How to open the gate when there is no electricity, i.e. alternative power supply for gate automation

Electric motor – without electricity

Hello again, Dear Reader!

Having an automatic gate is a very convenient solution. Whoever has tried it once will not want to give it up. He will, however, want to take it with him wherever he can.

The problem is that we don’t always have easy access to the mains. There are still places with no electricity at all, but there is a gate, and it would be great if it could open automatically ? Maybe you, Dear Reader, have a recreational plot without electricity, but access to it is protected by a gate – even with wooden pegs for the rural atmosphere, which does not open automatically so far? Or you want to install automation at the far end of your vast stretch of land, but don’t feel like digging a ditch there to get a 230V power supply?

Therefore, I will briefly describe how to work around the problem and still automate the gate. Contrary to appearances, this is not a topic completely detached from reality, because often customers call us to buy a simple automation that can be powered by any other than 230V – precisely to put it into a gate that is used once in a while on the plot by the lake and there is no electricity.

I will show you basic ways to power the gate automation without access to the 230V network..

Battery-powered gate automation

The emergency opening module is such an obvious thing ? If you have 12V actuators and control units, an ordinary battery takes care of the matter almost completely. If you need a 24V power supply, it is also possible. You can find the battery for the gate here.

In this option, the battery should be connected to the power input of the entire system, and it’s ready! There is nothing easier. The problem appears when the battery is discharged – because you lack the power supply to charge it.

You can deal with it by selecting a battery with a sufficiently large capacity. For example: when you go to such a plot, you know that you will be there for a week. You will open and close the gate once or twice a day, when you want to go to the nearest town for lunch (and something to drink ?). Probably a small car battery is enough. But for a month of life in such wilderness it may turn out to be too small – then it is worth having a spare charged battery, or…

Gate automation with solar power

A photovoltaic cell can successfully charge your battery, so you may enjoy your holiday at the lake forever :)

Of course, the cell itself is not enough, you also need electronics that will charge the battery using the current generated by the cell: a voltage regulator – like in a car alternator. But you can easily buy all of this online today.

This solution not only has the advantage over the regular battery (from the previous point) that the battery will not discharge. The second but no less important advantage is that the battery can simply be smaller, so cheaper and lighter.

Such power supply systems are very commonly used, for example, in LED street lighting or in road markings (flashing road signs). It works exactly the same way: during the day, when lighting is not needed, photovoltaic cells (PV cells) charge the battery of such a lamp so that it can shine at night despite the lack of voltage on the PV cells.

In the case of the gate, of course, it is also used during the day, and the task of the photovoltaic cell is to replenish the loss of energy taken from the battery to open / close the gate. Such a gate does not have to open and close all the time without rest, so there is no fear that there will be no power in the battery, because the cell will easily recharge the battery between successive openings of the gate :)

ETM – the perfect control unit for an alternative power supply

Of course, virtually any of our control systems can be powered in this way: manual switches or 2- or 4-channel remote control systems. But when it comes to the gate, a unit designed for this purpose is the best. And the coolest controller is our ETM-DG2 control unit (you can read more about ithere).

Of course, this equipment is constructed in such a way that the default power supply is 230V – because, of course, the vast majority of customers supply their gate automation with this voltage (they usually have it already at the gates). But it is also a control unit that allows it to be easily powered from batteries (24V) and enables complete independence from 230V mains.

The method of connecting the 24V emergency power supply with a photovoltaic cell instead of the default 230V voltage is shown in the diagram below.

The transformer that originally powers the control unit should be disconnected from the control board and the solar system output should be connected instead. The voltage polarity is irrelevant here, because there is a rectifier bridge on the power input of the ETM unit control board.

The system built in this way is completely independent of the 230V power supply. Batteries do not need to have any large capacity either.

Alternative power supply for gate automation – Summary

If for some reason you do not have access to a 230V power supply to operate your swing gate motor in some remote corner, you can see that it does not have to be any obstacle ? You can easily organize the power supply for the automation of such a gate using commonly available batteries, more and more popular and cheaper solar cells and literally a “scrap” of cheap electronics (regulator).

Now you just have to take your automation to your lake plot! Let it work as you are resting! :)