garage door opener problem
Hello, I'm not really sure this is the correct section to be posting in but it seems appropriate. I have a wayne dulton quantum ( http://www.wayne-dalton.com/Quantum.asp ) garage door opener. I'm having serious issues with closing the door, it basically comes down about a foot stops and goes back up and this process is repeated at least 6 or 7 times before I can finally get it to go down. I'm fairly certain that it's the sensor eyes that are causing this and am wondering if there is a way to bypass the eyes. ( i've tried cleaning them and they are lined up perfectly, i'm out of options with trying to fix them ). There are 3 connectors on the opener itself with wiring running into 2 of them. I'm guessing that one is for the opener attatched to the wall while the other somehow incorporates the sensor eyes ( could be wrong on this assumption though ). Can anybody give me any advice on bypass them? Thanks You're trying to disable a safety device, we will not help you with that. It goes (almost) without saying that you should not disable the safety sensors. There's no way to do it anyway. However, there are a few things you should investigate. First, disconnect the door from the opener, so that you can open it by hand. There's usually a pull cord on the track to do this. Open and close the door by hand a few times to see if it operates smoothly. If not, fix whatever problem might be causing that. Sometimes you just need to lube the rollers. Or maybe one of the springs is broken. Next, disconnect the wires from the photo sensors and clean the contacts. The sensor operation is sensitive to good contacts. Check your owner's manual to see how the lights on the sensors indicate correct operation. Break the beam with your foot and see if the lights change as they should. This can help you tell if the sensors are properly aligned. If all this fails, consider a new opener. You can get some pretty nice ones with a lot of cool, modenr features in the $150-$170 range, and they are fairly easy to install. Read your owner's manual. If you don't have the owners manual, find it on-line. Most garage door openers signal you if the light beam safety mechanism trips. Mine opens the door and then flashes the light 10 times. For this reason, I would suspect something other than the safety light beam. Disconnect the door from the opener and manually open and close it. Does it stick near the bottom of the track (at the point it changes direction)? Hey slice Couple of things... Like John said, verify the sensors are working correctly by the color of the leds changing when the path is interupted. If you can close the door by holding the wall button in, then yes, you may have a faulty or misaligned sensor or wiring. If it won't close, then you may have to make an adjustment to the downforce. The normal wear and tear a garage door gets can cause it to take more force to close. Before you make any adjustments tho, tighten all the bolts holding rollers and hinges in place. Lightly lube the bearings of the rollers with a light oil. DO NOT LUBE the tracks or roller wheels themselves. You CAN spray the tracks with an aerosol silicon lube, then wipe it back off with a rag, just to keep it clean. The site you put the link to, has an area where you can view the install manuals for your GDO, if you don't still have it. Page 20 is where the adjustments start. When disconnected from the GDO, your door should open/close with a minimum amount of effort. It should remain where you release it anywhere in the middle third of the opening, and should not forcefully slam up or down. If it does either of those, the springs probably need adjustment. The main thing is, your door should operate smoothly when disconnected from the opener. If it doesn't, it needs to be serviced and adjusted so it does, BEFORE making any changes to the opener setup. Best in '08 If you have torsion springs (mounted above door, circling a bar) on your garage door, do not mess with them. They are dangerous, and it is not a DIY project. I found a link that might help you: http://ddmgaragedoors.com/residentia...leshooting.cgi I personally don't know much, but that site looks helpful. Best of luck to you! Sounds like a downforce adjustment/binding door. Another possibility (though much less likely) is something stuck to the door passing through the beam when it closes. The fact that the door closes at all indicates the sensors are probably aligned and working properly. If you obstruct the sensor with an object and try to close the door it probably won't even try to move...if it does it should reverse immediately (try it with a scrap 2x4). Some GDO's flash their incadescent light to indicate an obstructed sensor path when you try to close the door. The fact that it is ALMOST closing makes it sound like it's binding near that 1 ft mark and reversing cause the motor thinks it's hit something/someone (like some others have already said). If the door moves freely and doesn't