Automatic gate openers

[dennishoddy]

That is a lot to consider. I was thinking that a remote like a garage door opener would work. However, the camera and other options would be nice. It needs to be solar. Quiet is will be preferred by the neighbor that lives by my entrance. We live on a rural road without many neighbors. Most neighbors within a mile are great folks, but there have been some thieves around. A friend told me that a thief cut the arms off of their gate opener.

Most gate openers are just secured with lynch pins on the actuator. Easily removed and the gate just swings open.
Our gun club put a gate opener with a key pad for members in a few years back. After getting installed and patting himself on the back about how secure it was, I pulled the pin and opened the gate. It now has more secure pins in place.

 

[SoonerP226]

My uncles and grandpas use to tell me the rule was.....shotgun rider opens and closes all the gates.

If you have three cowboys sitting in a regular cab pickup, how can you tell which one is the real cowboy?
He's the one in the middle--he doesn't have to drive and he doesn't have to get out and mess with the gates.

 

[rawhide]

Most of the Google results show Ghost Controls as a reliable but cheaper option. It looks primarily made for tube gates. The most recommended solar openers are the Nice Apollo, U.S. Automatic, and Liftmaster for about twice the cost.

 

[Parks 788]

I have the Ghost Controls Dual Solar Gate Opener. Have four remotes with it and a key pad mounted to posts to get in our out if needed. Main house is about 400' from the gates. I know they offer an option for use with your cell phone and I could get it for my gates to be able to open/close from anywhere on the planet but not sure if my wifi or whatever reaches that far out from the house. I upgraded the solar panel from the factory 10W to their factory 30W panel and use a car battery as a power source. I currently just use two 12' cleaned up pasture gates but IIRC, each gate will push/pull up to about 4-500# gates. Super happy with the Ghost Controls system.

 

[Snattlerake]

I have the Ghost Controls Dual Solar Gate Opener. Have four remotes with it and a key pad mounted to posts to get in our out if needed. Main house is about 400' from the gates. I know they offer an option for use with your cell phone and I could get it for my gates to be able to open/close from anywhere on the planet but not sure if my wifi or whatever reaches that far out from the house. I upgraded the solar panel from the factory 10W to their factory 30W panel and use a car battery as a power source. I currently just use two 12' cleaned up pasture gates but IIRC, each gate will push/pull up to about 4-500# gates. Super happy with the Ghost Controls system.

There ya go.

 

[Parks 788]

There ya go.

Hey, question for you @Snattlerake. Your post earlier makes me think you know a thing or two about openers. In my post above about getting it to work with my cell phone, what is typically needed to make this happen? Not the electronics side of it but the cell/wifi/bluetooth side of things. House is about 400+ feet from the gate system. I've read the Ghost Controls literature on it but I'm just not a tech savy individual. I need to figure this out.

 

[Snattlerake]

Hey, question for you @Snattlerake. Your post earlier makes me think you know a thing or two about openers. In my post above about getting it to work with my cell phone, what is typically needed to make this happen? Not the electronics side of it but the cell/wifi/bluetooth side of things. House is about 400+ feet from the gate system. I've read the Ghost Controls literature on it but I'm just not a tech savy individual. I need to figure this out.

You have to have the app on your phone, an internet connection at the phone and the gate.

Your biggest problem is the distance from the house. Four hundred feet is 100 to 200 feet over the Wi-Fi connectivity distance. Trees and buildings can also disrupt the Wi-Fi signal.

Bluetooth can only work within a limited distance. Now they claim the new Bluetooth is 200 to 800 feet. In my experience, it is not even close to 200 ft. It is more like 50 ft maybe.

Most remote controls are done by several methods. Radio, which is the standard garage door opener, Wi-Fi, which requires you to have the internet at the gate, Direct wire, which requires of course a direct burial cable to the opener, radio mesh, which is a network of nested radio transmitter/receiver devices that relay signals to the last addressed device in the mesh. A combination of these can be used in difficult situations.

The Internet also has to be extended to the gate or direct bury CAT6 cabling to a router with Wi-Fi capability but why do that when you can just direct bury a cable? Wi-Fi extenders are getting more affordable now with the IoT generation of products coming out now. I will also tell you I have had a lot of trouble with Wifi. None of it was our fault. Mostly atmosphere, interference, or just plain (I decided not to work today). How many times have you been on a computer that just decides not to connect to your wifi while you were working? Frustrating?

OOPS! I made a boo boo. I said CAT6 would do it. It might but it is not recommended for any internet cabling to be run over 300 ft. due to signal loss. However, direct burial of a control cable that only provides a closure on a normally open input, (think of a momentary push switch) is your best option and is not limited in distance. This way you could have the wifi on the house or barn and as long as you can reach the wifi router/switchgear by cellphone app or computer.

Wifi unfortunately is again limited in range. You will need an extender if you go that route without the direct cable burial. You have two options. One is a directional antenna pointed directly at the receiver at the gate. or an omnidirectional extender that would kill two birds with better Wi-Fi coverage on the entire farm.

Here is a directional option.

Amazon.com

Here is an omnidirectional antenna that would give a rough area of 650 ft radius coverage from the antenna.

Amazon.com

I have watched a few videos and see their safety is a sort of strain gauge on the opener itself.
The system is not really an all in one package it is a modular system that adds features. I also think the solar cell is good for the absolute minimum number of cycles. The app looks interesting but it is third party and not made by Ghost Controls. Who are they going to point the finger at when it does not work correctly?

I went through this type of scenario with three different vendors and a camera. All three pointed fingers at the other guy until I eliminated the radio range by moving the transmitter to a point within 20 feet of the camera receiver and I moved the controller within 10 feet of the transmitter using direct wiring. I was essentially cooking the receiver. It was then the camera people had an epiphany and fixed the problem with a terminating resistor.

 

[bigred1]

@Snattlerake ......little by little. I'm too old for this stuff.

 

[OkieJoe72]

@Snattlerake ......little by little. I'm too old for this stuff. View attachment 413139

Looks like you got a good start on it.

 

[Snattlerake]

@Snattlerake ......little by little. I'm too old for this stuff. View attachment 413139

Is that photo in bright sunshine as evidenced by the bright yellow weeds in the background across the street? Solar cells might be a problem but you can remote mount them and in doing so, keep them safe from vandals. I would probably put them up high once I got the gate operating 100%.