13

I have 2 older Home Builder garage door openers. Both have hard wired buttons on the wall that work fine for opening and closing.

My remote in my vehicle and another hand held one work to open my door but will not close until I wait for about 3-4 minutes.

If I use my vehicle or hand held remote on my wife's side it will work fine. So it is only my side that will not work using my vehicle or hand held remote.

What could cause this?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
27

When 3-4 minutes has passed since activation, the room light on the garage door opener turns off. This suggests that the light is creating RF interference. Remove the light bulb and see if your remote now works reliably. If so, you may have to do without the opener's room light, or use an incandescent bulb or find an LED or CFL that does not create RF interference.

Improve this answer
11
  • 1
    There are even bulbs specifically branded as 'garage door bulb' which are designed to not interfere with openers.
    – KMJ
    Commented Jan 25, 2023 at 21:20
  • 3
    @KMJ I believe bulbs specifically branded for garage doors are designed to handle the vibration of the openers rather than RF interference. Note that there are incandescent bulbs, which should cause no interference, labeled for garage doors.
    – Barry
    Commented Jan 25, 2023 at 23:04
  • 3
    @Barry Lack of RF interference is the specific claim made by bulbs such as geniecompany.com/led-light-bulb-/LED-Bulb
    – KMJ
    Commented Jan 25, 2023 at 23:22
  • 1
    @KMJ wow, that's a ripoff. I guess some people are used to buying special garage bulbs, so why not sell them some? Most newer (>2020) LED bulbs won't cause interference, and in fact, ones that might are usually some of the better bulbs (otherwise). If you have a diode handy, you can test the bulb to see if it lights up when the diode is inline; if so, it won't cause interference (as it's a linear current regulator behind a capacitive dropper rather than a RF-interfering switch-mode power supply) providing DC to the LED chips.
    – dandavis
    Commented Jan 26, 2023 at 0:49
  • 1
    @dandavis switch mode supplies will happily run off a DC supply, so your test doesn't really say much. Anyway I have found that all you need to avoid interference is to buy quality bulbs. Pretty sure they came up with these so they would have something to point people to that they know works.
    – KMJ
    Commented Jan 26, 2023 at 7:12
10

From what you write, I am taking the following conclusions:

Both openers work properly

This is proven by the hardwired button.

Both your remotes (your vehicle built-in remote and your handheld remote) work properly

This is proven by their ability to operate the opener on your wife's side

From that, we can assume the problem is with the RF interface of the opener on your side.

I would start by checking the antenna on your opener. Make sure it isn't kinked, broken, or tucked up inside the housing. Especially look for differences in the antennas on the openers.

I wouldn't bother troubleshooting the remotes themselves as they've been proven OK.

If the antennas are both undamaged and dangling downward, you can move to troubleshooting more finicky stuff like system board connections, etc. but first try the low-hanging fruit.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.