In May we introduced PICAXE control of a small 2-lead DC motor, using "08"-generated PWM to alter spin rate. Without such efficient digital power pulses, speed control would have been wasteful of supplied energy and could even lead to transistor or "pot" (variable resistor) burnout.

Although the "08" is obviously a budget microcontroller, often struggling with demanding applications that its big brothers "18A" and "28A" more easily tackle, its ability to handle such real world tasks justifies further motor punishment!

The "big kid" in most of us naturally means that one of the most entertaining aspects of electronic circuits relates to their control of moving devices. Many of us still maybe glance admiringly as remote control garage doors and the like "do their stuff", with even perhaps a nod to centuries of engineering developments that yielded such (now) commonplace devices. Engineering often evolves from ingenuity of course!

Thus it is with this month's application. Sick of having his chooks disappearing at the hand (mouth?) of some cunning foxes, our reader devised a way of fitting a motorised door to his henhouse which automatically closed the door at sunset and opened it up again at sunrise - times when the pesky foxes knew that rule 0.22 might even things up.

We're not even going to try to describe the door mechanics - that's up to you, even though the photos overleaf show it in some detail - and you may care to add more code to do more things than our farmer did.