Garage door

A project at the moment has very close street frontage and I am reluctant to use any kind of sensor to trigger a welcome home scene as passers by and traffic will most certainly play constant havoc. So what I would like to do is trigger a welcome home scene using the garage door opener, I searched some threads and most guys want to control the garage door, I want to use it to trigger a scene. The opener is a steel-line unit with a 24 volt output (Not sure if this is a constant 24v untill garage door reaches it's limits or wether it simply gves a momentary burst each time the garage door is open or shut. Can I use a NO/NC relay connected to the 24v DC output of the motor and then the voltage free side of the relay connected to a Bus coupler to tigger a welcome home scene, I have a PAC as I would need to create some logic around that trigger to ensure correct and reliable operation. Is this the best way of achieving this, Has somebody done this or something similar, and of course, many thanks for any help...


Cheers Gavin...

 

Use a roller shutter contact.

 

Thanks BSS, I think honeywell have one. Are you or is anyone familiar with the steel-line garage doors, There is no reference to the 24V output on the motor at all in the Installation manual and how they work. I will try to contact them I think for more information. Thanks for everything guys...

Gav...

 

gav, don't waste your time playing around with the motor or lamps on the controller. Use a r/s contact as it is easy and painless to use and install . Any security supplier sells them. The only cabling you generally attach is to the controller for external control of the door by other devices such as alarm system, outside reader or keypad control, phone or intercom control, c-bus switch, rf device, keyswitch or additional egress point. It is usually a momentary short across 2 pins located externally on the controller or if it does not have those terminals then i find the rf output pin inside and trigger from that. Beware of different polarities being used to switch the door used by different brands of systems. Some use positive and some use negative and most have no protection to cover your mistake if you get it wrong. Another good reason not to play with it is who covers the cost of warranty to repair the door controller when it goes faulty if you have played with it.

 

hmmm, a little confused, does this mean when the door is open on 'leaving' the house a welcome home scene will be triggered?

Another suggestion would be to use an occupancy sensor inside the garage to turn the garage lights on and do the 'welcoming' from a key input (in the garage).

Cheers

Grant

 

Security system?

1/ Does the house have a security system installed?

2/ Does the roller door have a contact wired to the security system?, or

3/ Is the garage covered by its own security PIR?

4/ Can the security panel be programmed for event based relay outputs?

If the answers to the above are yes then you can wire a bus-coupler to the relay output of the alarm panel and trigger scenes from alarm events.

Regards,

Peter Brown.

 

A lot of manufacturers make a receiver that has change over contacts built in so that you can use one company's remote with another brand of garage door.

If you get one from the manufacturer of your door motor and teach it the same button as the door you can then trigger the scene through an aux input module. The only problem is that when you shut the door the scene will be triggered as well.

If the remote has multiple buttons (as mine does) then you can teach it one of the other buttons and then the users gets to choose of they want the scene triggered.

This removes the door from the equation completely.

I do this with my ata door and C/O receiver. The remote has four buttons. One opens the door, the other turns on and off the lights in the shed - while its not a scene, it does the job. It means that I can get into the car with the lights on and turn them off on the way out and turn them on when I return - much safer than fumbling in the dark for a switch.

Mick

 

What he said !

The door reed switch of the garage can also be used as a trigger point.

 

You could go all out and put an induction loop to detect the presence of a vehicle or maybe a PE cell to do the same.

Ie
if door open & no vehicle
then
welcome home

if door open & vehicle detected
then
goodbye

etc

 

What if it is a six car garage.

 

Id be happy to quote the job to put 6 induction loops in... ;-)

 

Seriously though it could be done with a FIFO stack im not sure if the PAC would be upto that level of coding.. might have to dust off the Allen Bradley manuals.

But I subscribe to the KISS method and would advise the user to use an extra button on the keyfob to ARM/DISARM the alarm system which in turn would activate the welcome home / goodbye scene (using a bus coupler from a relay card on the alarm panel).

The problem with overly complex features is debugging them...

I could write the code to achive the logic for a six car garage in an hour or so but then spend a week idiot proofing it so the alarm didn't go off when the lawnmover gets rolled around the garage...

 

Not entirely convinced that I use every key on the keyboard unless I am cyber-swearing $%^&*. Needless to say that I am compelled in the same way to use some features less often than others.

 

Induction loops are so yesterdays technology

Have a look at the Banner M-Gage unit - cut a slot in the concrete and install it - all done
http://www.bannerengineering.com/products/subfam.php?subi_id=378

There is one for under the concrete as well

mick

 

A possible solution

Hi Guys,

Firstly the project does not have a security system, so any ideas regarding that are out of the question. I can see a few options thanks to everyone here on the website and an old friend with whom I talked to today, who is quite Knowledgable with C-Bus. The roller shutter contact should work, by conecting to a Bus coupler and tiggering a welcome home scene when the contact is opened on tyhe roller shutter. I have a PAC in the project. (correct me if I am on the wrong path), I have a Welcome home scene on trigger aplication on my C-Touch, which can triggered from a Tag (Roller door) to run the welcome home scene. Then in PAC i write some code. Schedule running on C-touch to flag that the time is now after sunset (PAC does not have a clock) in PAC Once flag "Time is after sunset" is true and a "phantom" scene in c-touch containing those GA's I want to run in my welcome home scene are all off then trigger welcome scene. This way if someone is at home after sunset and anyone of those GA in the scene wich pac has scanned is on then the welcome home scene should not run. If all of those GA are off (True) then go ahead and run the welcome scene. Would have to set the Bus coupler as a bell press I think so as the button reverts to an off state for the next time the scene may have to be run. Sorry If this sounds like jibberish, it's hard to explain and still make sense. I think everyone will understand what I am getting at. Evety little bit of help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers Gavin...