So the good folks at Gate-A-Mation (catchy name) came and automated the front sliding gate on the house a couple of weeks back. It rained pretty much the whole time which meant they were doing the job for a bit longer than expected, around about 3.5 hours. The actual installation of the hardware didn’t take too long, about an hour and a half. Then it was 2 hours spent adjusting various electronic settings in the motor and fiddling with the plastic rack on the gate to get the gate operating nicely.

The Deimos Gate Actuator

The motor is a Deimos BT 24V unit that runs off of the 240VAC supply that is available at the gate. You can see the motor above which is attached via dyna-bolts to a concrete foundation. The blue component is the manual clutch release that is unlocked via a key.

Close up of Gate Motor

A view of the motor showing pinion that drives a nylon rack that the installers screwed to the bottom of the sliding gate. The spring in the middle is a spring switch that is activated by limit stops at each end of the gate.

Limit Stop and Rack

A close up of one of the limits at the end of the gate and showing a section of the plastic rack on the bottom of the gate.

Keypad

And my favourite part, the keypad for opening and closing the gate when you don’t have a remote. I wasn’t going to get this but one look at the nicely made stainless steel enclosure and tactile keys made me want it. It’s programmable to do all sorts of neat stuff (still have to read through the manual) and is backlit at night time! Anything with blue LED illumination MUST be good 🙂 The keypad is fixed securely to the outside post of the gate and has proved to be very useful to get in and out of our yard when we’re walking to the park.