GoControl Z-wave garage door opener with horizontal blade door

Hi everyone, I managed to configure the Gocontrol garage door opener sucessfully and control the door from there. The problem I have is with the tilt sensor, since my garage door opens horizontally (two vertical blades, as shown in the picture). How could I mount the sensor in order for it to detect whether the door is closed or open?

I can imagine a solution, but it would probably rely on some 3D printing.

My imaginary solution would be an arm that rides along the open gate. When the gate is closed, the tilt sensor is hanging down. When the gate opens, the arm is forced up and the tilt sensor goes horizontal = open.

Mechanically there's need to have a bearing anchoring one end of the arm and then a bearing that rides long the gate. It may be that some other moving element is more ideally placed.

Lookup "bell crank" to better visualize:
Screenshot 2023-03-27 at 9.40.59 AM
They are used all over the place and the length of the arms can be adjusted to "amplify" the motion.

If you mount the sensor on a hinge attached to one gate.
Green = Hinge
Display = sensor

And a bumper on the other gate.

As they open and close the sensor should change from horizontal to vertical.

Not to scale.


image

image

Thanks, I will try those solutions. You both are very clever.

I'll be the dumb one: why does it need to be a tilt sensor, wouldn't a contact sensor work in this circumstance?

The GoControl GDO has it's own tilt sensor (345mhz) and uses it internally.

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I figured that there had to be a really obvious explanation. Thanks. Carry on.

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