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| Raspberry Pi Garage Door Opener w/WebIOPi | ||
| ----------------------------------------- | ||
| ## GaragePi - The Raspberry Pi Garage Door Opener | ||
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| Instructions and writeup at: | ||
| When I was little, I used to push the garage door button from inside the garage and | ||
| then run out the garage while it's closing... carefully jumping over the sensor so | ||
| I don't trip the safety mechanism. It was easy back then and a little fun. But | ||
| nowadays, not so much. There are times when I wish I had a way to close (and open) | ||
| the garage door remotely and preferably with something I always have on me... my | ||
| mobile phone! | ||
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| https://coderwall.com/p/jsd5mw | ||
| So, I looked into building something so I could use my smartphone as a garage door | ||
| opener. I've read about the Arduino and Raspberry Pi platforms before that I believed | ||
| would accomplish the task and, ultimately, I decided on the Raspberry Pi. The Arduino | ||
| platform after some research and cost analysis would have cost more than the Raspberry | ||
| Pi! That wasn't something I was expecting since the Raspberry Pi is more robust and | ||
| a full-blown mini-Linux computer. The possibilities are really endless. | ||
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| A wifi Raspberry Pi connected to a 2-channel relay connected to my actual garage door | ||
| remote allows me to open and close my garage door with just a browser on my smartphone. | ||
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| chasechou. | ||
| Below I'll go through the steps and the issues I ran into while working on this project. | ||
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| ## Step 1 - Parts | ||
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| Below is a list of the parts I gathered together to get started. Prices will most likely | ||
| not be same. | ||
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| * [Raspberry Pi (model B) + Case + Wireless Wifi Adapter](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D2CN730/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00D2CN730&linkCode=as2&tag=codeblog-20) - $50 | ||
| * [8GB or greater SD card](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00200K1SY/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00200K1SY&linkCode=as2&tag=codeblog-20) - $6 | ||
| * [a power supply](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DZLSEVI/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00DZLSEVI&linkCode=as2&tag=codeblog-20) with at least **1A** and **5V** output and a micro-usb connector. The power supply that comes with most smartphones nowadays should work just fine. Just check the label for the power ratings. The Raspberry Pi is documented to have a maximum power draw of 1A so it's better to have a power supply that is greater than 1A just to be safe else you might run into system stability issues causing reboots/freezes. | ||
| * [a 2-channel relay](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0057OC6D8/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0057OC6D8&linkCode=as2&tag=codeblog-20) - $10 | ||
| * [female-to-female jumper wires](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BQA5BWU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00BQA5BWU&linkCode=as2&tag=codeblog-20) - $8 | ||
| * ethernet cable | ||
| * a LED to test out the GPIO pins | ||
| * solder gun + solder (if hooking it up to a garage door remote) | ||
| * usb keyboard and mouse, HDMI monitor and HDMI cable. These are only necessary for the | ||
| initial setup until you have the Pi networked after which you can go headless and SSH in | ||
| from another computer. | ||
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| Total cost for me: **$74** since I had a few of the needed parts already. | ||
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| ## Step 2 - Setup the SD card | ||
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| I followed this guide to setup the SD card with NOOBS and bootup the Pi for initial setup. | ||
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| [Raspberry Pi Quick Start Guide](http://www.raspberrypi.org/quick-start-guide) | ||
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| ## Step 3 - Setup the Pi and Install Raspbian | ||
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| Setting up the Pi is pretty easy. Just hookup the HDMI cable, usb keyboard and mouse, plug-in | ||
| the SD card prepared in step 2, and finally turn on the Pi by plugging in the micro-USB power | ||
| supply. This should bootup NOOBS and step you through the process to install an OS. The one | ||
| you want for this project is Raspbian. Complete the Raspbian setup and you should have a | ||
| working Pi at the end. | ||
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| *It's at this step that I encountered my first problem. I used the keyboard and mouse I had | ||
| from my main PC rig, a Logitech G110 keyboard and a Logitech G9 mouse. After NOOBS booted up, | ||
| I found I couldn't type or control the mouse. The problem turned out to be the USB ports on | ||
| the Pi doesn't provide enough power for the keyboard and mouse. You can get around this issue | ||
| by using a powered USB hub.* | ||
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| ## Step 4 - Setting up Wifi | ||
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| You can skip this step if you're going to leave the Pi connected with ethernet cable. In fact, | ||
