GuglioLS
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2005
- Messages
- 1,143
- Location
- Edgewood, NM USA
- Tractor
- Jinma 354, 1953 Ford NAA Golden Jubilee, Komatsu Bulldozer
Pic 1
Overall picture of the gate.
There is a very interesting story behind our gate and where the parts came from. So bear with me. I have 14 pictures to post, please be patient with me and wait for me to post them all.
Once upon a time:
We needed an automatic “Estate” gate to keep our Alaskan Malamutes in and the “un desirables” out. For 20 years my wife and I would stop the car get out open the gate, get back in the car, drive through, stop the car, get back out, close the gate, get back in and drive off OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND AGAIN.
So one day after almost getting struck by lightning - I said to myself – self, enough is enough!
So here is the story behind where the materials came from, now please flash back about 15 years. In our home we have a basement, at one time the only way to get down there was, again to go outside and enter through the Bilco basement door. So – I built a home made elevator (sorry no pics as) it was dismantled to build - guess what THE GATE!
We have since added a garage and now the basement access door if from inside the garage.
Anyway here are the basic details of the gate:
40' long 5' tall gate made out of 2 & 1/2" steel pipe.
Reinforced with 5/8" rebar every 5 feet. The cantilever wheel support posts are 3" dia steel pipe. The holes for the support posts are 4' deep x 12" dia filled with concrete.
The pipe is suspended in the concrete so as to avoid rusting out from the bottom.
This type of gate is “Cantilevered” I.E. suspended by wheels attached to posts and balanced by it’s own weight. The advantage is that it opens & closes no matter how deep the snow gets as it does not touch the ground. The disadvantage is that the gate must be twice a long as you want it to open + about 1-2 feet. And if purchased and installed cost mega bucks about 5 to7 thousand dollars. This was built by me at around 1 thousand.
The remote control electronics are from an automatic garage door opener.
The real trick was to interface those electronics to a more powerful 1.5 hp reversible motor with an electric disk brake and 90* gear reducer to drive the whole thing. Being an Electronics Engineer with access to some “Spare” relays, & SCR’s etc sure helped. The pipe, motor, disk brake and gear reducer are what I “stole” from the elevator.
More…….
Overall picture of the gate.
There is a very interesting story behind our gate and where the parts came from. So bear with me. I have 14 pictures to post, please be patient with me and wait for me to post them all.
Once upon a time:
We needed an automatic “Estate” gate to keep our Alaskan Malamutes in and the “un desirables” out. For 20 years my wife and I would stop the car get out open the gate, get back in the car, drive through, stop the car, get back out, close the gate, get back in and drive off OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND AGAIN.
So one day after almost getting struck by lightning - I said to myself – self, enough is enough!
So here is the story behind where the materials came from, now please flash back about 15 years. In our home we have a basement, at one time the only way to get down there was, again to go outside and enter through the Bilco basement door. So – I built a home made elevator (sorry no pics as) it was dismantled to build - guess what THE GATE!
We have since added a garage and now the basement access door if from inside the garage.
Anyway here are the basic details of the gate:
40' long 5' tall gate made out of 2 & 1/2" steel pipe.
Reinforced with 5/8" rebar every 5 feet. The cantilever wheel support posts are 3" dia steel pipe. The holes for the support posts are 4' deep x 12" dia filled with concrete.
The pipe is suspended in the concrete so as to avoid rusting out from the bottom.
This type of gate is “Cantilevered” I.E. suspended by wheels attached to posts and balanced by it’s own weight. The advantage is that it opens & closes no matter how deep the snow gets as it does not touch the ground. The disadvantage is that the gate must be twice a long as you want it to open + about 1-2 feet. And if purchased and installed cost mega bucks about 5 to7 thousand dollars. This was built by me at around 1 thousand.
The remote control electronics are from an automatic garage door opener.
The real trick was to interface those electronics to a more powerful 1.5 hp reversible motor with an electric disk brake and 90* gear reducer to drive the whole thing. Being an Electronics Engineer with access to some “Spare” relays, & SCR’s etc sure helped. The pipe, motor, disk brake and gear reducer are what I “stole” from the elevator.
More…….