Ian Downard recently built a solar powered chicken coop door to make it easier to give his chickens time to be in the yard.
The system is powered by our 3.4 Watt solar panel and V15 battery in Always On Mode. Ian uses a Beagle Bone to drive servo motors to open and shut the door and a timer to shut the system on and off. The timer is the critical part of the system as it dramatically cuts power usage and allows everything to run on a relatively small panel.
Here’s the video:
Neat project! I hadn’t heard of a BeagleBone computer until just now.
Thanks. Now to figure out how to run a servo or two with one. 🙂
Nice video Jeff..Can you please let us know which timer circuit board Ian used?
This one … http://ccgi.cottonpickers.plus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=493
Ours don’t have any problems lingering in the run, etc close to dusk. They all head back to their roost on their own each night. I think Ian (my hubbie) sets the close time a little after sunset just to ensure they’re all back.
So how do you automate getting the chickens back in?
Fair question – we’ll need to ask Ian, but my (limited) experience with chickens is that this is better for letting them out then getting them back in.