Hi Guys
I have recently been following Grant,s @Guru_Of_Nothing package vault project and decided i needed something similar . Decided on a commercial product which i purchased from bunnings. Have removed the letterbox section on top as its not required and have used the mounting holes for 2 backets which will hold the parcelbox to the wall…Installed some white led strips which will light up for approx 2 minutes whenever the parcel drop off door is opened or the parcel pickup door is opened…Have removed the parcel delivery chute as its going to be modded , im going to add 4 beam break sensors and a local micro controller to scan the beam breaks…The main controller will be housed in a box mounted on the parcel pickup door…The box will be mounted on ally plate which will be hinged to make it easier to work on…Im making a little green led strip which will be mounted above the parcel sign on front of the parcel drop of door…This will light up whenever the parcel drop of door is opened and the beam break controller senses a parcel…more soon
Abso-freakin-lutely! I love it! What did the box cost you? I will definitely be watching this build. It looks like the word “Parcel” on the front is a die-cut or laser cut piece. That needs a back light of some sort that blocks the view into the box. Could be set up to illuminate when a parcel is present inside.
Hi Grant
The box cost $419 AUS…Not cheap…Im in the process of making an led strip (green) to put over that parcel cutout…It will light when a parcel has been detected…and if another parcel gets delivered before the first parcel is removed the geen leds will flash…Once the parcel pickup door is opened it will start a timer and when that times out it will reset the system… 
NICE! I figured the box wasn’t cheap. Seems that in the parcel box market, things are made of gold.
doing some work on my parcelbox today…Have mounted the main controller box . As can seen its hinged so its easier to work on …The home made led strip has been sika flexed into place …im going to make a timber base frame to keep the parcelbox of the ground…Just waiting on the beam breaks from core electronics to arrive then i can start on the beam break detectors…Im suing the 5mm adafruit ones and was wondering if you have to send a modulated signal to the transmitter ? im hoping its got an onboard modulator ,if so i might use one of my old pic boards to control it…
I know what the board on the left is (4 channel relay board) but what is the board on the right? Looks very industrial. Crystal oscillator and Darlington arrays… Is that thing going to have a launch sequence?LOL
That was the first pcb that I had made …its an 8 in and 8 out …The inputs are 12v and the leds on the right show the status of the inputs . The inputs are connected to a 4051 chip which is scanned by the pic micro. 16F84A. And the outputs are connected to the uln2803 chip . My first excursion into home automation was using this board to control my security lights…
Dangit! I was hoping there was an element of space travel involved;0)
LOL!!!..I would love to get some email nofication when a parcel is left but i dont want to rely on having a computer up al the time…Been having a look at the module…
For third the price you could buy a rpi and install Home Assistant, I guess more involved setup but endless options to expand, push notification options, camera etc
Hi Kerry
if i were 20 years younger i would most likely go down the rpi path…im almost 63 and i dont want to start to learn to program new stuff, so want to take the easiest path possible…Having said that i would like to play with those sonoff modules …
Fair enough, I can understand that. Very impressive so far, another project I want add to my list! 
@FrankMc I think it is hilarious that the pics you have taken of your new box includes it sitting on the other one your wife wouldn’t let you put into service!
Hi Guys
got my break beams delivered from core electronics and started to mount them in position …You will notice that the first beam is mounted on the inside of the delivery chute , if you look at the pics you will notice why ,it would foul on the door frame…the others are mounted on the outside of the delivery chute.I have folded an an aluminium plate which will hide most of the wiring and allow me to mount a box for the break beam electronics…I think i will be using veroboard for this as , i might mod my 8 in 8 out board as i hate veroboarding …
I also have been looking for something to use for some sort of notification and have been doing some reading on the Particle photon and it looks like its not to hard to get up and running…Has anyone got any experience with this board…?
Thanks
Frank
Ah… that feeling of taking something brand new and drilling it full of holes! I love the smell of automation in the morning
If you get an ESP01 version of the ESP8266 - they’re less than $ 10.00 in Oz and you have WiFi then you can send an email notification.
Macca
Thanks Macca, who,s selling them for $10…?? and are they easy to program…??
I bought mine from Wiltronics in Ballarat for around $ 5.00 ea. You can program them with Arduino easily.
Hi Guys
An update on the project… I built a BeakBeam4 Controller on veroboard and have it working…I used two cheap prox switches i got from ebay to monitor the parcel delivery door and the parcel pickup door . I wanted to have led indication for which beam(s) were triggered when a parcel was dropped of ,so i used a pcb i have which uses 2 pin bi coloured leds and used it for my led display.Because of the extra i/o required i used a pic16f876 chip which i had on hand as the controller.
The system works as follows…
When the parcel delivery door is opened it turns on the white led lighting for approx 60 seconds ,starts a timer which triggers the breakbeam board to go read the breakbeams …if one of the beams is broken it triggers a relay which notify,s the main controller…It then turns on the parcel sign (green leds)…the breakbeam timer times out and the beamboard goes back to standby mode…If another valid delivery occurs the parcel led sign will flash on and off…If the parcel pickup door is opened it turns on the parcelbox white led lighting approx 60 seconds later it turns the lighting off then sends a reset signal to the BreakBeam 4 board which resets the status leds, parcel sign (green leds) as they latch up when a parcel is detected… Also theres a small beeper onboard the breakbeam board which beeps briefly when a beam is broken during the timing interval…I
I can now install the parcelbox but i need to run some cables ,and im also in the process of designing a board for the breakbeam controller …so i might hold of for now…I also just received a particle proton from Core electronics , hopefully i can in
corporate it and have it send me emails whenever a parcel has been received…Have attached some pics…
