My neighbor has a 10 ft. wide, 4 ft. tall steel tube corral type fence across his driveway. To make it match his mahogany fence, he bolted 1" thick mahogany boards to the front of it.
Weighs a ton!
I helped design and build a small wheel that sits under the end that is not hinged. It rolls across his driveway to let cars in, but when closed keep his dogs and chickens from roaming.
He would like to some kind of electic opener. Wow. All I could come up with is an I beam sunk into the ground and a piston (think log splitter size) to pull - push the wheeled fence.
Any ideas?
Dan
put a sprocket on the wheel, hook it up to a garage door opener, put a stop at the limit of the gate's opening and another at the limit of closing. Put the garage door sensors across the opening so the gate doesn't close on anything.
Either that or similar idea just with an electric motor and two limit switches.
I thought about that, but with snow etc. I wonder if the wheel woluld just slip.
A door traveling in an arc is automated with a linear actuator and an arm. Usually, the hinges are very robust and the door frame very solid. You see these on Beverly Hills Mansions. If you can't easily swing the door manually, you might have a tough time with an actuator.
Might be better to convert it to a rolling door that rides on wheels. Then you can use a garage door opener to pull it back and forth. You see these on chain-link fences at impound lots.
Option #3 is to connect a wheel to an electric motor and connect that to the fence. (or on old Sportster motor, or a Briggs & Stratton) Flip a switch and the motor "drives" the fence open. Reverse the current to close. You see this on large hangar doors IIRC.
gear reduction motor driving a steering box or rack?
How well is that giant door going to swing when there is a foot plus of snow in the way? 
cwh
PowerDork
11/25/13 9:47 a.m.
A slide gate is much easier to power. You should use a wheel on the edge, preferably a grooved one, riding on a piece of angle iron. An inexpensive unit can be found from GTO Pro. Easy to connect a clicker to it, too. Garage door openers require quite a bit of fabrication and will not hold up very well. BTDT.
I'd start by looking at how the commercial ones work. Northern Tool has a bunch of options.
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/NTESearch?escapeXml=false&ipp=24&storeId=6970&Ntt=gate%2Bopener
