Then I decided to automate the projector door for a 150” bedroom screen. I just needed to add one piece of linkage...So I bought a short 6” forked-end marine turn-buckle and threw away most of the Dome brackets for attaching to a pipe. Home theater projector is now hidden whenever we’re not watching a movie. I included a few pictures of the project....
Additionally I have one of these on my water valve. Perfect operation in the first year and I do test it from time to time.
I’ll be buying a third unit to automate the door to a roomba cave. You don’t see any hinges on my work because I use SOSS Hidden Door hinges.
I wish I could give this 4.5 stars but can do only 4 stars, but because there are no limit switch adjustments and also I believe the 12VDC/1A power supply may be a bit marginal I'm kept from 5 stars. I may try a bigger current source soon to make the motor just a tad stronger; I don’t trust the puny power source, not that it’s failed yet.
EDIT: I changed my rating to 5 stars with new information after working with this z-wave motor a 3rd time. On the projector door automation project I was thinking that the motor might be a 'tad' weak because it was fighting my hatch door and yes, I'll admit this was not it's intended purpose... but lifting that door requires less force than turning a water valve. Instead, I decided to make some improvements to my door/linkage design and investigate a better power supply. Practice makes perfect so I bought a 3rd Dome water shut-off valve and built a "Roomba cave" complete with a door that opens and closes in my 6.5" baseboards. The Roomba door opens and the Roomba cleans the room, returning to it's docking station inside of the Roomba cave and then the door closes. Again, I used SOSS hidden door hinges... because there is nothing dumber than a "secret door" with the hinges showing. This time, I made a slight modification to the edge of the door with the hinges and realized that the wood was butting up to the door jamb wood on wood, causing the motor to work extra hard to close those last few degrees of swing to 0-degrees. What I did was two-fold.
A) I decided to slightly chamfer my door edges shaving back on an angle the door's hinge edge so it closes with the same seamless gap it had before, but there is now a bit of room across the entire jamb edge. This reduced the stress on the closing edge dramatically and now the door practically snaps closed every time. I also adjusted my lever arms a bit.
B) I bought a different DC power supply to play with the voltage/current. Yes, the power supply that is supplied with the unit is very cheap and weak. In fact the Dome power supply sent to me on purchase #3 quit working less than 5 minutes after I got it... and no, I won't knock off a star for that because I don't like their power supply anyway and this review is about the motor. For a power supply, I use this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MT5WVCG/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 purchased through amazon. It will do about 36Watts and covers 5V, 6V, 7.5V, 9V, 12V, 13.5V and 15V and has Amps of capacity; this motor only needs a little under 0.5A at 12V and I didn't want to worry about power. As for which voltages work with these Dome Water Valves, ALL of the voltages from 7.5V and up work. Here are the results:
5V, 6V setting did not work at all... no z-wave, no motor function.
Z-wave and motor worked for all other settings of this power supply...
7.5V setting worked fine, slowest motor action but better torque than the 12V setting.
9V setting worked great, still slower motor action but the best torque. Better than 12V setting.
12V setting... worked well, even a tad better than their el-cheapo supply sent with the unit (no current sag).
13.5V setting... faster than 12V and torque about the same as 12V.
15V setting... fastest motor speed but reduced starting torque.
Note that for this golden power supply even the 15V setting had up to 2.4Amps available so the motor was able to take however much current it needed.
For the projector door, placed right in front of a projector hanging in the closet of the next room, one of my favorite special effects is opening/closing the door with the projector turned on. As the door opens and closes, the light on the screen from the projector rises and falls, washing across the vertical length of the screen as you hear the quiet whir of this motor... it's awesome... especially at a slower speeds/better torque achievable with the 7.5V and 9V settings.
The Roomba cave door works in a similar fashion to the projector door only the hinges are on the top of the door so the door opens up. I didn't want the Roomba tripping over the door on it's way out of the cave ;). For the door of the Roomba cave, quick speed of opening/closing is preferable so I use 13.5V on that power supply. Anyway, 5 stars! Great product. Versatile unit. I have a couple of automation's planned for the walk-in-closet but don't know if this motor will be appropriate yet... I think I need a lead-screw mechanism. Anyway, for opening closing small doors, this is the unit you want.