Difference between revisions of "Eggmobile controller"

Revision as of 13:30, 20 September 2016

The Jacob Springs Farm Eggmobile is a mobile hen house that houses up to 500 chickens enabling chickens to be incorporated into a rotational grazing system. The Eggmobile Controller is an Agronimo project to develop alerts, automation and data collection to reduce the management burden on the farmer producing eggs sustainably.

Problems to solve

• manage security - (using door, motion detection, speakers, electric shock)
• manage light
• manage water
• manage feed
• track weather?
• manage egg production??
• manage hen inventory??

Manage security

One of the key roles of the eggmobile is to protect the chickens from predators. Each morning just after dawn the door must be opened to let the chickens out and, even though the chickens will, once trained, instinctively go back into the eggmobile to roost each evening, the doors must be closed after dusk to keep them safe from raccoons and other predators.

When predators are excessively active outside the eggmobile, it would be nice to be alerted to the fact. : additional functions could include detecting and reporting excessive motion outside the coop, playing speakers of human speech when activity is detected and triggering electric fence to deter predators when doors are closed.

Manage light

Chickens need 14-15 hours of light to lay optimally - the light should be warm and 0.5 - 1 foot-candles provide for optimal laying - light should only be supplied in the morning - never at night.

0.5 - 1 foot-candles translates roughly to one lumin per square foot.

Manage water

In order to lay consistently, chickens must have constant access to water, the eggmobile is equipped with two 55 gallon water tanks and automatic waterers. It would be nice to be alerted to low water.

In the future we would like to add a feed wagon thats towed behind the eggmobile, it would be nice to have an automatic feeder that dispenses underneath the trailer so that chickens could get the feed but not goats or predators and so that the feed could be metered out according to parameters set dynamically by the farmer through a cell phone interface.

Maybe track weather?

Outline to Solution

• Solar panel
• 12v marine battery
• "cigarette lighter" type transformer for 5v power.
• particle electron chipset with GSM wireless account
• 12v drill motors with gears to power actuators for door, feeders (in this case a skil 12v drill motor, model LS-550px-62814-w made by Leshi)