Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
Automatic chicken door time input (low power, simple)
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NivagSwerdna:
I haven't completely read the thread but I do notice...

Accepted you don't have the geometry for a sliding door... however you seem to assume this needs lots of power... my Aluminium sliding door opens and closes every day and I only have to change the 4xAA batteries every two years or so.

If you want a RTC.... A DS3231 module is hard to beat value wise... I actually buy them just for the parts which I transfer to my own PCBs. The 1Hz output can be used to wake from sleep if required.  Like any clock there is an error... but it is small.... however you open up the can of worms that is setting the clock.



Amper:
Oh, im sure sliding doors take less power but its just mechanically not possible in the location im in. Also as i said the mechanical part is not a problem at all, its working perfectly fine with very little power. one AA battery contains roughly 10kJ and assuming ill use 4 and it takes 100J a day with my existing door a set will last around one year ignoring self discharge and disadvantages at low/ high temperatures. Though thats exactly what i said in my original post. My problem is not a power source, that was never an issue, just everyone thought it was. Also setting and operating the rtc never was an issue to me, just look at my picture of the data logger at the first page, i have done all of this before. My issue is only how to do manual setting of the opening and closing times without damaging my power consumption or making a lot of effort in programming easy to use UI with a lot of changes in power management to get my standby current below 10uA again.
spec:
Hi Amper

What fun this thread is. We used to have four chickens and good layers they were. They were very much creatures of habit and would start getting anxious when the sun started going down and go into their coop for the night. And at sun-up they would be fussing to be free in the garden, especially as we spoilt them to hell with little treats. They were battery hens rather than mains and when their feathers grew, I taught two of them to fly a bit.

I too have thought about a solution to Mr *&%#! fox and the best low-tech approach that I came up with, is to have a medium size, but aggressive dog living with the chickens to look after them. You would not need to worry about locking doors or anything else then.

An alternative approach is to have the chickens unlock the door themselves- don't laugh...yet

So how does the chicken operated lock work:

Chickens are not the brightest of birds, but they are not totally dumb either, especially when food is concerned. So what I table is two pads, one just outside the door and one just inside the door, which the chickens have to peck a number of times before the door opens. Of course, a new chicken would not know what to do, but it would not take long for them to learn, especially if their food is in the coop. I was going to try this approach out, but our chickens left for a posher neighborhood before I got around to it. But I did try out a few similar tasks for them to carry out before they got a treat, and they managed without any problem. They weren't very good with simultaneous equations though.

The actual keypad could be made so that only a chickens beak could operate it, so that any smart-arse fox, even if he knew the code, would not be able to operate the lock with his paw or nose, but I think it is unlikely that a fox would figure out how to operate the lock anyway.

I will get my coat now. :palm:
NivagSwerdna:
In my other thread I devised, aided and abetted by Ian M et al., a device that extended my door gadget to allow manual override of the door opening times... it has two buttons, UP and DOWN (with LEDs in the buttons),,, allows.. UP (until next close), UP(always), DOWN(until next open), DOWN(always) by either a short or long press (and the ability to cancel a currently working override).  Seems that such a combo could be extended to allow an UP to set the opening time everyday and the DOWN to set the closing time every day.  So the user just needs to be present once at OPEN time and once at CLOSE time to set the system.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/4-aa-cells-direct-to-pic/msg1219663/#msg1219663
Amper:
Thats actually a really sweet idea! Also it will work very nicely when some day the battery in the rtc fails because it wont care about the absolute time. ill consider this! Also it would make it really easy to write every "correction command" to an sd card so after a few months or even a year i could get a graph and know exactly which times will be suitable for closing.

The chicken training method sounds fun as well, just im afraid they will sit at the door all day expecting food :D  Also sadly we have a bunch of mice and sparrows round, they will likely learn it as well and roam the place at night.

EDIT:
Also a litte OT: There is a children's book in wich chicken are solen by a fox so they build a chicken from a pepper filled balloon attached to a bunch of fireworks:

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