Alarm Clock Learns New Trick, Opening Doors

Waking up at 5:30 in the morning. [Mark Stead] didn’t like the idea either when his chickens started crying to be let out. One simple solution obviously is to eat the chickens build an automatic door opener. The mechanism starts out with an old style mechanical alarm clock, add a geared motor with some creative switch work to pull open the door, weather proof the entire thing, and done. [Mark] even modified the setup later to work with vertical doors. No MCU required for either.

Pair this with an automated feeder system, egg gathering and cooking setup, and you’re half way to having your breakfast ready for you when you wake up in the morning – around noon like the rest of us.

[Thanks MS3FGX]

21 thoughts on “Alarm Clock Learns New Trick, Opening Doors

  1. Very nice hack with excellent documentation and pictures.

    I was a bit surprised to learn that these sort of clocks now use an electric motor to strike the bells, I suppose I am just too used to the idea that they are wind-up mechanical. Now that I see how easy these are to repurpose, I can think of a few applications for it.

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