Question:
I have a strange problem. I have a Genie garage door opener that
works perfectly fine in the daytime. It works from the remote or the
button in the garage but, when I leave to go to work in the morning at
4:00am the door won't close. It starts to close but reverses right
away. It closes at night just fine so I know my wife's car isn't
interferring with the sensors. It won't even close from the inside
when I push the button. I have to physically hold the button down
until the garage door closes all the way, then I can let the button go
and walk out the back door. This is driving me crazy.
can anyone help me please?
Answer:
I am going to take a wild guess at this. I assume that at 4am its a bit
cool. Could there be enough old grease in the screw or the door tracks
that when colder, there is enough extra resistance to trip the "door
blocked" sensor? Another consideration is that the springs may be
misadjusted such that they lift the door a bit too much which would
compound the thickend grease problem.
Unless you are handy enough to check it yourself, call your local Genie
dealer for a service call.
it is a possibility that the screw can't turn because of heavy grease
but usually the door wouldn't open well either. Holding the wall button
is an over-ride of the photo-cells so you can close the door, but it
forces users to have the photo-cells fixed (UL-325). Obviously the
photo-cells work sometimes so this may be a silly question but how
bright are your headlights? I'm assuming that at 4:00 you have them
on. Does the door close properly if you turn your headlights off? I
have not heard of headlights doing this but have seen sunlight cause
this problem. If the headlights cause the problem there is two solutions.
1) always turn off lights before closing door or 2) switch the two
photo-cells (may have to move wires also depending on how they are run).
One of the photo-cells is a transmitter & the other is a receiver and
bright light on the receiver washes out the transmitter signal to where
it can not see the beam. Therefore switching sides will almost always
solve this type of problem. There are some other possibilities in the
electronics, but electronic problems do not usually come & go. Some may
laugh at this response but I have been in this type of business for 25+
years & find that usually it is the simple things that get you.
