5 ms·

Our garage door opener has this problem. At very specific times of the year the sun confuses the infrared blockage sensor. The cause occurred to me when I lined

by tabtab 5y ago

Our garage door opener has this problem. At very specific times of the year the sun confuses the infrared blockage sensor. The cause occurred to me when I lined up my eye to see what the sensor was seeing when it was failing, and I noticed the morning sun right next to the other end of the sensor stream. I moved a trash can to shade the sensor and it worked fine.

zikduruqe 5y ago
Just switch the sensors. Move the light source to the other side of the door, and the receiver to the shade. :tapstemplegif: (That's how I fixed mine.)
- tabtab 5y ago
  Then the evening sun could potentially cause the same thing. There's a gap in houses across the street that may allow sun in at the right time of year.
mark-r 5y ago
I had the same problem with my garage door opener. Tried shading the sensor but it still didn't work reliably. Finally replaced both the sensor and transmitter and it has been good ever since. My theory is that the lens got dirty or scratched over the years and was picking up stray light from odd angles.
- bertrandom 5y ago
  +1, I had this issue as well and went through a bunch of futile efforts to block the sun and the angle and wish I had replaced the transmitter a lot sooner instead of trying to move trash cans because that worked 50% of the time. I think this is the kit I bought: https://www.chamberlain.com/safety-sensor-kit/p/041A5034 https://www.chamberlain.com/safety-sensor-kit/p/041A5034
jonhohle 5y ago
On sunny days our garage door won’t open until the remote is very close. Either the solar panels or inverter generate enough noise to interfere with the signal. A few months ago our garage door openers started working like normal again. That was great until we realized it was because the inverter had failed. When the inverter was replaced, our door problems started again.
- RF_Savage 5y ago
  Damn thats one electrically noisy inverter. I wonder how it passed EMC testing in the first place.
vidanay 5y ago
If I remember rightly, this incident was the motivating factor for adding "save failing images" capability to our software.

by tabtab 5y ago

zikduruqe 5y ago

Just switch the sensors. Move the light source to the other side of the door, and the receiver to the shade. :tapstemplegif: (That's how I fixed mine.)

tabtab 5y ago
Then the evening sun could potentially cause the same thing. There's a gap in houses across the street that may allow sun in at the right time of year.

mark-r 5y ago

I had the same problem with my garage door opener. Tried shading the sensor but it still didn't work reliably. Finally replaced both the sensor and transmitter and it has been good ever since. My theory is that the lens got dirty or scratched over the years and was picking up stray light from odd angles.

bertrandom 5y ago
+1, I had this issue as well and went through a bunch of futile efforts to block the sun and the angle and wish I had replaced the transmitter a lot sooner instead of trying to move trash cans because that worked 50% of the time. I think this is the kit I bought: https://www.chamberlain.com/safety-sensor-kit/p/041A5034 https://www.chamberlain.com/safety-sensor-kit/p/041A5034

jonhohle 5y ago

On sunny days our garage door won’t open until the remote is very close. Either the solar panels or inverter generate enough noise to interfere with the signal. A few months ago our garage door openers started working like normal again. That was great until we realized it was because the inverter had failed. When the inverter was replaced, our door problems started again.

RF_Savage 5y ago
Damn thats one electrically noisy inverter. I wonder how it passed EMC testing in the first place.

vidanay 5y ago

If I remember rightly, this incident was the motivating factor for adding "save failing images" capability to our software.