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DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

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Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#31

Post by tengbretson »

I have an automatic chicken coop door from the company Run-Chicken. It is one of the most brilliantly designed products I've ever owned. It has an app for setting up the opening and closing rules, which can be rather sophisticated, based on both time and light conditions.

The device itself has no WIFI, bluetooth, or a radio of any kind. To program the device, you push a button to put it into a programming mode, then hold your phone up to its photo sensor, and it will flash the screen in a sequence of black and white to relay the encoded settings.

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#32

Post by wiredfool »

daveevad wrote: post #29
wiredfool wrote: post #25

I did this in the Raspberry Pi 1 era. * Pi for timing/wifi/status/webserver. * Opened at 8am, closed at civil twilight. Or whenever I hit the button on the webserver, or the switch board. * Limit switches. * Mechanical swing lock for raccoon protection * Electric drill + rope for the vertical sliding door * Relay for direction, power mosfet for the drive controller. * Intermediate board between the 3.3v controller an…

> Turns out that the LOS between the wifi dongle and the AP went through the roost, and chickens absorb enough wifi signal to drop it off the net. That sounds like a chicken motion detection system to me.

Chicken presence anyway.

I tell you the bugs you see when deploying something in the real world...

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#34

Post by djbusby »

wiredfool wrote: post #32
daveevad wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Turns out that the LOS between the wifi dongle and the AP went through the roost, and chickens absorb enough wifi signal to drop it off the net. That sounds like a chicken motion detection system to me.

Chicken presence anyway. I tell you the bugs you see when deploying something in the real world...

Field work always finds the "what the heck" bugs that lab work never could.

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#36

Post by sudobash1 »

xavxav wrote: post #18

A project I've always toyed with in my head is a fancier version that would count / verify the checks have all entered the coop at closing time and warn you if not. With my parents coop occasionally a chicken will decide to brave the night outside, often to disastrous consequences. Figuring out how to build a low-energy version is challenging, but necessary since the whole system runs off small solar panels and a 12v…

I would suggest that you don't need to count the chickens. You could also just verify that none are left out. There are presence sensors (such as the ones that turn lights on when someone comes into a room, or off when everyone is gone). If you had one that worked on chickens pointed into their run, you could close the door when there are none left (plus a time cutoff if Henrietta really wants to keep her trist with the raccoon).

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#37

Post by wiredfool »

mtreis86 wrote: post #20
hedora wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chickens are incredibly dirty animals. The limit switches would probably be fouled (fowled?) pretty quickly. Commercial versions of this can measure motor load (via current), but still require manual calibration. I wonder if they thought they could get away with manual calibration, but couldn’t make it reliable. I think these people are the market leaders: https://www.chickenguard.com/ Note that the commercial versio…

Limit switches for all sorts of terrible environments exist. These would probably work https://www.mcmaster.com/products/switches/environmental-rat...

I used something like this: https://www.mcmaster.com/products/lever-switches/subminiatur...

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#38

Post by mk_stjames »

wiredfool wrote: post #25

I did this in the Raspberry Pi 1 era. * Pi for timing/wifi/status/webserver. * Opened at 8am, closed at civil twilight. Or whenever I hit the button on the webserver, or the switch board. * Limit switches. * Mechanical swing lock for raccoon protection * Electric drill + rope for the vertical sliding door * Relay for direction, power mosfet for the drive controller. * Intermediate board between the 3.3v controller an…

What happens if the door closes at night and one or more chickens aren't already inside? Is that a thing that happens? Do they pretty much always go inside at the same time every evening? Is it bad if one gets left out alone?

I know nothing about chicken coops.

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#39

Post by finnjohnsen2 »

The esp32 devboards are magnificent, as it is so easy to replace the need for official Arduino boards

- Arduino compatible

- platformIO supported

- very cheap

- they are usually tiny

- great wifi and Bluetooth

- gpio pins for the different protocols (i2c etc)

- easy to power (tolerance and options in usb and pins)

- lots of exciting new models and active development like the esp32c3, the D1 minis and different models with integrated oleds are cool

- community resources. there are massive amount of blogpost and YouTube videos for esp32 (and Arduino in general)

cons are few;

- 3.3v signal is a hassle quite often in practise

- the amount of different esp32 devboards models can get confusing

- the pins are sometimes shared-purpose and it's not always clear which you can use

- China. Both practical for delivery time, and politically

Re: DIY ESP32 based chicken coop door. Control based on time, light or via app

#40

Post by elromulous »

mk_stjames wrote: post #38
wiredfool wrote: post #25

I did this in the Raspberry Pi 1 era. * Pi for timing/wifi/status/webserver. * Opened at 8am, closed at civil twilight. Or whenever I hit the button on the webserver, or the switch board. * Limit switches. * Mechanical swing lock for raccoon protection * Electric drill + rope for the vertical sliding door * Relay for direction, power mosfet for the drive controller. * Intermediate board between the 3.3v controller an…

What happens if the door closes at night and one or more chickens aren't already inside? Is that a thing that happens? Do they pretty much always go inside at the same time every evening? Is it bad if one gets left out alone? I know nothing about chicken coops.

A former colleague of mine spent a bunch of time adding computer vision to his coup control project for exactly this reason.

But turns out, chickens just naturally go into the coup at sunset and it's completely unnecessary.

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