Looking (again) at home automation to ease life for SWMBO.
Since it seems "difficult" to get automation for vertical blinds that can open/close & tilt, we're looking at the idea of simply automating existing curtains.
That already have a corded track.
I note there are plenty of outfits that will flog you a motorised track, and I can't seem to flush them out of Google.
However I notice the unit linked does show one option of working with a cord (2mm or 4mm ?) in it's (excellent :) ) PDF instructions.
Has anyone fitted one of these to know if it can ?
I had one of those with a blind. It's just a motor with some interchangeable spindles - you mount it to drive the cord loop (eg if the cord has balls on it for grip, you use the one with slots for the balls).
Then you teach it what 'open' is and what 'closed' is, and it can then wind the cord from one place to another. If you ask for half open it drives to the halfway position, etc.
I think the above would be fine with curtains that have a cord loop, but perhaps might need some adjustment for curtains where the end is free-hanging (ie you need a takeup spool rather than a gear to drive the cord). It needs to be mounted so the cord has some tension on it, so that it can drive it without much slack in it. If you have a multi-strand loop that needs to be pulled equally, or your loop action isn't smooth or isn't very 'grippy', perhaps it might have trouble.
You can also get gadgets which attach to your centremost curtain hook, have some wheels that drive against your track/rail and push the curtains open and closed. Whether they'll work depends whether your existing curtains are happy being pulled open and shut without using the cord, and whether they are happy to sit on the rail. You need one gadget per curtain, ie two for a pair, so that can get a bit expensive.
The curtains I am looking to fit it to have the cording in a loop :)
The only thing like this I've seen is the Switchbot for curtain poles. And no amount of searching with "-Switchbot" could remove the ***ing thing from the first page of results.
I'm leaning towards the device in the subject ... c. £35 if I wait.
Thanks for such a full reply. Seasons greetings and a very happy new year !
Most work, but do have issues with dirt on the tracks. I'd also avoid the battery powered ones, and most failures I hear about are teeth off gears due to their cheap plastic construction. I don't use them myself, but its another one of those things that looks simple but isn't with limit switch adjustments stretching cords and jamming runners to contend with. Brian
Maybe you need a search engine that isn't run by an ad network :)
I Startpaged 'Tuya curtains' and various sorts turned up, eg:
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- seems like 'curtain robot' is the search term.
Paul Hibbert on Youtube has a few videos about them, although if I recall the ones he tested a year or two ago were quite pricey (~£70 territory, per curtain). The Tuya ones seem about half that. Others also have videos.
If your mechanism looks like a blind then I think it should probably work. The main thing is to securely mount to the wall so it can hold enough tension.
Just ordered one to try out, when it arrives I'll post some details if you like. (I'll probably be ripping out the "smarts" and hooking it up to our bespoke home automation system, but £40 for what's hopefully a decent looking housing, motor, and mechanicals isn't bad...)
Some of them can be reflashed with alternative software such as Tasmota or ESPHome, meanwhile the Zigbee ones can communicate with a Zigbee hub attached to something like Home Assistant (or just zigbee2mqtt and then talk basic MQTT). So there are options if you don't want to rebuild it.
First impression is that it looks decent enough, slim and unobtrusive:
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I like the detachable backplate - gives about 1" of height adjustment to take up any slack in the cord (and makes it easy to remove for, er, modifications :)
The guide is in traditional chinglish, and ominously suggests you have to register and turn on GPS for the app to work. There is no remote with this version btw, though it's mentioned in the guide.
I'll nail it to a wall over the weekend and see how it behaves, then take it apart to see how it ticks...
At this point, my key question is can it drive a plain *cord* (as the illustration on like hints at) not just a beaded cord.
If so, I may swing towards it. SWMBO has reconciled with automatic curtains over half-arsed vertical blinds.
I did get a response in an automation dedicated forum that suggests you can get a vertical blind unit (open/close and tilt) in the US. Which wouldn't surprise me. There are some hidden companies still.
