| Author | Content |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
September 23, 2008
04:57 AM Post #5587929
| I have a two-car garage with automatic garage doors. When I moved in about 5 years ago, both doors worked. But on one side I could only close the door from the main switch and I had to hold it down to keep the door closing. This last weekend I cleaned out the garage and had to hose down a section that the mice had gotten into. Now the other door requires that I close it from the mains switch and that I hold the door down.
Both doors will open from the outside using the garage door opener. I can only guess that I've done something to the electronic safety "eye" at the bottom. But what? They look fine and I've wiped them off. There's nothing obstructing them from "seeing" eachother.
Anybody else had this problem? |
ecrane3
Dublin, CA
(Zone 9a)
September 23, 2008
01:53 PM Post #5588652
| Have you checked to make sure the eyes are exactly lined up with each other? They might look fine but if one of them got bumped up or down or a little bit crooked they might not be seeing each other. The other possibility is the mice could have been nibbling on some wires and messed up the safety eyes. |
JasperDale
Long Beach, CA
(Zone 10a)
September 23, 2008
02:23 PM Post #5588778
| Your door openers should have a dial on them, on the back of the unit, which regulates the force of their opening and closing. Most of the time, when they're installed, they set them in the middle position. You can try moving the dial to the stronger setting and see what happens.
Also, the constant vibration of opening and closing the doors can cause the elctrical contacts to get loose on the back of the unit. You'll be able to see them on the back. If they're loose, take a screw driver and tighten them.
Since you don't have a picture posted (and why would you ! ) your openers may be newer and have all the controls up inside a plastic cover where the light is. You can remove that (it should be hinged and hand down when you open it) then you can see the various components of it which may or may not be accessable and/or adjustable). |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
September 23, 2008
04:55 PM Post #5589332
| Oh, good. Lots of things here to try.
I'll check the wires to make sure they're intact and see if anything needs tightening up. And I'll check to see that the eyes are lined up, although I'm not quite sure how to be exact. Maybe I'll see if I can't use the cat laser toy. :-)
This isn't very new (it's at least 5 years old). I didn't know there would be a dial for setting. I'll see check the lights and the main control and see if there's a panel that comes off.
Thank you so much JD and EC. At least now I have something to try . . . |
JuneyBug
Dongducheon CpCasey
South Korea
(Zone 4b)
October 10, 2008
10:22 PM Post #5656432
| It cost about $100 bucks when I had to call a repairman out. He adjusted the doors and puttered around for an hour. So you see that it pays to try this yourself. How did you make out? Fixed? |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
October 10, 2008
11:24 PM Post #5656624
| Thanks for checking. No luck so far.
I tried everything that looked like a reset button on the overhead light panel and then just resorted to unplugging the whole thing and plugging it back in.
The eyes look like they're pointing at one another, but I do notice that the outside eyes on each door don't have a light indicating that they're getting power. The inside ones have a green light.
So I think I should probably open those up and make sure the wires are connected. My neighbor suggested that I might want to run a hair dryer on them in case there's condensation inside, since this happened to the door after I hosed off the floor.
I e-mailed Genie from a site, but got no response.
How did you make out. Was yours fixed? |
JuneyBug
Dongducheon CpCasey
South Korea
(Zone 4b)
October 11, 2008
01:01 AM Post #5656962
| He took things apart and, I guess, cleaned/adjusted them. It works perfectly now and has been 9 months since I called him out. DH said it cost us $105. We could have done it ourselves if I had known about this forum back then. |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
October 11, 2008
02:47 AM Post #5657340
| Hmmmmm.
So I'll take the little eyes apart and clean them and see what happens . . . thanks for sharing your experience. I didn't even know there was someone you could call!!
It'll sure be nice to have it working right again. |
JuneyBug
Dongducheon CpCasey
South Korea
(Zone 4b)
October 11, 2008
09:03 AM Post #5657928
| We called the garage door company - the folks who install them. |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
October 11, 2008
09:26 PM Post #5659511
| I'm guessing that this was Home Depot purchase and homeowner install, but I don't know that for sure. I'll look to see if there are any local garage door companies and see if they'll offer any advice over the phone. Some people are good about that.
Thanks!! |
JuneyBug
Dongducheon CpCasey
South Korea
(Zone 4b)
October 11, 2008
09:49 PM Post #5659568
| Mine was in a homemade garage (Most of Missouri has no building codes/zoning anything - if you build it, it's AOK) That is why we were sorta more inclined to have a pro look things over.
