Garage Door Opener

[poopeater]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knew an easy way to hack a garage door opener to output more power. My garage door openers have been working very poorly lately, and I think that boosting their output power would remedy the issue. I have already tried new batteries. That helped a little, but not enough.

Secondly, even if you don't know how to modify an existing opener, perhaps you can suggest a place where I could buy a more powerful opener.

Thanks!

 

[HiTech]

short of adding a power stage to it and all that screwing around, have you tried to improve signal reception by assuring the antenna is positioned well or of the proper length for the freq.? That made a difference when I did it to mine... the opener worked from half-block away, as well as assuring the batteries are fresh in the remote itself.

 

[HarveyH42]

Maybe the reciever is a little dust and dirty. Try cleaning the little window...
This is not a joke, fixed my neighbor's that way. I should have opened it up, messed with the wires and such, put on a good show, and got paid for it like a proffesional technician...

 

[Hero999]

Try cleaning and oiling the gears. I doubt it's the transmitter or reciever, it's not like an AM radio, the power to the motor is either turned on or off.

 

[poopeater]

short of adding a power stage to it and all that screwing around, have you tried to improve signal reception by assuring the antenna is positioned well or of the proper length for the freq.? That made a difference when I did it to mine... the opener worked from half-block away, as well as assuring the batteries are fresh in the remote itself.

It's real weird...it used to work well, but now all of a sudden it doesn't work very well at all. I don't think anything has changed except maybe the weather. Do you know what frequency these things work at, and what the proper antenna length should be?

 

[poopeater]

Try cleaning and oiling the gears. I doubt it's the transmitter or reciever, it's not like an AM radio, the power to the motor is either turned on or off.

what would the gears and drive shaft stuff have to do with the remote not working?

 

[poopeater]

Maybe the reciever is a little dust and dirty. Try cleaning the little window...
This is not a joke, fixed my neighbor's that way. I should have opened it up, messed with the wires and such, put on a good show, and got paid for it like a proffesional technician...

There is no little window on my opener. It works off of RF, and there is no easy way to get in there without disassembling the entire unit.

 

[OutToLunch]

what would the gears and drive shaft stuff have to do with the remote not working?

At first blush, your original post seemed to be asking for more power to open the doors themselves. It never stated anything about the controllers - just the garage door openers. Had me scratching my head for a second when you mentioned batteries - I had never heard of a garage door opener working from batteries

 

[poopeater]

At first blush, your original post seemed to be asking for more power to open the doors themselves. It never stated anything about the controllers - just the garage door openers. Had me scratching my head for a second when you mentioned batteries - I had never heard of a garage door opener working from batteries

Ahhh, yeah, I wasn't very clear. Sorry about that. For reference, most garage door opening units (the electric motor part) have an adjustable power that you set depending on the weight of the door you are opening. Mine is just a small pot that you screw in or out, depending on if you want more or less power.

Just to clarify, I need better output on my wireless hand held remote control dealie that opens/closes the door.

 

[Hero999]

what would the gears and drive shaft stuff have to do with the remote not working?

You didn't make yourself very clear, you just said "My garage door openers have been working very poorly lately, and I think that boosting their output power would remedy the issue.". Normally one would assume that you need more power to the motor.

 

[philba]

well, I assumed that the battery comment meant the transmitter.

the transmitter is only one half of the system. check the antenna on the receiver/opener. or did you recently position some metal near the opener. Or a bunch of plants grew up... add wifi? lots of possible sources of interference.

 

[HiTech]

US frequencies for garage door remote ctls. is somewhere between 310 - 320 mHz. Remotes get abused and used alot so visually inspect the circuit board for any hairline cracks, poor solder joints, or loose lead components. Also clean the switch contacts and assure the battery contacts are clean as well. Many remotes employ a small trimmer capacitor to tune the circuit, but unless you have a service manual you could detune it, making things worse. Again, try repositioning or lengthening the antenna wire. In one instance for me the antenna wire improved reception by stapling it to the drywall ceiling. In another instance, it worked well by wrapping it several turns around the AC power cord to the door opener itself.