bind, the downforce adjustment potentiometer may have moved on it's own over time due to the constant vibration of the operator, but don't adjust it before you verify the door is operating freely. That happened to me a few years ago and after a TINY adjustment, it's been fine since. I’m no garage opener expert. Put my first in last year (Craftsman ѕ hp chain drive). But I’m sure had a problem with the sensors – not at first – but after I had accidentally re-connected one of the 2 sensor wires in the wrong position on the terminal strip up on the opener. It’s all foggy now. I can’t remember if I saw the blinking lights indicating “obstruction-sensed”, or not. But I remember that I was going to totally re-wire both sensors back up to the opener because the wires are very thin and I thought I possibly broke one when I stapled them to the door frame. But fortunately I checked up at the terminal strip on the opener and found my mistake. It looks like you have a wireless opener except for one wire (actually a cable with 2 wires) from each sensor up to the opener itself. If one of those is making a loose connection on the terminal strip up on the opener, then I wondering if that could cause your problem. It probably can’t be that the you are actually incorrectly wired (like I was) because yours does in fact eventually close. ( I’m assuming it eventually closes by just using the wall button as you normally would). You said there are 3 connections at the opener . The third which is unused in your case , would be for a connection to a wall station- but I assume your wall station is the wireless option and thus the third connection on the terminal strip is unused. So I would look up at the terminal strip itself on the opener and make sure that the wires are making good connections. You should see 4-wires up on the opener: one cable from each sensor actually contains 2 wires. One of the wires goes under one screw and the other wire goes under the other screw. In other words, if you look at 2 of the screws you will see 2-wires under each. If these are all connected nice and tight then it could be a nasty case where one of the wires is actually broken between the terminal strip you are looking at and one of the sensors itself. As I said I’m no expert by any means , but I’ve experienced cases in other areas where a broken wire produces erratic behavior (like you’re seeing). I guess sometimes a tiny vibration can make the difference between connection and no connection when a wire is broken. Maybe you could just follow the wires back to the sensors to see if you can spot any obvious places which look like a staple may have been pushed in too far and may have damaged the wire. My opener instructions gave me a procedure to determine whether a wire was broken or not. I don’t know whether you would want to go that far and you must remember I am certainly not an expert and maybe other experienced folks would say NO WAY. Basically you: (1) disconnect the sensor wires from the opener (i.e., from the terminal strip) (2) you shorten the wires from the sensors to about 1-2 ft. (obviously it means you cut the wires) (3) you then re-connect the sensors up at the terminal strip and line them up. (I guess you have to find something to sit them on up there) If your opener works properly then you know you had bad wiring from the sensor(s) up to the terminal strip. You would then have to return the sensors to their proper position, buy new wire, splice the now short (1-2 feet) sensor wires to the new wire, and staple and run the new wire back up to the terminal strip and reconnect. That came from a Craftsman Opener Manual. I guess that’s not really such a crazy idea as a LAST RESORT and you were at the point anyway where you thought you had to replace the sensors or the entire opener . But who knows - maybe an electrical guy would see a much better procedure to determine if a wire was broken. Good luck! to check for a broken wire you could just disconnect it at both ends, twist one side together and check the other end for continuity between the two. hi burkej62- I know what you mean about connecting the wire at both ends and checking for connectivity. In the computer field we call it buzzing out the wire. Maybe I should have made certain- but I think if you look at the sensors on garage door openers the one end of the wire is not accessible and is hidden inside the locked sensor module itself. But your point is well taken. If in fact both ends of the wire are accessible then you certainly would use a meter and check for connectivity. But I think you'll find there is no way to get to the wire on the sensor end. You sensor should have a green LED that lights when it is in line with the other sensor, if your light is working your wire is fine. You guys can carry on if you want, but the original poster (callmeslice) has not even visited this web site since he made his one and only post 10 day ago.
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