ESP8266 Community Forum

How to drive my 330MHz Automatic Gate Remote Control with GPIO pins from the ESP8266

What I'm trying to do is set up a web interface on the ESP8266 to control my Automatic Gate
My automatic gate is controlled via a 330MHz RF Remote which is specific to my country and overall is uncommon/rare in other countries.

After opening the remote and a quick test with my Multimeter I found that each button connects the 12v+ lead from the battery to a diff part of the circuit which inturn opens/closes either 1 gate or both gates.

My initial plan was to control trigger the remote buttons with 2 independant small 3v coil-relays. However after hooking everything up to the esp8266 it became clear that it does not have the required current to drive the relay (SRD-03VDC-SL-C), so my revised plan was to buy a couple of EL817 Photocouplers to drive the relays.

It then occured to me that it might be possible to directly drive the RF Remote with EL817, is this a good idea?

I have also been reading about the 4N25 series Photocoupler and now I am really not sure which one to use? the main diff with mine vs the example circuits is that my RF Remote will be connected to the emitter of the coupler and not the collector.

Hi, I’ve done something similar. My gate control unit had the feature to connect external buttons to open and close the gate without the remote. I used an ILD74 in place of a buttons and switched this with an ESP8266-01. Both are mounted in the control box next to my gates. This works fine from my phone (takes a second or two to pick up the home WiFi network) and saved me hacking a remote. I don’t have the code with me at the moment, shout if you need it.

Barnabybear wrote:Hi, I’ve done something similar. My gate control unit had the feature to connect external buttons to open and close the gate without the remote. I used an ILD74 in place of a buttons and switched this with an ESP8266-01. Both are mounted in the control box next to my gates. This works fine from my phone (takes a second or two to pick up the home WiFi network) and saved me hacking a remote. I don’t have the code with me at the moment, shout if you need it.

ILD74, Brialliant! a didnt know there were dual channel couplers, this seems more elegant, going to order off ebay, thanks for this man. I would def love to take a look at your code and how you implement the pushbutton sequence with a GPIO, thanks.

Hi - I used this code https://github.com/openhomeautomation/esp8266-relay
I made some slight mods to 'aREST.h' to make the out put a short pulse rather than an 'on (stay on)' or 'off (stay off)'.
See what you think and shout if you need help.