Inspired by one of Nate's Konnected video's (https://youtu.be/nlv3w3IvJ44) I was inspired to integrate a Konnected DIY board to Chamberlain garage door control. While many of garage door openers use a momentary switch to activate the garage door my Chamberlain system didn't. So the initial challenge was to discover how to implement a simple momentary contact to activate the door on my system.
So I disassembled the Chamberlain Wall Mounted Mutifunction Control Panel to gain access to the PCB. Knowing the activation was a button push I located the only monetary switch on the PCB labeled (SW1). Then using my multi-meter I checked for continuity on the four (4) SW1 pins (see pic) when the switch was activated and found that the pins located diagonally across from each other closed with the switch activated. So I soldered a wire leads from a pair of pins opposite of each other and extended them outside of the door opener case.
Not knowing if the voltage or noise levels that maybe present on these leads I choose to isolate them with a normally open relay and not directly connect them to the DIY PCB. Next I used the Konnected smart app to configure the DIY PCB board pins GND, D8 as a momentary switch to activate the relay.
With hardware in hand, I strapped together the system for an initial test (see pic) and it was a success! Of course when I showed the wife she wasn't impressed. Her only meaningful comment was it looked horrible and dangerous taped to the wall. So the next step was to package it in a wife approved container. In fact, she mentioned that a travel soap container looked like it would work. So, I let my fingers do the shopping and ordered a couple of black plastic clam shell travel soap containers from Amazon. I have to say after a few mods to the container to allow for a 12VDC power plug and wiring leads from the door PCB things were looking good (see pic).
Since I intended to automate the door opening and closing with a presence sensor I wanted to add an audible alert anytime the door was activated to ensure anyone in the area was aware of the movement. So I used a Smartthing Multipurpose sensor configured as a garage door sensor and mounted on the garage door. This sensor provides the open/closed status on the door and also has accelerometer feedback. So with a couple of smart apps I now have a complete system which detects a presence sensor to activate the doors, monitors the accelerometers and activates the piezo buzzer to produce an audible alert when the door moments is detected. (see pic).
Garage Door Control PCB
Prototype
Haha, not surprised at the wife's response. At least she didn't say "It worked fine before you took it apart."
Nice looking, clean install in the end. Kudos!
I am working on a similar setup with my garage doors. I have about $50 in credit to Ponoko that I'm going to use and have them laser cut an enclosure for me and I am going to mount it near the opener.
Have you noticed any excess heat in your enclosure? Those open pins on the DIY Konnected look pretty bare.
Great point on the temperature. Given I live in Texas and the summer temps can exceed 100 Deg F.
As a point of reference I just measured the temperature with a infrared thermometer.
Outside Air Temp: 68 °F
Garage Wall: 72 °F
Black Enclosure: 76 °F
DIY ESP8266 Processor Inside Enclosure: 86 °F
DIY ESP8266 Processor In Ambient Air: 84 °F
Given the delta temperature inside and enclosure and outside is only 2 °F it doesn't appear the enclosure has any significant impact.
When the ambient air temperature reaches 100 °F which is 32 °F higher then today's temperature then add that 32 °F to the 86 °F to get a 118 °F or approximately 48 °C.
If I recall correctly, most commercial grade electronics operating temperature limits are from 0 °C to 70 °C which means the worst case temperature (48 °C) is only ~70% of rated temperature (70 °C).
-Cheers
@Vishal,
To ensure that we each are configuring our systems in identical ways I've create a block diagram of my system configuration.
In the upper right is a picture of the Multi function wall switch circuit card. It depicts the two wires that I soldered to the SW1 switch and then interconnect with the 5VDC Relay Normally Open Contacts. To activate the door using the Konnected Smart App I configured Pin D8 as a momentary switch that when pressed will energize Pin D8 which is connected to the relay IN contact. When D8 is energized the 5VDC relay will be activated and relay contacts will close. With the relay contacts closed the jumper wires soldered to the SW1 switch will activate the garage door.
Note: I haven't made any other modifications to the standard garage door system. The wires which interconnect from the Wall Mounted switch and the Garage Motor unit (circled in ORANGE) and the two (2) sensors mounted at the bottom of the garage rails and their 2 pairs of interconnected with the Garage Motor unit (circled in RED) from the Wall Mounted are identical to a standard installation.
If you have a different configuration then mine can you provide a configuration diagram and perhaps I can identify any issues.
-Greg
@Greg. Apologies for the delayed response and I still haven't checked everything. There is been so much going on in the house and I am a first time homeowner. With that said, I compared my config with your diagram and there are basically 2 differences. 1) I don't have a piezo buzzer yet 2) My garage door opener has 2 points where I can connect the wires from the relay to like in the article which is on Konnected website. I have connected my NO & COM one to each point, again just like the help article. The only thing needs to be checked is if the wires are tightly plugged into 1 & 2 points for the wall button and both sensors. Will check that and post the update here.
Vishal,
After reading your last reply I now recognize that my configuration for activating the garage door is different than your configuration. In your setup you are activating the garage door using a relay which momentarily closes. When the relay is closes it connects the two terminals from your garage door opener together which mimics a momentary button push to activate the opener.
The model of my Chamberlain opener does NOT activate by momentarily connecting the two terminals. Therefore I had to hack the wall mounted controller to mimic a button push. The hack involves attaching two wire across the momentary button in the controller which are then attached to the NO relay. So when the NO relay momentarily closes it mimics the button push of the wall controller.
Cheers,
Greg