A heavy heart

[Mozraver]

Hi All, I've just ordered my second Omlet door, but to be honest, I still haven't worked out the light sensor. Standard setting is 6 for the morning light and 26 for the evening. I don't get it. How do I make my coop open earlier in the morning, and close later in the evening? My chooks are getting locked out.

Is a 6 in the settings lighter or darker than 26 in the evening?

Should I set the mornings to, say, 3, or should it be 9 for earlier opening?

And evening, why so much difference? why should that not be set at say 30 to close, or is it 20?

Any help appreciated.

thanks,

Moz

 

[Luvachicken]

I don't use the light sensor on my autodoor, just the timer.

It's set to 6am to open and closes at 10pm.

We change the time in the winter.

This might be easier for you. 

[Tillsy]

The light levels didn't work well for me either - it closed far too early no matter what setting I used which locked some of my girls out, and opened too late causing them to get restless locked inside the cube.  To make matters worse the controller has an inbuilt time delay of 20 minutes to ensure changes due to cloud/etc due not cause the door to inadvertently trigger - the time setting you can make on the controller is in ADDITION to that 20 minutes.  Time settings don't work for me as our winter and summer daylight hours change quite drastically here in Australia so I'd be forever changing them.  Overall the controller just didn't work well for me.

Not that it helps you, but my solution was to hotwire the controller into my home automation system so I can more intelligently control the door.  I'm factoring actual sunlight lux levels from the weather station on my roof, movement in the coop, AND time of day (not actual time but whether it is sunrise, sunset, day, night, etc).  This has meant my door reacts precisely when it should and I've not had a single incident since 😀

I plan to write an article on it in the next couple of months 👍