GarageMote length of wires to sensors

[XXL-Wing]

Hello everybody,

I am just curious how long the cable from the GarageMote to one of the the sensors can be. Has anybody experience with cables in the range of 1-2m?
I have a garage door that is operated using a chain but this chain operates an up- and down rolling "curtain" type door.
See this

video starting at 4:50 how this done.

So my only option to detect the open/closed state is to detect the bottom end of the door if it is up or down (or stuck inbetween).
Therefore I need longer cables.

Any hints/experiences?
br and greetings from Vienna/Austria
Mike

[Felix]

I have not tried longer cables, I think a few meters should not be a big deal (although the volrages are just 3.3V over them) but you would want to really test this because you don't want false triggers because of interference.
See this post for a very similar project that Luis implemented for his garage door using a potentiometer.

[XXL-Wing]

Hey Felix,

thanks a lot, I will try some options and report back the experiences.
I currently have a shielded cable that I want to use with the shield attached to ground on the power supply and the three wires running inside the shield.
I will check how well that works.
The problem with a potentiometer is that the moving part rotates multiple times when the door opens or closes which makes it different from the linked project where the arms do not do more than 180°.

thanks
Mike

[TomWS]

Hey Felix,

thanks a lot, I will try some options and report back the experiences.
I currently have a shielded cable that I want to use with the shield attached to ground on the power supply and the three wires running inside the shield.
I will check how well that works.
The problem with a potentiometer is that the moving part rotates multiple times when the door opens or closes which makes it different from the linked project where the arms do not do more than 180°.

thanks
Mike

Mike, I believe Luis is using a 10 turn potentiometer.  As long as your take up doesn't rotate more than 10 times it should work for you. You can also gets pots that are 15 or 20 turn if you look around.
Tom

[Rick]

If you elect to try extending the wires, I would suggest using cat5 wire.  The tight twist pattern of the conductors will help cancel out AC interference and noise.  You could also connect all of the pairs in parallel to reduce the resistance because of the low voltage.  Also plan the wire runs away from motors or AC wires.

Rick