| I recommend skipping this step until the end to simplify things. | ||
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| I didn't want the Pi to be tethered by an ethernet cable so I proceeded to try and set it up | ||
| with the USB wifi dongle. This turned out to be probably the hardest part of the project. I | ||
| followed a bunch of guides I found but none of them worked for me. It's not that the dongle | ||
| wasn't supported by Raspbian, but I couldn't get it to connect to my wireless router. After | ||
| much headache and tinkering around, I finally fixed the problem. You can read about the | ||
| details in my [wifi setup guide](https://coderwall.com/p/v290ta?i=2&p=1&q=&t%5B%5D=%21%21mine&t%5B%5D=%21%21bookmarks). | ||
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| ## Step 5 - Experiment with the GPIO on the Pi | ||
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| What makes the Raspberry Pi so interesting to me are the GPIO pins which allow the Pi to | ||
| communicate and control other peripherals. I found this excellent | ||
| [guide](http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2012/06/simple-guide-to-the-rpi-gpio-header-and-pins/) | ||
| to get a basic understanding of the GPIO. | ||
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| My first test with the pins was to simply connect a LED I had lying around and see if I could | ||
| get it to light up. | ||
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| LEDs generally have 1 leg which is longer than the other. The longer leg should be the + (positive) | ||
| connection. If the LED doesn't have a visible difference in the leg lengths, then you can look at | ||
| the top of the LED and you should see 2 small pieces of metal. The smaller side is the + | ||
| connection. Here's a good [diagram](http://www.societyofrobots.com/images/electronics_led_diagram.png). | ||
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| Start by connecting a jumper wire to GPIO pin 1 for the 3.3v power and another wire to the GND | ||
| at pin 6. This should light up the LED. Yay! Ok, admittedly, that's not terribly exciting. It's | ||
| just a light. | ||
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| Next, unplug the jumper wire from pin 1 and connect it to pin 7 which is GPIO4. The LED should be | ||
| unlit for now. To control the GPIO ports, there are a ton of different choices. Just google for | ||
| Raspberry Pi GPIO but I started with this wonderful framework called [WebIOPi](https://code.google.com/p/webiopi/). | ||
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| Follow the [WebIOPi installation guide](https://code.google.com/p/webiopi/wiki/INSTALL?tm=6) and | ||
| run this: | ||
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| $ sudo webiopi -d -c /etc/webiopi/config | ||
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| That should start the webiopi server on port 8000. You can then access the webiopi page in a | ||
| browser at http://192.168.1.60:8000. Of course, replace 192.168.1.60 with the IP of your Pi. | ||
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| You should see a GPIO Header link on the main page. Click that link and you will be able to control | ||
| the GPIO using a web UI which looks like the board header. | ||
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|  | ||
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| Click the 'IN' box to the left of GPIO4 to toggle that to say 'OUT'. Then try clicking on the box to | ||
| the right of GPIO4 with the number 7 in it. If everything's working then you should now be able to on/off | ||
| the connected LED. | ||
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| Toggling the LED on/off was super exciting for me. It was the first time I had built anything on a | ||
| computer that could interact with the real world. The Internet of Things as they say. For better or | ||
| worse, it's coming and probably sooner rather than later. | ||
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| ## Step 6 - Wiring the 2-Channel Relay | ||
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| Now it's time to replace the LED with the relay. Remove the LED from the jumper wires and reconnect | ||
| the wires according to this drawing below. | ||
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|  | ||
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| *It was at this point that ran into my next problem. Every time I connected the relay and switched GPIO4 | ||
| to 'OUT', the Raspberry Pi would crash and I'd have to unplug/reboot it. It took me awhile to figure out | ||
| that the power supply I was using wasn't supplying enough power for everything. Apparently, powering the | ||
| relay pushed it over the edge. The power supply I was using was from an old Motorola smartphone that was | ||
| rated to only output 750ma. After I switched that out to another power supply I had lying around with | ||
| 1850ma, I no longer had stability issues with the Pi.* | ||
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| You can test your connections now by going back to the WebIOPi page and toggle GPIO4 on/off and you should | ||
| be able to see a small light on the relay respond accordingly. If you do, then that's a good sign. It means | ||
| you are able to control the relay to open and complete a circuit. | ||
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| ## Step 7 - Connecting to Garage Door Remote | ||
