Any garage door opener gurus here?

All of a sudden, my garage door decided it wouldn’t close. I checked the path of the sensors; it was clear. I noticed that the red (receiving) unit was blinking. I couldn’t align it to receive the signal from the green (sending) unit. Bad sensors, I thought.
$35 later, I have new sensors installed, but again, the red won’t read the green’s signal. I even had my son hold them just a few inches apart while I tried to close the door. No go. (They are not telling the main unit it’s cool to close the door.) It starts to go down a few inches, then pops back up.
The opener (Genie) is about 21 years old. Am I outta luck & have to buck up for a new opener?
Thx all!

 

Bypass them by unhooking them at the unit and see if that changes anything. Could be a broken wire somewhere if you just rewired them near the sensor body.

 

Tried that; no difference. I guess I could get some new wire and rewrite the sensors to the opener and see if that’s it. The current wires are hidden behind drywall!!!

 

21 years??? Go ahead, splurge on a new one....sheesh!

 

Genie are pieces of siht. Get a chamberlain or some other decent opener. Get a belt opener, or if you have the space, a shaft mounted one.

 

Look into the newer models that mount next to the garage door and don’t hang overhead.

if mine goes kaput I’ll definitely look into getting one.

 

I mean if POS means 21 years of service, damn the other stuff must be apocalyptic lasting.

 

My 'builders grade' genie opener is about 20yrs old now ... POS??

 

Time for new gear .

Chamberlain belt drive w. Battery backup and wifi is pretty slick and priced cheap now.

 

Check the resistance or limit switches/adjustments. It might be just enough resistance to prevent the motor from turning. The limit switches might even be thermal, and hot weather plus resistance and age might be all adding up to blinking red lights.

 

And I'm sure there are still some pintos driving around. Generally speaking though...

 

No way spend at least a week debugging

 

Needs solenoid to lock door fyi. Didnt like that part.

 

The Liftmaster 8500 is what I bought, and the opener itself has been great for the last year and a half.
The door lock mechanism does have a serious flaw in the design. Inside the metal case is a small electric motor
that is enclosed in it's own plastic housing. This plastic housing splits apart right along the ultrasonic weld seam.

The assemblies are being replaced under warranty, but are currently back ordered with no delivery date available.
According to the person I talked to, it has not yet been redesigned to eliminate the issue.

My temporary fix is super glue and zip ties which has been working fine for a few weeks.
When the new one arrives I am going to experiment with the old one and some electronics epoxy.

 

My door at our office sometimes does that when the sun is shining directly on one of the sensors. I have to block the sun for it to work.

 

I'm no guru, but mine does that sometimes too. The issue is that when the door is all the way up, there's no weight on the spring. The motor encounters too much resistance when it begins to close and reverses. Once it gets over the hump and there's some weight on the spring it should close fine.

Lubing the wheels to limit resistance seems to help. If that doesn't do it you may have to take a wind out of the spring.

 

Actual or self declared gurus?

 

I know of a slightly used pull down mechanism that is no longer in use that you could probably get on the cheap.

 

that's funny. getting out of the car and opening and closing the door. How 1880 of you.

You still using this?

 

Okie dokie...Bubba.