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Motorized glass door

franktank

Hi all

 

I am not an EE but my projects frequently make me put on that hat. Lol.

 

My ma has requested an automated system to open the sliding glass door for her dog.

 

The typical dog door inserts really won't work as her dog is a monstrosity and would get stuck in or smash the biggest ones I've seen, and if we built one to fit, the door would be useless.

 

The idea so far is a motor and a track to open the door. That sounds easy.

 

What I need your help to figure out would be some form of (arduino/raspberry pi) based RFID sniffing controller. Would need adjustable sensitivity for the sensor, and some means of overriding it so a person could open it or lock the dogs out, etc.

 

I welcome all ideas!

 

Thanks.

 

Frank

Parents

  • If it is programmed with Arduino the code could detect force maybe and reverse, or a sensor like garage doors use...

  • in reply to bradnorwood

    True but ...........

     

    A while ago I designed a sophisticated autoclave controller for a company with no experience of fancy electronics or software (but they knew lot about high pressure steam and electro- mechanical control systems). Their first thought was that the PC with the user interface would be able to do all the safety interlocks. To help them understand why not I suggested that they should view the electronic control system as a fairly smart homicidal maniac whose sole aim in life was to lull them into a false sense of security and then wind the autoclave up to full pressure and temperature and open the door. (Such an event being capable of taking out a reasonable sized building ! (About 750l of steam at 140C, very roughly 2.5Mj = 0.5 kg of TNT).

    The final design used an Atmell AVR based low level controller (not an Arduino) and a PC running embedded Windows for the user interface. The mechanical and electro-mechanical was designed so that with two faults in the low level stuff (ie not including either processor or ANY software) then it was, as far as we could make it, impossible for an unsafe event to occur.

     

    Your door isn't as dangerous but the same mindset should apply - assume the software does the worst possible thing, and then design so no dogs are harmed !

     

    MK

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  • in reply to bradnorwood

    True but ...........

     

    A while ago I designed a sophisticated autoclave controller for a company with no experience of fancy electronics or software (but they knew lot about high pressure steam and electro- mechanical control systems). Their first thought was that the PC with the user interface would be able to do all the safety interlocks. To help them understand why not I suggested that they should view the electronic control system as a fairly smart homicidal maniac whose sole aim in life was to lull them into a false sense of security and then wind the autoclave up to full pressure and temperature and open the door. (Such an event being capable of taking out a reasonable sized building ! (About 750l of steam at 140C, very roughly 2.5Mj = 0.5 kg of TNT).

    The final design used an Atmell AVR based low level controller (not an Arduino) and a PC running embedded Windows for the user interface. The mechanical and electro-mechanical was designed so that with two faults in the low level stuff (ie not including either processor or ANY software) then it was, as far as we could make it, impossible for an unsafe event to occur.

     

    Your door isn't as dangerous but the same mindset should apply - assume the software does the worst possible thing, and then design so no dogs are harmed !

     

    MK

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