Overhead Garage Door Controlling, the fancy way

[apostolakisl]

Just started implementing a new fancy way to do the garage. I have rigged my door to report back to the Elk 4 different status'.

 

1) Closed (secure)

2) Not secure, not moving

3) Not secure, moving up

4) Not secure, moving down

 

I did this by using a friction device mounted to the end of the bar that the counter balance springs attach to. The friction device is a block of wood with a hole drilled in it the size of the bar and a slit and a spring mounted just outside the slit squezzing it against the bar. when the bar spins during motion, the block of wood tries to spin with it, but instead it hits a stop and the bar just spins inside the piece of wood. There is a switch on the block of wood that when it hits the stop closes. The switch has a NO and NC port on it. When spinning one way, it closes the switch, and when spinning the other way the switch opens. The switch has 2 resistors on it, one on the NO side and one on the NC side. One of the resistors is 6800 ohms and the other is 15000 ohms.

 

I opened the garage door opener and put a relay on the same power leads that go to the motor. When the motor is operating, the relay closes.

 

The normally closed leads of the relay connects the alarm wire hot lead to the normal garage door contact then to the neutral. It thus shows the normal 7.6v and 13.8v when secure/not secure.

 

When the garage door is moving, the relay shunts the alarm hot lead to the NO/NC switch mounted to the spring bar. Depending on which way it is going, the power either goes through the 6800 ohm or 15000 ohm resistor and then to neutral.

 

The end result is 4 different voltages at the elk depending on what is going on.

 

1) Secure = 7.6v

2) Not Secure, not moving = 13.8v

3) Not Secure, moving up = 10.7v

4) Not Secure, moving down = 11.9v

 

None of these voltage are trouble voltages so the Elk is happy with all of them. The elk considers 4.0 to 8.8v to be secure. So all of the voltages except the 7.6 read as violated zone to the Elk from an alarm standpoint. As long as nothing goes below 4v, it does not give you a "short" trouble code.

 

I wrote a series of programs that control the door. Basically, I push a keyfob to close the door and arm. ISY queries the zone voltage. If it indicates the door is going up, it stops the door, waits 2 seconds, and starts the door going the other way. If it detects the door is stationary and not secure, it "pushes the button" to close, then checks to make sure it is going down, if not, it runs the first program to stop it and turn it around. If it detects the door is going down, it does nothing. After 10 seconds, it checks the status of the door and emails me if it isn't secure.

[Ishmael]

I can somewhat envision what you are describing, but this is one of those cases where a picture of the friction device would really help solidify my understanding of how you did this. Would you mind sharing one?

 

Thanks.

 

Chris

[apostolakisl]

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/imag0071n.jpg/

 

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/68 ... 073bw.jpg/

 

You can't see the switch becaue it is on the backside of the block. But you see the piece of wood with the metal pole going through it, mounted to the other side of it and sticking off the right edge jut enough, when the pole spins counter clockwise it pushes the switch against the piece of wood and closes the normally open contact switching electrical flow from the resistor attached to the normally closed to the normally open.

 

It isn't the most beautiful thing in the world, but it works. It has actually been working for about 6 months now, but I just finally got around to doing the programming.

[TJF1960]

Hats off to you apostolakisl! Very clever. Makes me wish I had an Elk alarm!

[apostolakisl]

Here is a video

 

[sanders2222]

Do you have a schematic that shows how the relay, switches and resistors are wired into the ELK?

[apostolakisl]