have watched the entire video before commenting. i wonder how much an automatic door would cost to build. i think my chickens have room to go underneath the 8x8 chicken run and hen house because it is raised off the ground. shade and cool dirt under there. i hope it will not be too hot in the hen house for them to roost at night. i placed the coop next to a tree so the coop should be shaded in the afternoon. @@hagonshomestead
I have a concern that if a chicken tries to crowd under the door at the last moment as it close there is no safety to stop the chicken from getting smashed. This is why a cord is used on many of the cheaper motorized openers. It would be very easy to add that to your door. Specifically the door would drop by gravity as the cord is lowered and if a chicken is in the door it only experiences the weight of the door.
The motor moves so slowly that it’s not a concern for us. We have it on 5 coops now and no issues. If the motor was fast I would certainly be worried
I have a similar linear actuator setup but controlled by an arduino. We had an unfortunate incident where a hen decided to sleep in the doorway. Even with the door being so slow she did not move and was killed. After that I installed a switch on the bottom of the door that would cut the power to the relay if triggered. Better safe than sorry.
Heres a tip ..that piece of plywood you have the actuator bolted to is acting like a soundboard on a guitar .... You might want to spray some foam on it to damper the sound quite a few decibels.... good overall , sturdy ,design I believe... a little more time on the door should help opening . Maybe round and sand the corners? Also a little lube on the lead screw of that actuator might help.. or not ..
I was thinking about that timer and glad I watched this video... because now I know it will work for my application too .. thanks
Thanks thats a good idea. For the most part like you mentioned it has gotten quieter over time. Just wore in. The only thing I had to do in terms of a fix was put a block of wood behind the top actuator mount to screw into as the screws cam loose. Other than that it has been awesome. Glad I could help! Its a great system, in fact I have 4 of these now and all work great.
So I’m thinking making a rope pull door, then attach that to the actuator. So I can still pull a rope to open if it fails or I need to let some one in. That way the actuator can be mounted to a post and the wire strains won’t be an issue.
That might work but I would think you would have to make sure the door does not get hung up at all as it could get stuck. Certainly if the door is light. You can open and close the door manually by pressing a button on my setup. Might be easier and would make sure the door closes properly.
I think if you sand and wax where the door slides in the track it will quieten it down some.
That’s a good idea. It might have gotten quieter now that it has had time to run for awhile. Will have to check and see.
I used a birthday candle after sanding to quiet my kitchen cabinets.
12:58 DUDE! That straw looks so damn comfy(all that snow in the background, all over) , I would literally take a nap on that.
Nice build. It is nice to see people do an ACTUAL DIY coop door. Most of the ones that say DIY are just them installing a pre fab commercially produced door and all they did was take off old door and screw in the new one. That's like saying DIY pair of pants, but they go buy pants and all they do is put them on. GEEZ.
I like the fact you are using 15:32 ferrules and 15:21 snap connectors, to do your wiring connectors. Make it so much cleaner and easier to install and troubleshoot. Leave them on.
The reason it is so "groany", (15:50 you can see it snag) is because the wood rubbing against each other is causing vibration. 19:24 again so loud due to the vibration. Why is it doing that? Well because the actuator is ever so slightly pulling the door back against the frame. The simple solution is to put that 2x4 18:51, to the back of the door. Shave the bottom backside down a bit. ( you will have to make door taller tho). Then attach the actuator pivot point as far back on the 2x4 as you can.
20:04 Go to my video that shows a diagram of how to connect two Sinotimers TM-615s and that's all you need to make it work. SOOO much easier to wire and understand. Plus the big thing is that your timer and relay are NOT on all day.
czcams.com/video/aYv3-aVQEOY/video.html
You can even use a single Sinotimer TM-612 to do the same thing.
czcams.com/video/7Oykm8wyQtU/video.html
all in all this is a great build. Love the entire coop and run.
Ha ha, the straw would be comfy if not for being so cold at the time of the video. But with a good sleeping bag, it could work!
Yes the connectors are so awesome! Makes it some much easier to test stuff like you said. I probably will leave them as they seem to be holding up and the wires don't budge when tugging on them so I don't see a major issue. Its not high voltage or anything so they should be fine.
Thanks for the suggestion, it seems to be working fine now so I think I will probably just leave it as the chickens could care less about the noise. It actually gets them excited in the morning and tells them to go to bed at night. Kind of training them! ha ha
Thanks for sharing your videos! That is awesome. I need a few more chicken coop doors soon, I have the parts for one already but will look into your setup for the others. I like it!
