Remote Control Blinds for $20

So I was tired of the arduous task of manually opening and closing the blinds each day... and I had made motorized blinds before with a continuous revolution servo to turn the rod when I was a kid but that didn't look nice with a servo mounted up there and I still had to walk all the way over to the window to push a button to do it.

So I decided to see just how inexpensively I could make them wireless and hide the motor.....

We have 2" blinds that have a wand that you twist to open and close them. After removing the wand and worm drive assembly there is plenty of space for a small gear motor. I found some 6V, 20 RPM gear motors on eBay that fit easily but they are not as powerful as I would like. These work but I may upgrade them later. A continuous revolution servo with the circuit board removed would make a simple small gear motor as well.

Since I had all the wiring, power, screws etc. I spent less than $15 to do both windows.

I used the following parts:

1. Small gear motor. $3 each http://www.ebay.com/itm/401045489715

2. Wireless remote. $7 http://www.banggood.com/12V-4CH-Channel-315Mhz-Wireless-Remote-control-Switch-p-960987.html

3. 2 Power bricks, 12V for the wireless remote and 6V for the gear motors. (Stuff I had around the house)

4. Misc. screws, wiring, shaft coupler. (Stuff I had around the house)

Inside the blinds were small plastic spacers or bracing that I used as the mount for my motor. The motor has a 5 mm round shaft with 2 flat sides and the blinds have a 5.75 mm hex shaft. There are many different ways you can mount the motor and couple the motor to the shaft and I am sure each motor/blind combination will be unique so you will have to figure that out for your situation. Since I had already started the project and didn't want to waste any more time sourcing a coupler I drew one in Sketchup and printed it on a 3D printer.

The wireless controller I used has 4 relays. The wiring diagram above shows how to wire 2 motors for forward and reverse. We only use 2 of the 3 windows anyway so this worked well for my project of motorizing 2 windows.

I used a 12V power brick to power the wireless remote and a 6V power brick to power the motors. I could have used batteries or even made a small circuit to step the 12V down for the motors and used a single power brick, but I had them and it was easiest to just use 2 different power bricks.

I used a hot glue gun to run small 24 gauge wire down the side of the window behind the blinds to connect the gear motors to the remote and you can hardly see the wires.

While this doesn't easily allow for automation or phone/computer interface like some of the other motorized blind projects on Instructables it is a very inexpensive way to have wireless remote control blinds.

I hope this inspires you to make your own!