Almost Automatic Door-Pop's version

After several raid's by the raccoon's I decided that locking up the chickens every night was the best (in my case) decision.
One day at a garage sale I spied an old TV antenna rotator and the light came on. Thru trial and error I figured out the minimum and maximum settings that I would need to raise and lower the door. Note the black marks on the controller in pic. #1. Picture #2 shows the actuator mounted to a piece of plywood. On the right side is the muffler clamp that secures the short piece of antenna pipe. On the left side (partly covered by the wires) is the end with the carriage bolt welded on. I used a carriage bolt because of the square part just under the head. The aluminum arm in pic. #3 was drilled and filed out to slide over this square and then secured with a lock washer and nut. Don't have to worry about it slipping.
Picture #3 shows the outside arm that raised and closes the chicken door. The arm that extends downward prevents the door from being opened by those pesky varmints. Note in the lower corner of this arm is a bolt which secures a small L bracket just to make sure that it stays secure. Picture #4 shows the backside of this arm and a carriage bolt.
Picture #5 shows the door closed. The arm attached to it is not necessary and will be removed when I re-install the opener. Not visible is a small cable that connects the door to the upper arm.
I originally thought that I would run cable to our house and mounting the controller there but after remembering that ditches don't dig easy in Texas I'll set it up in the feed room side of the chicken house.
continued in next posting

picture #1
Edit to make picture link work.

Quote:
I know what you mean! And I want to see this door!

Load the pics from your camera into whatever file you want to store them in on your computer. I use "My Pictures". Do your editing, etc. and save them.

Come back to BYC, click on the "Uploads" button in the blue bar above. It will open in a smaller window. Click browse, find the pic file, double click the pic to load. Resize by checking the box and selecting the message board option. Click submit.

It will say it loaded properly. Click on back, bottom right, to upload another pic, and so on.

When you want to post them: Open your topic/post window. Click on Uploads above, it will open in a smaller window again. Bottom right in Uploads window there will be a button, My Uploads. Click that, choose the pic you want to post and right click the lower of the two links under the pic. Copy and paste that into your topic/post window.

The link will appear, just type a caption or title. It will show up as a pic when you submit the post.

Clear as mud, eh? Good luck!

All that typing and you GOT IT!

picture #2

picture #3

picture #4

picture #5
That's the final picture, now how would I get them all together instead of 4 different posts. Also you'll have to lay down to view 2 of them.
The markings on the controller don't show up very well but they're at the 7 and 9 clock position.
Again any questions ask away. If it requires a picture you may be in trouble.
The door is clear plexiglass and it's really installed. One of the chickens keeps it clean.

All of you that laid down to view the pictures can get up now. Whew. I think I'll go build a pyramid or something, got to be easier than posting pictures.
I've hooked up a electric timer and can either open or close the door at a specific time. Here's the drill. Let's say the chickens are in the house for the night and the door is closed. The timer has turned off, I set the controller to UP. In the morning at whatever time the timer is set for power comes on, the actuator drives to the UP position and shuts off automatically. Some time during the day I manually turn the controller to the DOWN position and at the specified time the door closes. Now to get it to automatically open in the morning I have to go out and reset the controller but I can live with that for now. I'm hoping that someone will have a better idea. hint hint

Quote:
So funny. Thank you for taking time to sort it out.