You may need to fiddle with the sensors some more to line them up. It isn't easy without the proper tools, but it is free and do-able. |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
October 12, 2008
08:00 AM Post #5661238
| I'll try to find the cat's laser toy to help me get them aligned. That may help. Now where did I put that? . . . |
JuneyBug
Dongducheon CpCasey
South Korea
(Zone 4b)
October 12, 2008
03:36 PM Post #5662114
| Check all of the wire connections too. The problem may be a loose wire. |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
October 13, 2008
03:59 PM Post #5666108
| Good idea. |
Captleemo
Angleton, TX
(Zone 9a)
February 22, 2009
12:04 AM Post #6171196
| I have a Genie garage door opener and I mounted the "eyes" near the opener as I don't have kids and they are only a couple of inches apart. Every once and awhile the garage door starts to close when I push the button and then goes back up so I will smack the eyes a few times and it starts working. Very aggravating. I talked to a guy that had 25 years experience with garage door openers and he told me that the eyes throw out light in a cone shape so they don't have to be perfectly aligned. I know that if I get another garage door opener I will find a different brand, probably the one with a belt drive. I do grease the screw once a year and I also oil every hinge on the garage door once or twice a year to help cut down on friction. It also eliminates the squeaks. Like I said earlier try smacking the eyes with something about the heft of a table spoon and see if that doesn't fix it. |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
February 22, 2009
12:07 AM Post #6171218
| Thanks Captleemo. I haven't fixed this yet, so why not give that method a chance? Right now I open the door, drive the car out, get out of the car and go into the garage to close the door and then go out the front. Not quite the convenience they intended for it to be. I hadn't really thought about oiling the hinges on the garage door. That's interesting. I'll check that out. |
Captleemo
Angleton, TX
(Zone 9a)
February 22, 2009
04:08 AM Post #6172150
| Well this has been a recurring problem for me and the only thing that works for me is to give the eyes a good tap with a broom handle as they are mounted on the ceiling. I may see if I can open the plastic eye housings one of these days and see if there is some kind of switch inside and if so give it a shot of WD 40. My remote control switches quit working and I took them apart and sprayed them with WD 40 and then pushed the button a few times before I replaced the battery and it worked like a champ. Hope this works for you. I see a previous poster said to use a hair dryer to dry any condensation that may have gotten into the eyes which is a good idea but I would spray the inside of it with WD 40 as it will prevent moisture from condensing on the circuit board and it wont cause any short circuits either. This stuff was originally developed for the space program as they had a problem with moisture condensation on circuit boards when launching rockets. The 40th formula was the one they were looking for and so they gave it the name WD 40 which stood for water displacement formula number 40.
This message was edited Feb 21, 2009 10:21 PM |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
February 22, 2009
04:11 AM Post #6172158
| Oh, interesting.
My eyes are mounted on either side of the door at about 10" off the ground, so it shouldn't be hard to smack them a good one. 
What I noticed is that the remote control switches don't work to close the door, so I thought that meant the problem was with the eyes. They do work to open the door.
WD40 on the mechanism in the remote controls? Is there some moving part? |
Captleemo
Angleton, TX
(Zone 9a)
February 22, 2009
04:38 AM Post #6172240
| The remote controls have a little micro switch in them and if you listen carefully you can hear a little click when you push on the button. I live on the gulf coast of Texas and the humidity is real high hear and I suspect the switch got a little bit of corrosion causing it not to work. The WD 40 seems to have fixed the problem. The remote switch working to open the door and not work when trying to close it tells me that it is the eyes that are causing the problem. The purpose of the eyes is to detect an object under the door ( like a child) and cause the door to go back up if there are any obstructions. My eyes are working fine now but I know that sooner or later I will have to get the broom stick back out. My guess is that there is some kind of poor connection in one or both of them causing the problem. Maybe tomorrow if I have time I will see if I can take them apart and have a look inside. And for the record I have tried adjusting the screws inside the opener that adjust the force and that had no effect. |
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
February 22, 2009
04:51 AM Post #6172271
| Well good. At least I'm on the right track. And it's good to know about the little switch - when we're done we'll know more about garage door openers that we ever wanted to know. Right? |
Captleemo
Angleton, TX
(Zone 9a)
February 22, 2009
04:48 PM Post #6173645
| Well I just took my eyes apart and and the one with the red eye had a loose electronic component in it which means the connection was hit or miss and it explains why I had to smack it every once and awhile. Of course time will tell if this was the source of all that aggravation. There was one little Phillips screw holding the circuit board in so I took it out and looked at the back of it and saw where the solder had come loose. I re soldered it and put it back together. There are two screws holding each eye to the mounting bracket and once you remove them there are two more screws holding the case together. I suspect that when you got crazy with the water hose you may have gotten some water in them. If you see moisture inside I would try a can of canned air like you use to blow the dust out of your computer. You would want to remove that little phillips screw though so you can blow out both sides of the circuit board. Its real easy to do. The eye with the red light has a little flat plastic lens in it that may fall out when you take it apart and the green one has a lens that looks like a little magnifying glass. If you feel comfortable doing this just remember how the wires were hooked up. There should be a white wire and a white wire with a red stripe on it so make note which wire went on which screw and hook them back up the same way. Had I not read your post I would never have thought to take my eyes apart to look for problems so for that I thank you and the poster who mentioned it. 
Click the image for an enlarged view.
|
katie59
Woodinville, WA
(Zone 8b)
February 23, 2009
03:17 AM Post #6176450
| Wow. That's great. I didn't look at it this weekend, but when I do, I'll let you know what I find out!! DG comes through again. Thanks!! |
