A friend also wanted to protect his chickens. He is involved in selling windows, doors and shutters and so on. Therefore we decided to built a shutter for his chicken coop.
Thanks for your interest. I built this a long time ago and it still works! The rotation direction of the 12 volt DC motor with gearbox is switched by a "H-bridge" circuit. A relay swithches the power to this circuit and motor on and off. The signals for the H-bridge and relay are generated with a small logic circuit consisting of a 4011 (4 NAND gates) IC. The inputs for this logic come from (1) a comparator IC connected to a light dependent resistor and (2) the on/off status of the 2 magnetic switches (reed) at the extremes of the coop entrance. A magnet in one of the shutter blades activates the switches. I did not use a microcontroller (Arduino...) because the system needs to be able to run on a 12 volt battery for long periods.
@@zeesteen "A relay swithches the power to this circuit and motor on and off. The signals for the H-bridge and relay are generated with a small logic circuit consisting of a 4011 (4 NAND gates) IC. " relay AND 4 NAND? Why? You could have just used either or. You also could have just used two simple photocell modules. " Can you post the equipment that you used?" In any case It looks OK. How strong is that shutter? Why is the motor and most of it exposed to the elements? I have one like this made from industrial conveyor belt. Same concept but my is worm gear driven.
@@AztecWarrior69_69 Hi, thanks for your interest in this project. As to the mechanical properties: The shutter is made of aluminium filled with insulation foam so quite strong. The roll has to turn very slowly, therefore there is a gear with a worm wheel on the motor. It has a lot of momentum. Over the construction there is a little roof, so there is enough protection from water. It is not that easy to switch the motor with simple photocells and relays: the outputs to the motor are ON or OFF, FORWARD or REVERSE. The inputs to the electronics are: LIGHT or DARK, shutter fully open, fully closed or inbetween. I could have swithched this using a small microprocessor but this would draw current the whole time and the system has to be able to run remotely on a battery. It has been some years since I built this, I'd have to look for the schematics in some drawers. All the best with your projects!
@@zeesteen "It is not that easy to switch the motor with simple photocells and relays" Actually it is VERY simple to do, otherwise I would have not asked "why not JUST". Video below is one example how it can be done with simple and cheap photocell modules, that use less than 0.001 amps per day. Even a small 12v 5aH battery with a small solar panel can sustain this for years. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gNbgvKYlEBc.html Here is another one. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-t2-CO6T_roc.html In this video I show how it can be done with two timers. However the same concept is shown if you don't look at the "Day Timer" and "Night Timer" as timers but just relays with switches. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-aYv3-aVQEOY.html BTW "It is not that easy to switch the motor with simple photocells and relays", people have used relays to do just that for as long as there been motors and relays. Automatic door locks and windows have used relays for ever in cars. They even sell a harness to make it a simple wiring job. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--HLkvI-oJ1A.html If you find the schematic, post it. It be a good thing to see.