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| For this step, you can either run wires to the actual garage door opener button that's in your garage, or | ||
| use a spare garage door remote. Since I planned on leaving the Pi indoors where I have easy access to it, I | ||
| chose to hook it up to a remote. I pried open the remote casing and studied the circuit board a bit. The | ||
| first thing I did was to test if I could activate the remote without actually pressing the button so I | ||
| shorted these 2 points by touching them with a wire. | ||
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| Voila! | ||
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| I heard the sounds of the garage door creaking open. So, theoretically, I should be able to wire that to the | ||
| relay and have the relay open/close the circuit. Boistered by this knowledge, I looked at how I could solder | ||
| 2 wires to the circuit and noticed that the remote was gracious enough to leave some extra holes that runs | ||
| in serial with the actual button. Then I soldered 2 wires to the remote and connected them to the left and | ||
| middle connections on the relay like this below. | ||
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|  | ||
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| Now toggling GPIO4 in WebIOPi should actually open and close your actual garage door. You might notice when | ||
| you're doing this that the garage door only activates when the signal from GPIO4 is off. The relay I bought, | ||
| the Sainsmart 2-Channel Relay and if what I've read is correct, most other relays work like this. When the | ||
| signal is ON, the relay is open which means the remote won't activate. When the signal is OFF, then the relay | ||
| is closed and the circuit is complete which should activate the remote. Keep this bit of info in mind when | ||
| we work with setting up the WebIOPi code later. | ||
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| ## Step 8 - GaragePi Setup | ||
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| GaragePi is built using the WebIOPi framework by Eric @ trouch.com. It is setup with this file structure below: | ||
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| pi@raspberrypi ~ $ tree garagepi | ||
| garagepi | ||
| ├── config | ||
| ├── html | ||
| │ └── index.html | ||
| └── python | ||
| └── garagepi.py | ||
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| Download and extract the [GaragePi zip file](https://github.com/chasechou/GaragePi/archive/master.zip) to | ||
| **/home/pi/garagepi**. | ||
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| Or you can also clone it from Github: | ||
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| git clone https://github.com/chasechou/GaragePi.git /home/pi/garagepi | ||
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| WebIOPi by default is setup with a login and password. But I only plan on using this when I'm on my local wifi | ||
| network so I opted to remove the password protection completely. You do this by removing /etc/webiopi/passwd or | ||
| empty it, then restart the webiopi server. | ||
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| sudo rm /etc/webiopi/passwd | ||
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| Run this command below to load up webiopi with the new config file: | ||
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| sudo webiopi -d -c /home/pi/garagepi/config | ||
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| Then load this up in your browser... again, change the IP to the IP of your Pi: | ||
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| http://192.168.1.60:8000 | ||
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| You should see a simple page like this below, please feel free to dress up the page however you want. | ||
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|  | ||
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| Clicking the button on this page should act as if you were pushing the button on your garage door remote. | ||
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| If that worked, then you can make GaragePi run at startup. | ||
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| sudo update-rc.d webiopi defaults | ||
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| # As a side note, you can start/stop the background service by doing: | ||
| $ sudo /etc/init.d/webiopi start | ||
| $ sudo /etc/init.d/webiopi stop | ||
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| Then replace the default config file at /etc/webiopi/config with a symlink to the config file at /home/pi/garagepi/config. | ||
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| sudo rm /etc/webiopi/config | ||
| sudo ln -s /home/pi/garagepi/config /etc/webiopi/config | ||
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| Reboot and test it out. | ||
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| sudo reboot | ||
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| ## Step 9 - Save to Homescreen on Your Smartphone | ||
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| I recommend you then save this page on the home screen of your smartphone, or at least bookmark it. Instructions | ||
| for [Android](http://mobile-pixels.com/pin-webapp-website-android-homescreen/) / [iOS](http://www.gottabemobile.com/2013/11/23/save-website-shortcut-ios-7-home-screen/). | ||
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|  | ||
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| ## Have fun and hope it works for you! |