Driveway gate openers ???

[heehaw]

how hard would it be to modify a garage door opener to open a gate??? those things are cheap and seem to work forever?
heehaw

 

[kensfarm]

I've thought of that too.. seems the kind that uses the threaded bolt might be best suited for a gate opener.. maybe a little extra housing to keep out the weather.. use the door stop sensors for gate stop sensors.. would be a fun project to work on!

 

[_RaT_]

Unless you rigged up some kind of leverage to increase the gate opening width, you would be confined to a pretty small gate. Most openers have less then 7' of travel. I too had thought about it albeit a very short amount of thinking.

 

[NIXON]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( how hard would it be to modify a garage door opener to open a gate???


I gave it a bit of thought also . I figured by the time Igot it working it'd cost more than a top quality unit made for the job . Weather proofing was also a big consideration .
John

 

[jinman]

Harv, I thought I'd show you what I've finally done on my girlfriend's gate to get it working again. I decided to leave the gatepost hardware alone and concentrate on the point where the operator attaches to the gate bracket. In this first attached photo, I took a picture of the gate to show that it really is a bit large for this opener. The guy who installed it told my lady friend that the gate was "right on the limit" and I think he fudged a few pounds. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[jinman]

I removed the gate bracket and put a couple of compression springs behind it. I used grade 8 3/8" bolts because the bolts take a lot of side-to-side stress and grade 2 bolts bent like plastic.

 

[jinman]

When the operator starts to close or open the gate, the springs compress and the gate doesn't provide an instantaneous load on the operator. The operator is much quieter than it was before when it would load up with the whole weight of the gate as soon as it started to move.

 

[jinman]

As the gate latches, the operator compresses the left spring to it's maximum and provides a torque buffer. In this picture, you can see the slotted holes on the gate bracket. these had me worried because I thought the bracket sliding back-and-forth would make the calibration of the operator really tough. Well, I was wrong. The bracket just slides from one end to the other and then the springs start to compress and "do their thing" so that nothing is sloppy at all. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

This setup has worked for over a week now with no problems, so I'm hoping it will hold up at least until I can get a better gate operator. All-in-all, I think things have turned out pretty good so far. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[fishman]

That's a nice fix, Jim.

 

[jinman]

Thanks, John. It's not a "truly" elegant solution, but for now it works and I don't think the gate operator is self-destructing. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif