GHOST Controls Automatic Gate Opener Install! DIY

so welcome back everybody in today's episode we're going to be installing a ghost control system automatic gate opener on this gate that we just custom built here for our property now this may be a lengthy episode we're going to do the standard gate opener kit right here we're going to do the solar powered portion of it we're going to be installing automatic locks and we pretty much got the deluxe package here we're going to do their multi-connect kit where you can open and close this via your phone and internet we have wireless keypads Wireless remotes all the bells and whistles if you missed this episode you may want to watch where we custom build our own Gates my first ever gate build right here and the forbo fence to give us a decorative entrance let's get started and I do want to say a quick shout out and thank you so much to an extremely generous viewer Mr Doug everybody knows him if you watch the channel regularly most generous person I ever met in my life this kit showed up as a surprise one day and that's what's kicked off the whole four-board fence build build m gate so we can install this kit right here unbelievably generous thank you again Mr Doug means the world to us that you're always thinking of us all right so let's go over some of the basics real quick ghost control states that you need to mount your gate and your control arm to a 6x6 post it either needs to be steel or wood or you can do a large round post as well I have a 6x6 steel post here because we're holding up a massive 20ft Long Gate which is the maximum allowed for a single arm opener you can do dual opener so if you have a split gate in the middle and you can go up to 24 ft wide they claim this gate is mounted on ball bearing hinges which are unbelievably smooth you need to take away all the resistance that you can for a single gate opener like this a lot of people have asked why I want to put a wheel on the end you cannot put a wheel to help with gate sag on a gate this long and this heavy that adds rolling resistance and is not recommended by ghost controls they do have a guide on their website that will tell you what size gate what weight and what length and they do allow some wheels on shorter Gates but you need to make for sure your ground is perfectly flat and level that adds a lot of resistance to your opener you can see I purposely set my gate up with five horizontal runs so one is in the dead center they recommend that your gate arm opener go to the center of the gate if possible or as close to it all right so if you start with ghost controls basic kit it's going to come in a box like this it's going to come with the opener itself a plug in the wall adap so if you want to run 120 volt power out here by the way you can run no more than 1,000 ft this just comes with the plug-in adapter and you have to run your own wire out here and provide that but you can't go over 1,000 ft we're so far away from the house we're going to do solar out here it comes with a single click remote the control box and you're going to notice I have a red circuit board in my control box you're going to need that if you're going with the multi-connect kit and all these additional add-ons if you're going with your standard kit you're going to notice your control board is going to be green you also get some mounting Hardware in here you can get started with a kit just like this this is considered the basic then you can add on the solar you can add on an automatic lock you can add on that multi-connect kit they have all kinds of extra features all right so step number one and where we're going to need to get started this comes in this kit start with just this bracket right here we'll mount it to the post and I'll show you how all this goes in this is an important part all right so don't forget ghost control says Mount to as center of the gate as you can this bracket is going to go to our post right here and we need to mount this 4 and 1/2 in off from our gate in its fullest open position you see how wide this control is that's because once we put those other two bars in there Mount this wherever we're going to set it up you have adjustable holes by the way so what you're going to want to do is open your gate up to what you think is the widest point for me going 90° off the post is plenty wide open for a large vehicle Long Trailer to make a turn in here because this bracket is adjustable in and out and the arms that we're about to mount to this are adjustable as well we don't have to be exact here but you want to get close so I'm just marking the pole we're actually going to drill and tap this pole and we're going to thread it and put some bolts directly into this post because it's thick while still otherwise you can put lag bolts in or through bolt if you have a wood post as well to make it extra sturdy when it comes to this bracket I'm put the bolt holes right dead in the centers where I'm going to drill that gives me some room with these slotted holes right here to move the bracket left or right should I need any more adjustment and don't forget we have all these different adjustment holes up here to move the arm out and ultimately move the gate operator out of the way all right so I'm going to take this plastic bushing and put on top of this lower control arm this is important cuz this is what their operator is going to Pivot on WE Slide the operator in line the holes up and drop a pin through so we can make our final adjustment here so let me show you the step up to this point we're boled to the post we have put this plastic spacer or bushing in in here shoved our bolt through and then you seen the pin that we just put through here for our gate operator we still have to put one more bolt through here but we have all these different adjustments don't forget we need to swing the operator out of the way open our gate up to its widest point which is about right there and we're going to measure off of the gate to the center pin 4 and 1/2 in and you can adjust this in and out it's probably going to wind up being perfect right there and we're going to pin this hole instead of putting it too close to the gate there all right we're going to do the same thing we did on this first bolt plastic bushing goes in between these two arms going to drop a bolt through with a washer from the top now that we know what hole that we want to choose and then a washer on the bottom along one of these lock nuts all right so you're given what looks about 6 ft of control wire for the operator and I have heard that you don't want to extend these wires I wish this was longer cuz I wanted to mount my box over off to the side out of the way so it's not visible when you're pulling up but I guess I'm just going to mount my control box over here and if we've got length of cable run to mount the battery box over there we will or we'll just put them both right here side by side so I'm going to mount this control box to my wooden fence and I'm going to space it to where you don't really see a lot of the wires hanging down when you pull up we're going to stain this fence black a lot of people been asking me about that so a black box shouldn't Stand Out nearly as bad once everything everything is black all right next we need to figure out our location for our battery box all right so I've got the ghost controls battery box here and this one should have came with two additional batteries they recommend that you install two batteries whenever you're doing solar for the extra power there don't forget we're not plugging into 110 volts here now because the viewer shipped this out to me he may have bought the additional battery so you're going to have to confirm when you place your order if you're getting one or two batteries so what we'll do we'll do the same thing we did with the other box these holes are not pre-drilled so we'll drill out whichever mounting holes we're going to use top bottom then we'll install the batteries cuz you don't want to be holding up that weight and you need access to all of your holes and uh wire everything up now you have two entrances for wires down here run the power cables up through one of those looks like like we connect our gate operator over here so this wire entrance I'm going to leave available for the gate operator controls go ahead and wrap this wire around and pull the excess inside since it's already got the connections on it and up top is where we will make our connections right now we'll put our first battery in and connect it now we'll put our second battery in all right next we need to attach the operator to control board so we can run it in and out to figure out how we want to mount it to the gate you see it comes with colorcoded wires right here and this is all set up very very easy you see this is first operator if you order a box that has a second operator or double opening gate there'll be another attachment point here this is labeled lock we'll be using that a little later you can see where you connect your solar and there's a positive and negative right there this is where you can connect your Transformer your running power down here as well as a hole host of other connections there's also dip switches over here that are labeled that you'll need to verify the manual shows you this whether you're doing a push open gate a pull open gate so I'm going to run these wires up through here connect to First operator says red black green and white this is very straightforward and simple all right so next I'm going to be installing our solar panel I had thought about running it all the way out toward the highway to where we get even more sun but this Gap right here gives me many hours of sunlight a day you need to keep this in mind if your Gate's going to be getting opened and closed a lot during the day well you're going to need more sun exposure more charging of the batteries realistically we'll probably open and close our gate twice a day unless we're expecting some extra deliveries it's not going to be open and close much at all so I think I get more than enough sunlight here should we find that we don't have enough charging I have some 12 gauge cable ghost controls recommends a minimum of 16 gauge but the larger you go the better and you can run up to 100 ft if if I remember correctly so I can run all the way out to the highway and run wire down the back side of my fence should I need to but I really think this is going to charge my batteries planning plus we're also in Florida we get a lot of sunshine if you're up north somewhere where it's going to be a lot more cloudy where you're going to really want to pay attention and make for sure that you get your panel somewhere you can get the most sunlight so I'm going to screw in some of the provided clamps I'll give you an up close shot of this in just a second not going to screw this all the way in because we still have to slide our bar in so this bar is included with the solar panel I'll show you that in just a second going to kind of angle my solar panel where it's going to catch a lot of the morning sun and midday sun it's already almost 2:00 in the afternoon and we're still getting Sun here now so we're going to get quite a few hours with this position right here I'm going to put on a second clamp this is going to catch a lot of wind so you want to make for sure you use all the provided brackets and then here's the panel itself went ahead and Loosely put the brackets on do not put these on tight or you're going to have a nightmare of a Time sliding this over the pole all right so now I'm put my rubber cap back on and I'm going to tighten up these bolts once I kind of get everything aimed where I wanted I think that's going to work out perfect right there in that position all right now we'll run this wire down to our control box now I'm going to cut my wires to length because there's a lot of excess here and I just don't want a bunch of bundled up wires here's the thing you cannot cut through a positive and negative solar panel wire because well now that we've got Sun going to the panel there is power on those wires so I gently cut back my outer casing you need to do this with caution I'm pulling it down and I'll cut each wire individually there is no way to disconnect power there's not a fuse or anything else and all the connections I just noticed are soldered in so do not go cutting through or shortening up your solar panel wire because there will be power on there especially if there's any sun out right so I run these wires up through the bottom one thing I did notice they don't really provide enough connections through the bottom of the box to run all these extra add-ons and wires in so I did increase one hole size right here to run the wire in and we're going to have to drill another Hole In The Box because that is most likely a drain or wheat pole should water ever get in here although it technically shouldn't but just in case we'll make sure we have a srain hole so right over here on this side is your solar connections and if you look underneath it says positive and negative now that our solar's hooked up and our batteries are hooked up there is a switch underneath a power button we'll turn it on you can see the beeping the lights kicking on here's our battery condition now if we look inside here here is several jog buttons jog to open this is a set button this is jog J to close this is another jog button to set your Auto close time and here is a learn button we'll be using these and you need to refer to your manual to them but what I just did was I pressed and held the jog to close button which brought this shaft back in as far as it'll go cuz it's got an internal limit switch now we know after we open our gate up to the position that we want we can put the bracket onto this and hook it to the gate but do not do that do not Mount Your bracket to the gate until you made for sure this shaft is all the way back in all right so here is the bracket wheel mount to the gate by the way it also comes with pipe clamps that you can use as well should you have a tube gate this is going to work out perfectly for mounting straight to my [Applause] gate all right we're going to slide this pin down and it's important that this bushing goes on the bottom side of the operator end there going to be a lot of friction there what's up buddy all right we are connected all right so now I'm going to press and hold that jog close button that I just showed you earlier and we're going to set the gate position we're going to run it until it gets dead center of that post over there now because we're going to be installing a lock we're going to have to fine-tune this a little all right we're going to let the gate settle out it looks like it's going to wind up dead center of the post over there so now we have our jogged closed position set by pressing the finger buttons now the gate will automatically open and you can test the close feature since we've already used the jog buttons on this to set our open and close it should stop where it needs to open's going to be on the limit switch let's hit the button again let's close the gate and it should stop center of the post over there again we're going to fine-tune all this cuz we're about to add a lock but if you're installing the basic kit this is how easy it is either you're going to power with solar or you're going to trench and run a wire to a plug in and the basic kit is ready to operate now we can go into the add-ons all right one feature worth mentioning is this set auto close time so you can press and hold this now we get a beep and start counting this sets the amount of time that you want the gate to stay open before it automatically closes back I'm going to allow myself about 45 to 60 seconds to set this to allow myself enough time for a truck or semi to pull all the way through with a trailer all right it's been almost 60 seconds I'm going to press this button and we have set our time now when you open your gate it'll stay open for that set amount of time before automatically closes all right so next we're going to install our zombie lock and I highly recommend a zombie lock especially on the gate this big even though the operator is holding it there is still a lot of sway in a gate this size and it put a bunch of strain on the operator so then at a lot this close to the post is going to be perfect for these extremely windy and stormy days that we get down here so you want the bar to go to the rear because the lock is going to mount on the gate itself and latch in and there's multiple mounting holes so we're going to lag bolt this into the post right here dead center of this horizontal run so this here is the zombie lock latch that will communicate with that circuit board and you can see it has a heavy duty latch in here that will open and close this is what we're going to have to line up over there on our gate now you can see all the different holes back here you can actually get attachments to where this will clamp on a PP gate I know a lot of you are going to use that or you can thread some rods in that come with it we're going to drill through our gate and actually bolt this to the gate itself that's going to be the best way you can also key lock this manually these rods in right here we'll tighten those up with some pliers make sure our Cable's nice and flat and we need to go Mark out the location of these two bolts on the gate drill all the way through lock these down with some provided nuts and then we're going to actually cut these off to make everything look nice and flush and then paint over it [Music] sh all right so I've got my wires run in the Box for the lock this is very straightforward again it's labeled lock you got your positive your negative and where the blue goes I really like the way everything is labeled and set out in these boxes all right so in order to test this we're going to pull the pins so we don't want with a gate that's opening and closing with our lock not functioning correctly let's get our arm out of the way let's flip power back onto the box and I just heard this cycle down here so now since the operator is not connected we can hit open and see if this unlocks it did check that out all right now that we have verified the the lock is operating I am going to reconnect this pin and then test everything all right now we can see that we're locked gate is closed let's hit open it unlatched and it should latch back any second there it goes and the gate's coming open that worked perfectly okay let's close everything back and let's see if this recognizes when it gets close that it latches in or maybe it just slams and lcks closed we're about to find out my guess is it knows where it's at and will open here any second yep all right so a bit of flopping around it's just cuz I'm running with such a long 20ft gate tube Gates will probably do the same thing and it's latch back locked that couldn't have been any easier I've got to repair my S too we had such high winds the other day it literally snapped off screws holding my sign on that's the reason I want this lock not only does that lock make my gate more secure where people can't just come pull pins and push the gate open but all this bad wind that we're getting that helps all right next I'm going to be installing the ghost controls multiconnect this is very straightforward and simple there's really not a whole lot show here you can download their app and actually control your system via internet and you see the Bluetooth symbol on there you can do that with Bluetooth as well now you are going to need Wi-Fi to reach this we're so far from the house our Wi-Fi doesn't reach down here but we may extend it in the future but I like the fact that we can also do Bluetooth so should you forget your keypad or being a vehicle that you didn't have the keypad in you can actually control this via the app and open and close your gate so this mounts outside I'll just put it behind the post there has a little cable right here we're going to rout it into the box and it'll plug in right up here here's what you need to know if you already have a previous system with that green board we talked about this at the beginning of the video you're going to have to swap the green board out to the red board in order to use this function if you want this add-on call the guys at ghost control they can walk you through all that and get you set up I also have the ghost controls keypad so we are going to set this up I've thought about this a couple of different ways so the awesome viewer Mr Doug that sent me this kit also sent me a pole that mounts in the ground so whenever you pull up you can reach right out of your vehicle and press the buttons and mount the keypad to it I don't think I'm going to do that just yet and here's why we get a lot of semi deliveries in and they swing wide and I'd have to mount the pole somewhere over here for it to be convenient for somebody to reach out of a vehicle I'm afraid the semis are going to take my pole out we also do not have many people that visit here at all if it's somebody like say my parent or the occasional friend well we can already have the gate open for them or I think I'm going to mount the keypad somewhere on the fence over here or maybe even back up here and while that is a little inconvenient they can still get out we can give them a code and they can open the gate don't forget we have it programmed to stay open for a minute so they have plenty of time to do that get back in and drive through you can also set this up where it doesn't have a time close now you're going to want that if you're going to have a keypad but if you're just going to open and close with your remote you can set no time or 6 to 60 seconds like I've done right here I like the minute that way somebody can get out and do the keypad [Music] it's also worth noting the keypad requires cell batteries not very common nowadays and uh is not included so I'm going to go up and grab a couple we're going to pop it in and it's supposed to already be programmed with the kit that it came with all right so the last thing that we're going to install is the ghost controls vehicle sensor you may have ordered this with your kit so what this allows you to do is we're going to trench it down the side of the road we're going to bury this wand about 12 inches beneath the dirt and once a vehicle comes up it senses the vehicle and it will automatically open the gate for you allow you to drive through and then close back if you have all that set this keeps you from having to Fumble around find a remote pull out the app and open the gate it'll do it automatically for you once you pull up and wait now this sensor has a 55- ft cable that's important because ghost control says that the sensor itself has to be at least 20 ft away from your gate keep in mind my gate for instance is metal we don't want it sensing the gate and automatically opening up so with 55 ft we're going to run about 5 foot up the post give or take a little less than that and then we have a 20ft gate that's going to extend out and we can go another 30t beyond that so we should have a 10t safe Zone there think about the future we are planning on rocking or doing asphalt melons on this road and we know that we're going to widen it if we do that so your trailer that's trailing behind the vehicle always tracks and stays on the road doesn't fall off the edge and bust your road up so we know whenever it comes time to do this to our road we're probably going to go out about a foot to 2ot on either side we're going to make this a nice wide road which lets me know I don't want my sensor in the way because we're going to do some minor Excavating and then rebuilding the road base with that rock or asphalt millons so we're probably going to want to come 3 to 4 feet out trench from this pole and we're going to figure out where the 55 ft Mark is we're just going to stretch the wire out but we're going to have this sensor out here because our road is about to be extended over here in the future so keep that in mind you don't want this buried underneath say an asphalt road or something like that now here's something interesting even though the paperwork says a 55 ft cable it's looking like we have close to twice that I'm imagine this is about to stretch out to over 100 ft here which is fine with me the further it is down the road the quicker the gate will start opening and you have a little less weit [Music] time now obviously a tractor isn't necessary to dig your ditch but it sure bust up the ground makes it a lot quicker a good oldfashioned shovel works or trenching shovel or you can go rent a ditch which a lot of people don't realize this Home Depot RS a lot of equipment some of your local hardware stores if you've got really Rocky or bad ground of digging a ditch which may be worth renting just cheap as they are bust your ditch out return it done so I've got my wire and my sensor laid in my trench before I cover the trench up I'm going to go a and wire my sensor up and make for sure it works that would be a nightmare to cover all this hard work up only to find out your sensor's bad at least while your trench is still open you could get a new one on the way replace it repair it do some troubleshooting so to speak all for some reason I lost the video footage of me testing but I drove the ranger down the road and parked by the sensor which is here the gate did not open so I moved the ranger a little closer to the sensor and the gate did open I stopped it before it hit all this dirt so that's good that means something small like a Ranger's got to be very close to that sensor I didn't want it being sensitive for something like the ranger cuz we drive up and down these Trails all the time and I didn't want my gate randomly opening now vehicle got a lot more metal and a lot more going on that the sensors designed to pick up I think it's going to work just fine with a larger vehicle but if you get close enough with something small like this it will also open the gate [Music] [Applause] [Music] up all right here we go other than wrapping up a tiny little bit of wiring which I'll do off camera we are finished with the gate controller install so whenever you come pulling up you can press this button in your vehicle or we can go over and use the keypad or we can use the app on our phone automatically opens relatively quick I would say doesn't seem to be any binding no issues as you can see that opens up perfectly to give us plenty of room to drive a semi or trailer anything that needs to make a long sweep into our driveway so because now we're going to have a gate closed we need to have somewhere to drop our packages off we do not want them left down here potentially in the rain or to have any other type of issues isues like theft so while this box isn't truly waterproof this will shed water and give uh some nice protection to our packages plus it just keeps them from being visible from the road you can see I just put a earth augur into the ground and bolted through the container into that because this is so lightweight it's going to blow over in windstorms and if I find out I have any issues with that cracking or busting we'll put a piece of metal all the way across the bottom I also elevated this off the ground with some pressure treated wood in case this area floods where several in is off that should protect our packages all right so as you can see we got a trench covered up and we've got our sensor way down there so when we come out of our Trails running our dog in the afternoon we don't trigger it a vehicle sets it off just fine and I've tested it with a tractor and Ranger you got to get within about 2 feet of it for those to activate it but I actually like it being not extremely sensitive I don't want every little thing that goes by to set that off I will say overall I thought the wiring on this was very easy very well laid out everything was color coordinated labeled correctly I did not find this complicated at all I didn't time it and it's been a couple days on the install because I had a lot of distractions yesterday but I bet I could wire this all in completely programmed in 2 hours not counting digging the ditch and running that particular sensor right there that time's going to vary based on your ground your equipment that you have available and everything else but this is not complicated at all set yourself a few hours aside and I think you can install this very easy easily so a huge shout out and thank you again to Mr Doug one of the most kind and generous people we have ever met in our life on this channel uh can't thank him enough for sending this kid out what a pleasant surprise that was to get that in the mail that is extremely generous and now we feel a little more comfortable with our place here yes in theory this is not true security I get that we live in a world now where there's so many tools available somebody could come hack this and break in in no time heck with that said they could come cut our fence and just drive our right through but what this does do is not leave an open driveway for people riding around kids on four wheelers things like that people just randomly showing up and sadly we live in a world now where well if something's open people are up no good they may go in and look around and see if there's something they might want to come out and get this stops the average person from well doing a lot of that plus now we don't have to worry about all the delivery drivers and everybody else coming up in the afternoons with our little dogs that's up there we have one little dog that does not understand that a vehicle can run him over and hurt him really bad uh so we have to watch him carefully we get a lot of deliveries here so now we can just get him in the box and speaking of that I work from home 24/7 uh so it's easy for me to run down here and get packages when I know they're coming we also have long range driveway alarms mounted down here I know immediately when somebody pulls on the property we get notified at the house we also have cameras down here which I'm going to be moving around to watch this stuff even better which instantly notifies me on my phone so I'm not concerned about packages or anything else going on plus eventually we're going to have a little firewood stand down here and some other stuff to sell some things off of the property and we're going to make sure that we're notified and can see what's going on in case there's any issues with theft or anything else but we've already got all that covered all right hopefully enjoyed it hopefully this showed you how to install one of these systems I thought it was very straightforward the reviews are excellent online I'm expecting to get years of service out of this particular gate opener right here uh that's not something that you often see with the other big name brands which has horrible reviews everywhere so fingers crossed time will tell if this really holds up well for us we're going to do a little bit more stuff down here down the road so for our everyday viewers you may want to watch that and for our everyday viewers this project is now checked off of the list we're about to start another DIY project immediately you're going to want to watch that one thank y'all for watching we'll catch you on the next one

Channel: The Kelley's Country Life

Views: 45,417

Keywords: farming, farm, farmstead, homestead, homesteading, john deere, john deere 4066r, firewood, chainsaw, chainsaws, stihl chainsaws, garden, gardening, country living, stihl, stihl MS170, cutting firewood, sharpening chainsaw, polaris ranger, cutting grass, mowing, wood chipper, pto chipper, woodmaxx, woodmaxx chipper, log splitter, stihl ms260 pro, food plots, barndo, barndominium, pole barn house, building a pole barn house, american cls, Ghost controls, gate opener, automatic gate opener

Id: 6HGD0GDNadA

Length: 32min 0sec (1920 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 19 2024