[Roy] had an extra garage door opener on hand and decided to put it to use as a remote control closing mechanism for his bedroom door. We gather he has some noisy housemates as the inspiration for the project came from not wanting to get out of bed to close the door when the ruckus interrupts his TV watching.
The image above shows the hinged system which translates the linear motion from the garage opener track to the rotational force necessary to swing the door closed. We’d say he really nailed it because the system matches the angle of the door jamb perfectly, and when the door is fully open the angle bracket is almost flat against the wall. We certainly don’t have the same need for closing doors, but the mechanism is something to keep in mind.
The motor for the opener is hidden beneath his desk. You won’t be able to see it in the video after the break because he built a matching enclosure around it. Now he just needs to add some WiFi connectivity and he can ditch the uni-tasking RF remote for a smart phone app.
i thought it was screwed to the door and it could also open it
but that would result in some frustration in manual opening
Far easier and cheaper….
Traditional automatic door closer.
and a fire door mag release.
Plus you don’t have the nasty garage door setup that will guarantee you never get a date to say over night.
This.
Far easier and cheaper…
… a rubber band and two screws.
Interesting hack and re-use of what would otherwise be in a landfill I suppose…
I’d be a little worried about getting out of the room in a hurry with the opener in the “closed” position–possibly in a fire or power outage–but the linkage seems flimsy enough that you could possibly kick it up out of the way or something…
I’ve gotta agree with “fartface”, good luck getting a date to stay in your room when you have a fairly loud mechanical door closer like that! :D
Did you watch the video? Just to ruin the ending for you, it’s not connected to the door and it resets it self to the “open” position once it’s closed the door.
Ron Swanson approved.
isnt’t that dangerous? what are the torque on that thing on such closed space?
hope you don’t have kids or cats. …or if you have cats, put a camera there. 4chan always needs more gore GIFs
I did the same thing with the pnumatic window opener from a hatchback, way easier and cheaper.
Reminds me of the old TV show “The Prisoner”, which was before powered opening/closing doors actually existed.
Same deal as with Star Trek, people behind the scenes operated the doors with ropes – and people in the real world got inspired to make real powered swinging and sliding doors.
Watching the show these days, the doors just don’t have the same effect on people who’ve lived their whole lives with automatic doors. People expect doors to do that, though not on most houses.
Those operators are load sensing but I don’t know if the sensitivity could be set to a safe level in this application.
It’s clever, but I would sell/install the operator in someone’s garage and use the money to by spring hinges and beer.
Another idea: A colleague of mine, at the garage door company where I work, said he was in a customer’s house where the childrens’ playroom was accessed by a sliding wall operated by a residential trolly operator like this one.
What an awesome way to find another use for your broken garage door opener..!!!
I’d like to see the option to keep the garage door opener in the closed position just in-case you don’t want any visitors – that is if hanging a sock on the doorknob doesn’t work ;)