Discussion about general home automation ideas and projects, home automation protocols like Z-wave, Zigbee, Matter, etc, and home automation software and hubs like HomeSeer, Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Homey.
Just scrolling through random photos. Old hi-bay light reflector, a cheap metal screw auger, some old pipe and a random drill I had. ESP controlled with some customised firmware. Silly chickens also have an automated door, heater, light... hooked into home assistant.
They're not even my chickens, they just rocked up one day and started trying to sleep on my hot water cylinder... nekkminnit I've been tricked into building them a house!
Jank chicken sounds like the nickname of a low-effort attempt at jerk chicken. Sort of thing that's made in a microwave and probably involves ramen seasoning, ketchup packets and self-loathing.
Missed a trick, attach a leaf blower instead. Chicken feed shotgun!
Nice! Needs a funny hand drawn sci fi logo, saying "Feedblaster 6000" or something. ;)
Men will do anything but go to therapy. JK
Nothing jank about it. It works (I assume), and that's what matters. Of course, spreading by hand works, too, but no one is keeping score.
I built this and the door because we were away from home for a couple of weeks, and I didn't want the girls to be hungry or unsafe Lots of wildlife eat their food so we can't leave it out in bulk.
Custom firmware based on ESP Home, I assume?
For the auger you only control the time, not the speed?
I love this idea! Seems very safe also in terms of very little could go wrong. So the chooks have a camera so you can keep an eye on them, too?
Time and speed. I'm going to add current monitoring in case of overload/locked rotor and either a weighscale for remaining qty. But we're about to move house so this will be redeployed in a much less jank and more permanent fashion.
Yes they have a camera too :-)!
Do you have a stream available? I keep a submerged camera in my indoor pond in my apartment, running as closely to 24/7 as I can on a self-hosted server (using owncast) at https://pond.vkmphotos.com/
A feeder most fowl!
It looks like you made it out of loose Dyson vacuum parts.
I'm not fully understanding. Video?
Here's an early test, the print is a bit crappy because I was trying to use up old filament.
This confirms my belief that random old power drills are one of the more useful things to keep around.
Any electrical <> mechanical energy conversion device, keep it! I have a lot of motors and actuators 😅
If i had the space for it, I'd be picking up so many broken washing machines for their motors.