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Garage Door sensor project

Former Member

This is my first ever electronics project and I want to start out small and add on more features later.

 

I want to do this first project with a Pi. Maybe later add an Andrino to it. I am an experienced Pyton programmer (and c, java. c#, etc).

 

The pi will be installed near my garage door and a garage door sensor will provide the opened/closed state of the garage door to the andrino.

There will be a standard 110v power strip connected to relays on the Pi. The pi will control the on/off state of the power strip. Everything is wired, no wireless.

The ethernet on the pi will allow me to use ipcontrol to send "on/off' commands to the power strip from remote devices.

 

What parts exactly do I need to do this project? My best guess is:

 

-pi3
-relay board rated for 110v

-wire

-soldering iron

-what kind(s) of solder I need?

-5v power supply
-hdmi monitor to view the status of the system (already have this)

-sd card (what size)

-ethernet cable

 

If anybody could provide links to the element14 parts I need it would be great to get everything ordered correctly the first time.

  • Hi Thomas,

     

    For a first electronics project it may be good to keep the mains supply as separated as possible; it would be hard to do it much more economically than this device (I've not tried it). It appears to use standards like SNMP so it should be straightforward to control from a R-PI.

    Alternatively, you could use (say) a PiFace Digital to control an off-board relay (e.g. one with screw connectors on a base and enclose the entire thing and to design to ensure that it is safe - not easy for a first project).

     

    To get started with the RPI, you need a power supply (at least 1A) and the SD card as you mention; there is a quick start guide here.

     

    To display status, you may just want to use a couple of LEDs - more cost-effective than a HDMI monitor for your application. These can be directly interfaced using the PiFace Digital.

     

    In summary, get a Pi, power supply (there will be a recommended one [other ones may not work for some reasons] for your region on the Farnell site) and the PiFace Digital and you're ready to experiment. Resist the temptation to power anything mains-related directly from the Pi or the PiFace Digital - they are not designed for mains, no matter what the on-board relays state.

     

    For electronics projects, purchase a small-tipped soldering iron (preferably a temperature controlled one) and some solder - lots of recommendations if you search on the forum (depends on your budget). A temperature controlled iron for $60-$100 could be a ballpark for a first soldering iron.

  • Thomas, there are some awesome derived projects happening over on the OpenSprinkler Pi forums, including an add-on garage door sensor and control function. Check out this thread: http://rayshobby.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=242

     

    You'll absolutely love what's happening there--building on top of a well-designed mobile web ui for controlling sprinklers, not to mention Ray's excellent add-on board for the RPi to enable 24VAC power, triacs to control 8 solenoids, 4 A/D inputs and 1 D/A output, plus an integrated real time clock. Got more than 8 devices to control? Use Ray's extension add-on boards.

     

    I'm using that platform to construct a pool water chemistry monitor. It gives me a tremendous head-start.

     

    With Ray's recent addition of the A/D input port, a colleague quipped "Cool! Now you can set your sprinklers to music!". I guess that could apply to garage doors now! Too funny!