Opening Driveway Gate from 1/8th of Mile

[TxDoc]

Wondered if anyone has a driveway gate that is around 1/8th of mile away that they can open from within their house. Don't want to leave it open more than needed, but if someone drives up, unexpectedly, all calls, it would be nice to open it from within the house. And, did not really want to trench up there and have a hardwired box.

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

 

[Jimbrown]

I do not have one but it should work if it works as advertised.

GateCrafters Long Range Receiver/Remote Package (LongRangPack)

 

[Industrial Toys]

Are you suggesting that there is not even power there now?

I have a thousand foot driveway. Being in the security business, years ago I trenched in cables for various neat security functions. I had terrible on going problems with lightning blasting everything to pieces! People don't realize that underground services are actually more suceptible to lightning than overhead services.

 

[TxDoc]

Thanks Jimbrown and Industrial Toys

I have a fence and am planning a gate, etc. I have a friend who is a professional welder and they normally do industrial jobs that are radiographically tested for things like inclusions, prior to being accepted. For friends, they think up and CAD design gates with neat features like locks inside tubes that you can reach to but cannot directly access to cut. You can have an initial idea and they will come up with something much better.

Without talking to him in depth, I thought having run on a solar charged battery would be nice. If the power went out, the truck/car remotes could open the gate. I thought it would be nice to have a signal that would not need a direct wire connection.

Like I say, I am trying to gather information on what is possible, what is practical, what would be good redundancy and what mistakes I need to avoid. It may be best to go ahead and ditch up there, as I would maybe consider having an LED light like this:
6650 Lumen, 68 Watt LED Dusk to Dawn
that could be motion-activated by someone driving up, walking up, prowling around and stay on for designated time. People who expect it to come on would not be startled, but those with no business being there would have to wonder if some other system was alerted at the same time, and keep on moving. I guess a camera would be nice if vandals decided to do their thing, so they would be lit up like daylight and recorded, too. I know people who have had lights on their gates, in remote places, and not so remote, experienced their lights being shot out. I honestly do not know which is better to deter would be thieves. My office has 360 LED wall packs facing outward from the building and flood lights facing in from light standards. Light does deter thieves and vandals..along with hourly police patrols

I appreciate the responses and any suggestions as to what to avoid and what to consider. I do have 8-foot ground rods around the house and my shop and apparently anything to do with electrics/electronics having to do with controlling the gate and security lighting better be planned for, also.

Thanks again

 

[outinthetalgrass]

As an another thought, with a raspberry pi, and a cell phone, one could make a gate opener that worked with a phone call. You could call the gate from anywhere there is cell service, and open or close the gate.
Then one could add capabilities to watch a camera at the gate also ( think baby monitor). With a few parts, and some tinkering not only could you have motion controlled lights, but it could call your cell phone on activity, and send you a live feed on what was going on all over cell phone signal. A solar panel and battery setup could keep the cell phone charged and working. Oh the possibilities... This has gotten my mind racing, I have got to get out an old plc board and start playing....

 

[aczlan]

As an another thought, with a raspberry pi, and a cell phone, one could make a gate opener that worked with a phone call. You could call the gate from anywhere there is cell service, and open or close the gate.
Then one could add capabilities to watch a camera at the gate also ( think baby monitor). With a few parts, and some tinkering not only could you have motion controlled lights, but it could call your cell phone on activity, and send you a live feed on what was going on all over cell phone signal. A solar panel and battery setup could keep the cell phone charged and working. Oh the possibilities... This has gotten my mind racing, I have got to get out an old plc board and start playing....

Might add a code that they have to dial so random robocallers don't open your gate for you...

Aaron Z

 

[EddieWalker]

1/8th of a mile is 660 feet, which isn't that much for running wires. You don't need a lot of power there to run the opener and some lights, but you will have some loss over that distance, so I would go with 8/2 on a 20 amp breaker. There are a lot of options out there for controllers that you can run from your phone or your home computer. Being able to add, change and delete codes for visitors, track when the gate is opened and by who is also a nice feature. King Metals have a huge selection to choose from, but you really need to call them, or whoever you are going to buy from to figure out what you want and what you are willing to pay for.

Eddie

 

[JRobyn]

For our gate, about 3,250 ft away along the road, or 2,650 line-of-sight, running any wire was not practical. I have been VERY pleased with our Apollo 1550 solar gate operator. Been in about 1 1/2 years, about 2,000 cycles so far. Since it doesn't get a bunch of cycles/day, we get by just fine (even with a lot of shade) with just a 20W solar panel and a group 34 lead-acid auto battery.

We use radio "garage door" remotes for the family (close range) and a simple keypad for everybody else. You can program in one-time use codes, but we usually just set a temporary code (like 0615) when we will have contractors or service folks and then delete them when done. There are much more sophisticated entry controls available like Outinthetalgrass said (open, close, intercom, etc.) that use cell phone capabilities if you have good cell signal coverage, but you'll need to have (and pay for) a SIM card in them just like an extra cell phone.

Our gate operator control board has outputs (contacts) for a light, but since we are totally solar, I wanted to avoid the power draw. I'm sure you could add LED lighting easily enough, but might need to go up in solar panel size. Our 20w has had NO trouble keeping the battery charged.



- Jay

ps: and there was (at least used to be) a tax deduction for it because it is a "solar" device!

 

[JRobyn]

I just had another afterthought... The top left box inside the gate controller box is the transmitter for the Dakota Alert MURS driveway alarm. If you also put in one of their receivers (transceiver base station), it has a set of contacts that could probably be easily rigged to open the gate. The MURS can work up to 5 miles (open, line-of-sight), and with a transceiver set, could also be used as an intercom. All the Dakota Alert stuff is 12vdc so could be powered off the lead-acid battery. The MURS transmitter is very very low current draw in standby. I do not know how much a transceiver (base station) box would draw in standby.

- Jay

 

[RalphVa]

Our in-car-type gate openers work over about half that distance (maybe 500'), which is all we need to get the gate open from the house.

Our intercom though was supposed to work 500' but never has. The supplier says we'd need a $2500 radio system to have an intercom that worked wirelessly.

Ralph