DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

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PuaNow
 
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DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

Post by PuaNow »

I am trying to build a pulley based motor to lift and close my chickens door daily.

I found this project which is very similar: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articl ... ode.74113/

I would like to use one of the Feathers I have and this: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2927

I am having trouble figuring out how to size a stepper motor or servo to lift the 5-7 lbs door.

Any help would be appreciated!

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Re: DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

I'd probably go for a geared DC motor rather than a stepper. Motors typically have a torque rating in oz-inches or newton-cm. If you have 7 pound door (112oz) and a pulley with a 1" radius, you would need a motor rated for at least 112 oz-inches to lift it. In practice, you will want to go with 2-3 times that to handle the additional torque needed for acceleration.

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PuaNow
 
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Re: DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

Post by PuaNow »

thats super helpful, thank you wonderful person!

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Re: DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

Post by PuaNow »


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Re: DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

Post by PuaNow »

Do you all think I could control a linear actuator with this:

DC Motor + Stepper FeatherWing Add-on For All Feather Boards: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2927

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X8 ... UTF8&psc=1

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Re: DC motor for chicken door (feather & featherwing)

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

per haps this one! https://www.amazon.com/Torque-Turbo-Gea ... 0I4E7?th=1
I don't see any torque rating for that. Pololu has a good selection of gearmotors with proper specs here: https://www.pololu.com/category/51/polo ... gearmotors
Do you all think I could control a linear actuator with this:

DC Motor + Stepper FeatherWing Add-on For All Feather Boards: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2927

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X8 ... UTF8&psc=1
No. That motor has a current draw of 3A. The motor wing can only handle 1.2A. You would need something like this driver for that: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3190

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