Owning a vehicle or two has now become a basic need these days. Traveling between your workplace and home daily becomes way quicker and less tiring when you have a car or any other form of transport at your disposal.
However, one needs a place to store these vehicles when they are not used. That is where garages come in, and the modern invention of automated garage doors comes with garages.
Although Automated Doors make life much easier by opening at the press of a button, they also have complications. One of the most common of these complications is the malfunctioning of the garage door sensor.
Usually, the sensor prevents the closure of the garage door until all obstructions are out of their way. This keeps you safe from getting hit by the door as you pass underneath a closing one.
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How Do Automatic Garage Doors Work?
First of all, let’s understand how these automated doors work.
Their functioning is based on a radio transmitter. In early times, the transmitters were very basic and used to be non-specific. This meant that if two doors had a similar working system, the remote of one door could also open the other.
How Do Automatic Garage Doors Work
However, this situation was not ideal for many homeowners. Therefore, advancements were made. These days, each opener has a radio that works at 350 MHz. However, modern remotes now transmit an encoded binary code and the typical radio signal, specifically for only one door.
Some smart thieves began recording transmitter signals and playing them again to open the garage door whenever they wanted to rob a house. Therefore, door opener companies resolved it by altering the system to generate a new code every time the door is opened. Both the opener and remote contain chips that recognize this code every time.
What Are Some Of The Causes Of My Garage Door Opener Not Working?
The following are some reasons why your opener may not work when you try opening your garage door:
1. The old age of the garage door opener
An average garage door opener can operate about 15000 times before it gives in to aging and rust. Therefore, if you use your door about 1500 times per year, it can keep working for almost ten years.
However, as with any other piece of technology, garage doors require constant tweaks and repairs over time, and the cost of these repairs only goes up over the years.
2. Drained batteries
Sometimes, the matter is as simple as replacing the batteries. If the batteries are dead, the transmitter will not work.
Therefore, if the transmitter is not working, try replacing the batteries. If the door opened this time, it is a simple problem now resolved.
3. Misalignment of the tracks of the door
Your garage door needs to be aligned with its track to function correctly. If there are any gaps or the Door Rail has a bend, this could create a dangerous situation.
Although you can look up DIY videos on YouTube, it is better to call garage door professionals to do this job.
Garage Door Opener Not Working
What Are Garage Door Sensors, And How Do They Work?
Sensors are critical components of your garage door opener. They ensure the normal functioning of the door.
1. Photo-eye
The photo-eye system uses infrared sensors to pick signals from your remote control, allowing you to open or close it. However, its primary purpose is to prevent the door from closing when there is an obstruction in its path.
2. Line of sight
Both the photo-eyes send infrared beams to one another as the door closes. As long as it remains uninterrupted, the door keeps closing, but the door stops when the line is interrupted by something.
How Do I Determine If There Is A Problem With The Garage Door Sensor?
If the door is usually opening but has a problem closing correctly, the cause most likely lies within the door sensor. This can cause two problems.
- The first is that the door does not close because its sensor is not picking up the signals from the report.
- The second is that the door keeps closing even when there is an obstruction in its path. This can lead to severe injuries.
To determine whether the problem is with the sensor, take the following two steps:
- Determine the height of the photo-eyes above the ground
- Place a cardboard box in the door course to check if it stops before hitting it.
How Do You Repair Garage Door Opener Sensors
How Do You Repair Garage Door Opener Sensors?
Once you’ve determined that it is indeed a problem with the sensors, you can make the following simple tweaks to see if the problem gets solved:
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Dirty lenses
Clean away any dirt that might have accumulated on the glass of the lens to ensure that they are not obstructed by it. Use a soft cloth with a mild cleaner
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Misaligned photo-eyes
Both photo-eyes need to be at the same level to function correctly. If the LED light on either one is blinking, the sensor is not aligned. Use a screwdriver to put the brackets holding the sensor back in their original place.
Bottom Line
Malfunctioning sensors are a common problem one has to deal with regarding garage doors. You will find all the answers you need in this article.
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