Thanks so much for the kind words, really appreciate it, just starting out, it really helps when people comment and share their thoughts! Keeps me motivated. It was a fun build!
@@hagonshomestead I just wanted to show you my latest video demoing a SONOFF 4CHPROR3 WiFi and RF Remote Controlled, with Return Up/Down Safety Feature, with Alarm (alarm not hooked up, but goes off if the door did not close all the way). In the background you can see the two channel timer I linked to above. It can be wired in the same way.
czcams.com/video/L_Hxdk-X5fE/video.html
Hey, I went with this setup and my brand new battery that I expected to last 2 months between charges is dead in 3 days. Is this constantly pulling current or do I have a bad battery?
Hi, it probably does pull current but it would be minimal. What type of battery and how many amp hours?
What are the breeds of chickens do you have now and with one is your favorite one
Sorry for my delay, this is my businesses busy time of year. Below are some of our bird breeds.
Bbs ameraucana , black copper maran, chocolate maran, barred rock, sex link, columbian rock, buff Orpington, black Orpington, chocolate ameraucana, leghorns, f2 olive eggers, silkies, polish
In terms of my favourite, it depends on for what. For pets the smaller birds like Blue and Stimpy are cool. For eggs the buffs and for overall durability the Ameraucana's are probably the most durable at least in our experience thus far.
Couldn't you use a doorbell transformer to convert your house AC to DC to run this system instead of a battery?
Hi, not sure, it’s possible, we wanted solar for the coop so I didn’t think of anything different. You can but ac to dc converters online. They are pretty cheap and am actually using one in our coop for a different reason. If you try it with a doorbell transformer let me know how it goes.
Do you have a wiring digram i can have / copy?
Sorry I don't, but it does tell you where the wires go in the description.
Wiring video please
I might do a wiring video one day but it’s not on the list at the moment as I am not keeping up with my current videos. I did put the wiring instructions in the description.
Can I ask if you have diagram And block diagram
Hi sorry I do not. I do list what wire goes to what location in the description.
oh wow. so it just stops at it's maximum and minimum automatically 16:30
Yes once it’s fully extended it will stop and also when it’s fully retracted.
I'm curious why you built your own when it looks like the cost of materials is almost the same as a prefab one.
Hi I am not sure where you are located but a 20x8x10, insulated with interior walls… would be way more to buy here. Plus shipping as well. Still very expensive because of recent price increases. There are other solutions like shipping containers, old semi trailers… that would be cheaper but none where available when I was looking.
I can answer that one..... Because all the ones prefabbed ...they are flimsy ...either plastic.... or thin aluminum... just for the record, a coon is strong. Very strong ... i had one rip the aluminum vent off the gable end of my shed and bend it back to get to the dogfood..
They do make sturdier ones but now you're getting into hundreds of dollars....
I would agree, I may buy a pre done unit but only because I don’t have time to build something. But for the most part building your own is worth it as you can build it stronger and to the specs you want.
@@hagonshomestead i almost bought one myself.. I decided I just needed a way to open it in the morning...
I wound up:
buying a couple electronic door latches and a couple of springs to pull the doors open when the solenoids are triggered. . One for the henhouse , and one for the coop door ..
I purchased the same timer/trigger you got ...(thats what brought mento your video) and I already have plenty of 12v relays and a couple of capacitors to jump across the relay contacts to keep them from arcing and eventually sticking closed . You might want to add a cap to yours too if you haven't already..(I'm a Ham and build my own radios and linear amplifiers so plenty of parts on hand)
I don't have to be awake in the morning all the time.. now all I need is a way to spread the feed in the morning.. my birds are totally free ranging chickens with 2 acres fenced in.
I close them up at night . Thats when when we spend most of our time with them..thats why I only needed info on the timer and was interested in that timer ... and thanks for the info on that....
@@hagonshomestead i finally got iot in ... was trying to program the 101a but haven't figured out how to get it to do the duration to seconds.. all I see is mins ... all i need is 10 seconds... any ideas?
This might be the video on wiring you were talking about. czcams.com/video/0atVV06AXV4/video.html&ab_channel=WillWorkForLiberty
Something is not right… It should not be making that noise
It’s still working fine. A little quieter now. I have 3 more in use and they are just loud motors.
broadens. Didn't like the automatic door opener
Just curious what you didn't like about it. All ours have worked fine.