4 ms·

I briefly took a look at the page and checked out the comments and thought you were being a total buzzkill on a cool toy project until I went back and actually

I briefly took a look at the page and checked out the comments and thought you were being a total buzzkill on a cool toy project until I went back and actually looked at the schematic. This is project taking complete control over the motor that opens and closes the door and NOT using the simple "throw a relay on the door opener" trick that you usually see (ex: https://cdn.instructables.com/F9V/T9JH/I9YBZHM7/F9VT9JHI9YBZHM7.LARGE.jpg https://cdn.instructables.com/F9V/T9JH/I9YBZHM7/F9VT9JHI9YBZ...). This project is unnecessarily dangerous for such a simple application.

buescher 6y ago
I'll happily be a buzzkill and say don't do that either (outside of your basement garage door opener laboratory) but it's not nearly as egregious.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  The 'throw a relay on the door opener' is doing exactly the same thing hitting the interior button to open the door. It sends the same signal to the motors and doesn't bypass any of the load limiting or safety sensors. Those are basically safe.
  - buescher 6y ago
    Those projects can be made safe, but they generally don't mitigate the hazards that compliance with this section will: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1211.14 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1211.14 They are not the same thing as a human pressing the button.
    - rtkwe 6y ago
      Those are a bit overkill, I've not had any garage door that beeped for opening for remotes for example and that's a similar distance of triggered by someone not in the immediate area. They should be safe based just on the break sensors and current limiting.
      - buescher 6y ago
        Those are the industry requirements written by people with understanding of the hazards of running a garage door opener out of line-of-sight of the door. Read them carefully. There are reasons for each of them. Think hard about it. Remotes also operate differently than your wall button. Did you know that?
        hjklmn 6y ago
        Those are industry requirements for garage door openers being sold/used. The project above is an open source prototype and by no means a product that consumers are expected to buy/use as is.
        froh 6y ago
        Does the project clearly state so? I think such lack of warning is the point here. Note that a warning should include an indication of consequences. The current disclaimer in the readme just points to electric shock. Not to the wealth of known hazards from malfunctioning electric garage openers, referenced further up in the thread.
        rtkwe 6y ago
        It's usually good to at least look at the requirements to see what kind of problems can come up. DIY projects get a load of leeway but this one is actively dangerous and missing really important safety features outside of the remote operation stuff in this thread. If OP is lucky it'll be the garage door instead of an arm or their car because there's no break beam or current monitoring so the motor will happily pin and crush someone unless it stalls out.
      - jsight 6y ago
        You are absolutely correct. I have no idea when this site became this way, but a lot of the responses here are disappointing. I can easily close my garage door from well outside of sight range with the regular remote. I can set the wifi one to have even less range by requiring me to be on the same wifi network. There is very little downside to this for my use case. The standards that require MyQ to make earsplitting noises for seconds before moving just cause headaches.
    - KirinDave 6y ago
      I prefer to use BLE microcontrollers rather than real networking because it basically makes a better and more secure remote control rather than opening folks up to this danger. I think very few people plan to open their garage door from across the continent with these projects

buescher 6y ago

I'll happily be a buzzkill and say don't do that either (outside of your basement garage door opener laboratory) but it's not nearly as egregious.

rtkwe 6y ago
The 'throw a relay on the door opener' is doing exactly the same thing hitting the interior button to open the door. It sends the same signal to the motors and doesn't bypass any of the load limiting or safety sensors. Those are basically safe.
- buescher 6y ago
  Those projects can be made safe, but they generally don't mitigate the hazards that compliance with this section will: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1211.14 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1211.14 They are not the same thing as a human pressing the button.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    Those are a bit overkill, I've not had any garage door that beeped for opening for remotes for example and that's a similar distance of triggered by someone not in the immediate area. They should be safe based just on the break sensors and current limiting.
    - buescher 6y ago
      Those are the industry requirements written by people with understanding of the hazards of running a garage door opener out of line-of-sight of the door. Read them carefully. There are reasons for each of them. Think hard about it. Remotes also operate differently than your wall button. Did you know that?
      - hjklmn 6y ago
        Those are industry requirements for garage door openers being sold/used. The project above is an open source prototype and by no means a product that consumers are expected to buy/use as is.
        froh 6y ago
        Does the project clearly state so? I think such lack of warning is the point here. Note that a warning should include an indication of consequences. The current disclaimer in the readme just points to electric shock. Not to the wealth of known hazards from malfunctioning electric garage openers, referenced further up in the thread.
        rtkwe 6y ago
        It's usually good to at least look at the requirements to see what kind of problems can come up. DIY projects get a load of leeway but this one is actively dangerous and missing really important safety features outside of the remote operation stuff in this thread. If OP is lucky it'll be the garage door instead of an arm or their car because there's no break beam or current monitoring so the motor will happily pin and crush someone unless it stalls out.
    - jsight 6y ago
      You are absolutely correct. I have no idea when this site became this way, but a lot of the responses here are disappointing. I can easily close my garage door from well outside of sight range with the regular remote. I can set the wifi one to have even less range by requiring me to be on the same wifi network. There is very little downside to this for my use case. The standards that require MyQ to make earsplitting noises for seconds before moving just cause headaches.
  - KirinDave 6y ago
    I prefer to use BLE microcontrollers rather than real networking because it basically makes a better and more secure remote control rather than opening folks up to this danger. I think very few people plan to open their garage door from across the continent with these projects