Garage Door Opener - help with odd behavior

1,562 Views | 9 Replies | Last: 8 mo ago by Drewmeister
2wealfth Man
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AG
Installed new a Liftmaster opener on our double garage door about a year ago (previous one of 25 years finally died).

Door opens as expected with push button, remote and in car interfaces. Door will not close with remote or car interfaces unless you are at a very very close range. Push button still closes it.

Why will it open from longer distances with the remote and car interfaces but not close?
tgivaughn
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AG
Dave O'Conner has some ideas
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-my-garage-door-open-with-remote-but-not-close-wtih-it
Gotta draw since me got no grammar MasterArch '76
HDeathstar
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good link.

Due to safety controls, garage doors love to go up, but not down.
AgResearch
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AG
Do you have an LED bulb in the opener?
2wealfth Man
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AG
AgResearch said:

Do you have an LED bulb in the opener?
yes as a matter of fact, can I buy anything else anymore
Tom Cardy
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AG
AgResearch said:

Do you have an LED bulb in the opener?

Bingo, had this problem and changing back to incandescent fixed it
JP76
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Yes, try unscrewing the bulb and see if the range increases. I have seen this issue numerous times. If that is the issue replace it with this


https://www.homedepot.com/p/Genie-Universal-Garage-Door-Opener-LED-Light-Bulb-GLEDB2-R/310186985
2wealfth Man
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AG
LED removed and works like a charm now: who would have thunk it
Sweet Kitten Feet
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S
There are also certain LED's designed for garage openers. I had this same problem a couple years back.
Drewmeister
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AG
I had a similar problem with my Craftsman opener from 2001 (made by Chamberlain, apparently, which is also the same company as Liftmaster). It was a gradual failure, with the remote range getting shorter and shorter until it barely worked at all, even a few inches away. You'd think this was a dead remote battery, but it happened with both remotes, and a new battery did not fix it. The wall button always worked.

I do have an LED bulb installed, but that turned out not to be the problem. It did, however, put me on the right track: I discovered that the remote problem only occurred when the light was turned on, regardless of what type of bulb was installed (incandescent, LED, or even no bulb at all!). If I waited five minutes for the light to turn off, the remote worked again.

This looked to be a controller board problem. I took the board out of the unit and inspected it closely; there were no obvious failures like burnt components or bulging/leaky capacitors, but one resistor was a little discolored. I couldn't tell what value it was supposed to be, but based on voltage readings taken up- and downstream of it, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the main problem.

The controller board was available from the appliance repair sites, but for more than I wanted to spend ($130, IIRC). For that price, I'd get something that wired into the button, either a universal remote or some Arduino thing you would wire into HomeKit. But then I checked eBay and found it a bit cheaper. More importantly though, one of the sellers offered a mail-in repair for $40, or a component kit for $6. That was well worth spending the $12 (with shipping)! This was the seller I purchased from.

The kit came with a couple capacitors, a resistor, diodes, and the 5V regulator, and they emailed me a link to a repair guide on YouTube. I just replaced the capacitors and the resistor since the diodes and regulator tested good, and it 100% fixed the problem!
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