Classic Hifi Care

Here's one for you all to ponder. My garage has two single doors instead of one larger one so there are two garage door openers. Saturday, both vehicles were used so both openers were used, and everything worked as it should. Sunday, I opened the south garage door with the button on the wall, got in the truck and was headed off to water cemeteries. After I backed out, I hit the remote button, and nothing happened, the door did not go down. I hit the remote button several times and nothing. I stuck the remote out the window and nothing happened. I finally got out of the truck and hit the button on the wall to close the door. Arriving home, I hit the remote button and ZIP so I tried one of the other buttons on the same remote to see if it would open the other door. NOPE, that did not work either. I messed around trying to figure out the WHY, what happened thing and came up with I have no idea. One day they both worked, the next day neither worked. We did not have thunderstorm that night, so they were not struck by lightning. I have a whole house surge protector and that was fine, and everything else in the house is working great. This is the strangest thing, and it is blowing my mind wondering what happened and why both openers failed at the same time. Do any of you have any ideas or theories, if so, I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance.

Bill

The obvious question is, how old is the battery in the remote?

Chris Campbell

We had a power surge one time in Missouri that took our openers offline. You will probably have to reprogram your remotes. Computers do strange things. Look at the top of this page......

If you have openers that use the DIP switch programming it would point to the batteries being bad. You may have installed them at the same time. Mine has had the same battery since 1997 when I had the opener installed.

Rex, I'm not sure what a DIP switch is?? One batter was bad and the other two were new. I have 4 remotes and then car is programmed to the openers so that actually makes 5 remotes and none of them work. Could this be related to the Sun flare thing??

Bill

Well, if you have 5 remotes that don't work at the same time, it would be likely the problem lies with your receiver or mechanism. If you use an electronically programmable receiver, it may need reprogrammed to your remotes. I guess you would need to consult your owners manual for that. If you have misplaced it, copy the mfr. and model number down and do an online search for a manual. There should be several sources. That's how I find manuals for items I find used.

Yours shouldn't have one, but for future reference....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIP_switch

don't be surprised if the motor cap failed on the head unit... they put up with a lot of heat and cold cycles , unless your garage is heated ... I have had to change mine out after about 8 years ... and then my interior light that is timed to go out after a couple mins quit working ... lights would never go out... that turned out to be sticky relay contacts for the lights...

Rex, you are correct, no DIP switch, the remotes are totally programable or not as the case maybe. I called Chamberlain and the service technician guy told me when both units quite working like mine did it's usually a frequency interference problem. He gave me several suggestions on what to look for to try and find the culprit.

Elton, the motors on both unit's do work, as the wall controls will still operate the doors. The problem, the remotes won't work.

Bill

The guy who put our new garage door opener up said not to use an LED bulb in it. Where we got an incandescent bulb is another question. He said LED bulbs in the opener would cause interference. I know you have tried this already, but I would try reprogramming the remotes again. I doubt the interference suggestion. I'd more lean toward either a lightning strike or a power surge. You'd think a lightning strike would have killed them dead where nothing would work. Since both of them quit, I'd replace the batteries in the remote then try again. You don't have anything else to lose. Also make sure the antenna didn't get disturbed/damaged in some way. It should stick out of the controller somewhere. Make sure it didn't get too close to a light bulb for some reason. If you have those little boxes on the door jam of the garage door, those work by remote control as well. If those work, I'd think reprogramming the remotes would be indicated. There are instructions on the cover of our garage door opener that tells how to program the remotes. Good luck.

During the summer I remove the light bulbs as every time one walks through the open garage door the light would come on for no reason as it's summer and there is 24/7 daylight. The antenna is untouched and the boxes with the safety eyes are hard wired on these old openers. I do plan on one more try of reprogramming the remotes. I know the batteries are good, they are 12 volt and that is what they test or so close it would not make a difference. I'm guessing I just need to bite the bullet and get the checkbook out.

Bill

We had a new Chamberlain belt drive opener installed when they replaced our garage door. You can't hear it run. I can use my phone to open the garage door when Bentley and I are out on his buggy. No more stealing the Tahoe's remote then forgetting to put it back.......

I put LED's in mine as soon as they were cheap enough to buy... never had an issue with interference

I don't know why the technician told me to use incandescent bulbs in the garage door opener. LED's may be noisy and cause RF interference, but you can't buy incandescent bulbs anymore. Home Depot installed the door. They were $8500 cheaper than a local garage door company, so I guess it was no big deal looking at the big picture.....

Yeah, the garage door company who advertises on every broadcast medium in this Valley wanted almost $12,000 for a 7 X 16 garage door and belt-drive opener, installed. They were going to replace everything except the concrete slab. We didn't see the need for all the demolition they wanted to do just because there was a dent in our old door. It was like that when we got the house. It wasn't insulated and the HOA started sending notices out about dented garage doors.

Usually, if a LED is noisy, a transistor radio can sniff them out. Tune across the band scale while the bulb is on and tune to any areas of noise. Turn the bulb off. If the noise quiets, that bulb would be a bad choice near the opener. Modern openers use a higher operating frequency that isn't quite so susceptible to RFI. But if there is a question about the radio trick should show it up.

One of the first questions the Chamberlain guy asked was, is there an LED light installed in the opener. Nope, so that was not the problem.

Bill