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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…
Problems I've had with the chickenguard (I still use it, and probably won't stop, it's good enough with modifications) The tracks will get warped over time if exposed to moisture. I don't live in a particularly wet place, and it's partially covered, but the wooden tracks warped, and the door would get jammed. The string will get tangled and quickly finish off the batteries if the door is jammed or the batteries get l…
I did have to disassemble it and untangle the string from the spool and motor once after initial setup.