 

[Marks256]

Yes, as HiTech said, they should work about half-of-a-block away. There is no reason why it shouldn't. Our first garage door opener was crap. It literally pulled its self apart. So, here is a few questions. Has the range of operation decreased? If so, by about how much? Has there been any major changes to the environment around the transmitter and/or receiver?

I too would suggest making sure that antenna is at a proper length and angle. Sometimes the people that install and make them, aren't the most "equipment friendly" people!

 

[poopeater]

US frequencies for garage door remote ctls. is somewhere between 310 - 320 mHz. Remotes get abused and used alot so visually inspect the circuit board for any hairline cracks, poor solder joints, or loose lead components. Also clean the switch contacts and assure the battery contacts are clean as well. Many remotes employ a small trimmer capacitor to tune the circuit, but unless you have a service manual you could detune it, making things worse. Again, try repositioning or lengthening the antenna wire. In one instance for me the antenna wire improved reception by stapling it to the drywall ceiling. In another instance, it worked well by wrapping it several turns around the AC power cord to the door opener itself.

Thanks for the advice. When the problem first started happening, the antenna was the first thing I checked. It's just a whip-style antenna, and doesn't seem like there is much that could "go wrong" with it. It's around 7-8" long, which perfectly matches up with what I'd expect a quarter wave monopole antenna to look like.

I don't think it's the transmitters, since I have two transmitters, and they both have the same behavior...just all of a sudden, they don't work very well at all. I think it's either the receiver on the motor unit, or maybe even something having to do with the weather. Does humidity impact the performance of these transmitters?

The only change that I've made recently is that I got a new truck that is in the garage most of the time. However, even when the truck is miles and miles away, the door still will not open reliably. Maybe the magical gremlins that move the door up and down are angry at me for buying a truck?

 

[poopeater]

well, I assumed that the battery comment meant the transmitter.

the transmitter is only one half of the system. check the antenna on the receiver/opener. or did you recently position some metal near the opener. Or a bunch of plants grew up... add wifi? lots of possible sources of interference.

There is no newly placed metal anywhere near the unit. There are no plants within 30 feet of the unit. I've had Wifi in my house now for years and years. I've never once had an issue until now. Besides, the opener works around 300-400MHz, and Wifi is 2.4GHz.

 

[Hero999]

US frequencies for garage door remote ctls. is somewhere between 310 - 320 mHz.

You mean 310 - 320MHz, a 310 - 320mHz transmitter would require an aerial far biger than the earth to work efficiently!

 

[HiTech]

yes it's MEGAhertz. I don't know what brand opener you have but many of them have the receiver designed to simply screw on to the opener as a piggy-backed unit. Their built-in terminals attach via screws to the opener's housing. I'd check for any oxidation and such at those terminals. The short piece of wire used for the antenna is about standard for most openers. You should consider any other changes in your neighborhood that could be affecting your signal path. Perhaps a recent alteration to a nearby lot or similar that now diminishes what once was a less interrupted signal path. Your receiver could be at fault as well... only way to know that is to swap it out with a new one.

 

[philba]

new truck

hmmm... you aren't, by chance, only trying the openers from within the truck?

 

[poopeater]

hmmm... you aren't, by chance, only trying the openers from within the truck?

No, I have tried one opener in my car, one in the truck, and even tried them just standing outside the garage door. I've had the truck now for about 3 weeks, and the remotes both worked fine until a few days ago. That's why I don't think the truck has anything to do with it. Well, for that reason and also because even when my wife has the truck out and about, the door still won't open, even if I stand out in the driveway pressing the button. I usually have to get right up to the door and press the button before it opens.

 

[OutToLunch]

just a thought cuz i'm not entirely sure how the rolling security codes work (or if your opener even has them), but maybe you should read the owners manual for the opener and reset the transmitter with the receiver. It's been awhile since I installed mine and did this, but I remember having to put the opener into some kind of mode and then pressing the transmitter button so the opener knew what code the transmitter was at. Then when the transmitter was pressed, they could both roll to the next code together.

Like I said, just a thought - maybe the transmitter has rolled it's codes too far from what the opener is at...