Posted: 3/4/2017 8:05:15 PM EDT
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I'm putting in a wood plank fence across the front of the property in a couple weeks and want to put in a powered gate to control access. Looking at home depot and Amazon I'm mainly seeing mule products. Is this the way to go? The gate will be about 1000ft from the house so it'll have to be solar powered unless there is a really really good reason to run a power line to it..
What do you recommend? |
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Quoted:
Most people around here prefer Apollo openers. That being said, I'm going with mighty mule. Make sure that the gate swings freely and go oversized with the opener. Based off all the shitty reviews for Mule, I bought an Apollo opener a few years back. Its been great aside from needing to upgrade to a larger solar panel due to shitty placement/tree cover. |
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Go Apollo. Make sure you have the tech line phone # on speed dial. You`ll need it. Not a bad thing but they can and will help you.
DO NOT MAKE A SOLID WOOD GATE. Wind, wear and tear on the drive unit,,,bad jujuj. Be sure and grease the hinges at least twice a year. You will have to take the battery our 2-3 time a year and "charge" it because the solar panels that come with it are not big enough. I`ve had mine for six years and the main circuit board has failed once. Easy enough to replace. |
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I've had a GTO pro series for 17 years with few issues.
Runs off a small trickle charger about 300' away. I've replaced the battery once. Main issues have been with the exit sensor. One, third party died and the GTO wireless one is just ok. Not the most robust design... I've had to sodder wires that got pulled out. At this point the openers (dual gates), are about worn out. They keep chugging along, but could fail at any point. The gates are the tube style farm gates Yes, wind can really push on a gate, even a simple tube gate. |
| Installed a USAutomatic Sentry 300S four years ago after an old out of production Genie gate opener finally died. Picked the Sentry because of generally good reviews and made in Texas. Easy to install and so far no problems. A small 12v battery in the control box powers the opener. I don't know how far you could run a low voltage line to the opener but like others have said that might be more reliable than using solar to charge the battery. |
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Quoted:
I'm putting in a wood plank fence across the front of the property in a couple weeks and want to put in a powered gate to control access. Looking at home depot and Amazon I'm mainly seeing mule products. Is this the way to go? The gate will be about 1000ft from the house so it'll have to be solar powered unless there is a really really good reason to run a power line to it.. What do you recommend? This is based on many, many threads and posts over on Tractorbynet.com and the Mule opener I have. While there are some successes (e.g. a couple posts in this thread) the list of failures is long as it is inevitable. Save your money for a better opener. On mine, the board got zapped by lightning, not the first time it's happened, according to the previous owners. It failed before I bought the property. I called the company about a replacement board. The cost was about 85%-90% the cost of a whole new opener.  Apparently I'm not alone with this experience.
Fuck that and fuck them. |
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I posted some advise once in this old thread. Maybe it might help.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_19/678565__ARCHIVED_THREAD____Electric_Driveway_Property_Gate.html&page=1 |