I hate coming home after a long day of working, only to find myself fumbling around in my pocket to press the button on my garage door opener. Hey, what can I say, I want things easy and automated.
I got myself a spare opener on eBay a while back, especially to have in my motorcycle jacket. But I started wondering: Why not build it in to my bike?
So, yesterday I did. :-) I went to RadioShack and got myself a nice little black pushbutton for less then 4 bucks. Opened up the remote, soldered a cable on the contacts and connected the other end to the button. Voila! Garage door opener with an external button!
I drilled a hole in the top-left corner of the dashboard to accommodate the button and used some industrial strength Velcro to stick the remote underneath the windshield. Far enough not to be be grabbed easily, but by removing 1 screw I can cramp my hand in and take the remote out in case I need to change the battery.
Look closely on the top left side, between the windscreen and the LCD:
Thoughts:
- The button is not a weather proof one, but since the only thing it does is make contact when required, I am not too afraid of that. Corrosion inside the button? Nothing that a little WD40 or a new button (at 4 bucks) can't fix.
- The remote control is not really shielded from water, so I have to see how the remote keeps up in bad weather. It has immediate shielding from the elements by sitting behind the windscreen, though. There are several other places where I could mount it, or I could just get a little (splash-)waterproof plastic box at RadioShack and more the electronics in there..
- I could get myself a little thingamajigy at RadioShack to convert 12v to 1.5v and connect the remote directly to the bike's battery. No need to ever change the battery in the remote and I could give the remote a permanent place.. Maybe I'll do this later. Let's see how this behaves.
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