Door Goes Up, Door Goes Down

Recently I added wireless remote control to my hangar door. The controller has a pair of pushbutton switches (Open and Close) so it was a simple enough matter to activate each one remotely. This would have been impossible with my old bi-fold door and its manual latches but my new Hydroswing door uses hydraulic pressure to move the door as well as hold it in position. No Rube Goldberg-esq latches like the Schweiss auto-latching doors.


I found a remote control kit at Carl's Electronics for about $50. The CK1616 4-channel kit includes a completely assembled key fob transmitter, a completely assembled receiver, and a bag of parts and printed circuit board for the relay circuit. While I was at it, I ordered an additional transmitter for $20.


The kit went together on my workbench in two hours. (It would have been faster if I hadn't had to reverse the polarity of every single LED on the relay board). This brings me to a warning: the kit is not a "Heathkit"-style project. In fact, there are basically no instructions -- just a parts list. A schematic and picture can be downloaded from the web though.

Here's the now-assembled project sitting on my workbench.

That black wire coming out of the left side is the antenna. The relays are terminated at the green terminals along the right and are wired from here to the Open and Close pushbutton switches on the door's control box.

And here's the remote control installed in the aforementioned control box.


As you can see I mounted the PC board on a block of wood and then RTV'd the assembly to the box. I also built a tiny 12V regulator (above the relay board) to supply power to the remote control from the 24V power supply in the control box.

It's hard to spot but I mounted a BNC connector for the antenna at the upper right of the control box. The temporary antenna (a 17 cm. length of wire stuck into the BNC connector) works so well that I'm in no hurry to make a permanent one.

I'm not going to kid you: it feels a little decadent to raise the door from a hundred yards away and taxi right into the hangar. Life is good!