And the answer is yes. The default pully is for beaded cords, but there were three others included that have slots in to fit thin, medium and thick cord.
Using the medium size one, it grips our cord - Dunelm "Comet Rod", surprisingly well:
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Don't know how well it will work over time if the cord stretches, but the mount does have a bit of adjustment built in.
Installed the App on iPhone, paired up ok using Bluetooth (I think), then works over WiFi. Didn't have to sign up to try it out, but it won't remember any settings unless you do*, and the limit settings are pretty important for it to be usable (the default is for a very short throw). Seems to have lots of options, and can link up with Alexa etc. (if you sign up...), so probably great if you're that way inclined. It certainly "does what it says on the tin".
My interest is more linking it to our wired system, so I'll be taking a (torx) screwdriver to it soon to see what it's like inside. If anyone is interested I'll take pictures...
It doesn't even remember the pairing, as I've just found out :(
Please do. I think some of the other ones of the same design have an ESP8266 or similar microcontroller in there, which is why they can be reprogrammed with Tasmota or ESPHome. I think the one I had did, but I never took it apart and sold it because I didn't need it.
Pretty impressed with the build quality, simple and efficient.
The microcontroller is a Geehy APM32F030C8T6. It seems to be compatible with Tasmota according to this:
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There is what looks like an ISP connector (5 pads) on the PCB, but programming that is an adventure I don't have time for, and I'll be interfacing it to a wired RS485 system anyway, so a custom driver with a PIC is quite sufficient.
Let's look at the parts...
The motor / gearbox assembly is a JL-29Z370-135. Some info:
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Impressed that all the gears, apart from the first flat gear, are metal (hopefully not chineseium). The gearbox is about 280:1.
The motor PCB has a neat quadrature hall-effect sensor with a magnet on the shaft and two TCS40DLR-like sensors (plus ESD protection):
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Unfortunately the position detection is purely relative, unless there's some current detection that can spot the end-stop. There is a fat current sense resistor (possibly) on the main PCB, but I suspect that's just overload protection). I guess the end stops may need re-calibrating occasionally, or I could fit a limit switch to the curtain rail...
The motor driver (a PT5126) is on the main PCB:
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The radio uses a WBR3 module, and does do BT (for the initial configuration) and WiFi:
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Next task is hooking it up to some testgear and checking the volts and amps to the motor, then make a driver for it. I may even do a custom PCB as I'll need about 10 of these... Watch this space!
On the bench, popped a breakout board in the motor cable and took some measurments:
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From the Hall sensors the motor spins at ~70 revs/sec (4200RPM):
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With 280:1 gearbox this is 15RPM, but the output is closer to 30RPM so my guess at the gear ratio was out. Maybe the worm drive is 1:2 not 1:1? Whatever, it is what it is...
The drive is 12V, 20KHz PWM, running at about 50% with no load other than the gearbox:
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It maintains 4200RPM pretty closely under load by adjusting the PWM.
Peak current is (very approximately) 160mA (36mV across 0.22 Ohms):
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So now to add some muscle to one of my PIC boards and fire up the PWM.
(The 3V sensors are going to be a bit of a pain, though I could run the whole shebang at 3V3, or hope the sensors are 5V tolerant parts).
That's one of those STM32F030 clones from China, I think.
A PIC would be my last choice for anything these days, although if that's what you're comfortable with...
On some of those the Tuya 'radio' module is an ESP8266 which can be reflashed with custom firmware (Tasmota, ESPHome). That one appears to be a Realtek KM4-based CPU which Tasmota etc isn't compatible with.
They're pretty well suited to this sort of application, waggling a few I/O pins and talking RS485. Cheap, plenty of I/O and peripherals, start up instantly, run reliably forever. Of course I have the toolchain, PCB templates and firmware stack ready to go, and I like writing in its quirky assembler, which helps. Yes, I'm old-school :)
(Elsewhere there's a Raspberry Pi as the bus controller, talking https to a bespoke server, and a https/javascript GUI, so it's not all clockwork...)
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