garage door erratic about closing

I have an electric garage door opener (Chamberlain Power Drive 1/2 hp) I inherited with the house I bought two years ago.

For the last couple of months, the door has been very finicky about closing. Sometimes it goes half way or 2/3 of the way down, then back up again. Sometimes I get so frustrated trying to close it via remote, I have to get out and go hold the button down so I can go to work in the morning!

Sometimes it closes just fine, and I have wondered if it has something to do with the weather (it seems better in cold), car lights going across the safety light beams, etc? This can happen when using any of the remotes or the button on the wall.

Any ideas?

 

Lubricate the wheels on the door with something like WD40. My door was doing what you described and after spraying each wheel with WD40 it worked great. It's just amazing what a little lubrication will do. good luck.

 

I had the same problem with my Chamberlain. I adjusted the up/down and that didn't stop the erratic behavior.

I fiddled with the safety lights. They don't seem to have a good method of holding alignment. Eventually (after several days of fiddling), I got them in the right position and the door has worked perfectly for several months. I don't really know what I did, but it worked.

There may be something about alignment and aiming in the installation book, but that did not come with the house.

Dick

 

If the door works fine by hand then you may need to adjust the down force. If your door has eye sensors and something is reversing it , Usually the lite on the opener will flash several times indicating this. I would guess you need more "down force" there should be two dials on the motor head somewhere (not sure with your model)

 

Okay. I wd-40'd the wheels - seems to have made little difference.
I do have the manual for it, it says if the sensors are in line, they will shine yellow - which they do. I try to keep cobwebs, etc. off of them, but maybe they jiggle or something when the door is coming down? Yes, the lights flash on and off when the door reverses.

I'll try increasing the down force and see if that works.

 

Most models will flash the light when the door is reversed by the eye sensor,(some models do it because of down force is set to light) if the sensors are mounted on the track, the door is probably shaking one of the sensors out of allignment. If the sensors are mounted to the wall or floor then I would say a wire could have been pintched somewhere by the door track or a mounting bracket and when the door gets to a certin point there is loss of continuity in one of the wires. Also check all wire connections on the opener and each eye sensor. I've seen doors reverse because of cob webs on the bottom section being blown in by the wind, or the bottom re-enforcing strut will just skim by the path of the eye sensors and sometimes it will cause it to reverse.

 

I do not want to start a separate thread but my newly installed door opener is exhibiting this same behavior. I have asked Home Depot to send the installer back again to fix it. But I wanted to do some research on my own first.

It happened soon after the installer left (sure!) and has been happening consistently since. It takes me 7-8 tries to get the door to close. Sometimes, it goes 3/4 of the way sometimes 1/4 of the way and everything in between before it reverses. The light on the sensor blinks all the time even when it closes properly, so that does not tell me anything. I will look for some light on the motor as suggested in this thread. My model is a Genie 8000 and the manual did not say much on the subject. When I called the installer he told me to fiddle with the sensors and that does not work.

I will try WD40 and if that does not work, I would have the installer adjust the "down force" as suggested in this thread. Any other ideas would be appreciated.