Question:
For the third time in a long while, our chamberlain garage door opener
won't lower the door. When I press the button (remote or wall panel),
the thing just buzzes for about 3 seconds and the shuts off. Nothing
moves at all.
First time this happened, I got up on a ladder, pulled the power,
waited a bit and then, at some point, I had waited long enough because
it just worked again.
Second time my spouse came in and said it wasn't working. I went out
about an hour later and it worked just fine for me.
Third time (today) it quit working and has then been left alone for
hours and it still doesn't work. I've tried pulling the power and
have just been looking on the web for help (chamberlain's site,
groups.google and sci.electronics.repair faq).
Any ideas? It doesn't appear that anything is caught and preventing
the door from going down. We certainly didn't really affect any
change the last two times. Do I just have an opener that is going? I
have no idea how old it is, but it doesn't look that old (I got it
with the house).
Answer:
-You want to check and see if the opener has opened too far and jammed against
the cabinet. If so, you will have to undo the chain and let it cycle down and
readjust everything. If that's not the problem there is a chance the run
capacitor is bad.
-I'm not sure from your post if the opener with open the door or if it is DOA
at both opening and closing. Assuming it is not working at all then you
might be looking at a broken gear in the motor..
About a month ago our opener would "light up" and hum but not lift or close
the door. We called out a repair company and they told us that this is a
common occurence. When he opened the motor, the plastic gear inside was
just about disintegrated on one side and the teeth were all chewed up on the
other side. The repairman said that the gear was made out of plastic so
that if there was a problem with the door the gear would be destroyed but
the motor itself would be unharmed.
In our case our spring was shot and the opener couldn't handle the full
weight of the door without the assistance of the opener.
-There is most likely an infrared emitter detector pair that spans the
opening near the bottom of the doorway. If the mounting bracket of one of
them got bent slightly, then the detector will not see the beam and the
door won't close. This anti-tricyclic gremlin bit me once.
