A New Leaf....

[Jeff Wisnia]

When SWMBO and I were leaving home this AM (Late for where we were going as usual.) I pulled the car out of the garage and pushed the button on the door opener remote in the car.

We watched the door closing smoothly, but about rive inches from full down it reversed direction and went back up. Another try produced the same results.

We had about 8 inches of wet snow here in Red Sox Nation yesterday, so I jumped out of the car and went looking for some snow or ice that the door might be striking near the ground and reversing in response to "overload."

I couldn't find spot like that. I tried adding my strength to the opener's as the door was coming down by pushing downwards on the outside door handle. No luck, the opener still reversed close to fully closed.

I finally went inside the garage and watched the door as it was descending. And there it was, a dead tree leaf stuck to the bottom edge of the door and extending inwards enough to interrupt the photoelectric safety beam and trigger the opener's reversing.

Pulled that dead leaf off and Bob's your uncle, all's well again.

I've only had photoelectric safeties on the garage doors for a couple of months as that's when I replaced the two 30 year old Craftsman openers which were given up their ghosts with brand new Craftsman openers which came with photoelectric safety stuff I added when changing out the openers.

That photoelectric stuff wasn't around when I installed the original openers, so I never really had any experience with it and didn't think of it at first as being the cause of the door reversing near fully closed. I know better now.

Jeff

[trader_4]

You'll find that's very common, a leaf or similar is all it takes. Happens here couple times a year. One thing I do like about the photoelectric ones is that they also turn the opener light on when you break the beam. That's nice when you've had the door open, been outside at night, then re-enter the garage.

Brass Rat 78, 6-1 here too, BTW.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Mine are mounted about a foot apart up in the rafters. So far, no leaves.

[dpb]

...

Ditto excepting there's a wrap around them to keep the stinkin' millers (army cutworm moths that are always a nuisance every spring here) from flitting in between...

[Micky]

If this would work, wouldn't it be a way to kill the neighbor boy and make it look like an accident?

That's good.

[Don Y]

IME, the photocells aren't worth their cost. They really only detect things that are ON the garage floor IN the path of the beam.

E.g., a kids wagon or bicycle typically won't trip the detector (the light shines under or through). The same is true of vehicles (unless their front or rear axles are in the path.

Openers that sense closing force (reversing when the feel "resistance") also have too heavy of a hand in sensing (i.e., they'd crease the hood of a vehicle parked beneath it). The door mechanism would have to be critically damped to make them practical (at very low forces).

[Jeff Wisnia]

I agree with everything you say Don, and I am certainly aware that a lot of those photoelectric sensors end up being mounted on the garage ceiling.

Probably a lot of them are up there because the homeowner who installed the opener was too lazy to string and fasten the leads from the opener's location to the both sides of the bottom of the door frame and sometimes might also have to add a couple of pieces of wood to mount the units on so they were located properly. (Like I had to.)

But, since my luck is so bad that if someone left me a cemetery in their will, people would stop dying, I just didn't want to risk the remote possibility that someone would get seriously injured in a freak accident being smashed by the door while it was closing and I'd get nailed for deliberately ignoring the installation instructions. So, I installed them "the right way" and will put up with whatever minor annoyances they may cause me in the future.

Jeff

[Ralph Mowery]

I mounted my photocells about 2 feet off the floor. That way if I don't get the truck all the way in it may see it. The garage is only about 2 feet longer than the truck and I have to pull almost top the wall if I want to get the door shut and maybe walk around the truck with the garage door closed.

I usually have a push broom hanging on a peg board and drive the truck so I just bump it to let me know when I am far enough in.

[dadiOH]

In the summer it will be spiders.

[Micky]

Like a sick or unconscious child. Sensors to detect lack of forward mostion are too complicated to rely on completely.

Neither children nor adults are 2 feet thick.

You folks get me, all worried about your little red wagon and ignoring why the photosensors are included, to protect children.

[Don Y]

Ditto. Despite the fact that the included "brackets" SUGGESTED they should just clip onto the door rails! (didn't fit)

I installed them on our opener as well. I'm just commenting that they (so far) have been more of a nuisance than a help.

Garage door has "stiffener ribs" that protrude about 3" into the garage from the plane of the door. Not used to the "fit" of the new car in the garage, yet, so always fear I've not BACKED IN (SWMBO doesn't like backing OUT!) far enough to clear those "ribs". Each time I close the door I half expect to hear them slap the front of the car as the door comes down (the photocell doing nothing to prevent this!)

As you said, anything you've LEFT (or that has shifted position) in the path causes the opener to complain. Last time, it was the rope for the cutting blade on the pole saw that had dropped into the path. Of course, doesn't cause a problem when you *open* the door. So, you're a bit surprised when the door decides not to *close*! ("Huh? It opened just a minute ago; why isn't it CLOSING, now??")

Also, it appears to "see" more than just the direct line between emitter and detector. When I command the door closed and then try to run OUT under the closing door -- taking care to "step over" the light path -- it often "sees me" and reverses, even though I KNOW that I haven't broken the light path.

I have issues with "safety devices" that have (significant) limitations. E.g., the "cross traffic alert" on the car (tells you when other cars are approaching from either side as you are backing out) sometimes sees pedestrians; sometimes not; usually sees oncoming cars; sometimes not; etc. I.e., it's not something that you can RELY upon.

It would be like walking with crutches -- that *sometimes* collapse under your weight! :-/

[Don Y]

That's an idea! (D'oh!) Of course, it opens up a "vulnerability" *below*. But, I suspect there is some "better height" than the 6" that I opted for initially.

In our case, we have something like 10"!

There are stiffener ribs on the inside of the garage door that eat up ~3 inches inside the plane of the garage door.

We back in (SWMBO doesn't like backing OUT, into "traffic") so need to allow space behind the car for the liftgate (otherwise, we'd have to load/unload the vehicle in the driveway!). This requires 13" for the liftgate (which swings BACK as it lifts UP).

We try to allow a couple (literally "2 or 3") of extra inches behind the car so we can STAND there (liftgate open) to load/unload (then, step aside as the liftgate opens/closes).

I mounted a tennis ball on a string hanging so that it hits the driver's side mirror as you back in. There's also a dotted line on the backup camera display that we can use to gauge how close we are to the objects behind the vehicle while backing in. The two "indicators" (camera and ball) have to be in agreement before I'll let the door close! (i.e., what happens if the camera is ever knocked out of alignment?? :> )

A neighbor has a "mat" of sorts that he drives over as he enters his garage. The mat has a "lip" (like a parking curb) on it that impedes the motion of the car past the "sweet spot". A nice idea but I don't know what keeps it from MOVING (or BEING moved!) when the vehicle's weight isn't holding it in place!

[Frank]

With me, sometimes birds. Birds will be trying to nest in the garage and fly out when door closes causing it to reopen.

[Vic Smith]

A 2x4 on the floor works for me.

[Don Y]

Again, what keeps it from moving? I.e., car is not in garage, you walk by it and trip over it. Now it's not in the correct spot...

[DerbyDad03]

OK, I'll play along.

First, let's assume a couple of things:

1 - The downward force of a GDO might be enough to injure or even a kill a very small child. 2 - The neighbor boy that one might want to kill is going to be older than a very small child. I mean, the kid has to have done something one might consider worthy of killing for, right? So, he's probably a teenager or young adult.

All right, with those 2 assumption in play, is the downward force of a GDO, even set at maximum downforce, enough to actually kill a teenager/young adult?

[rbowman]

A Hilti DX-2?

[Vic Smith]

Or just a couple dabs of liquid nails. Actually, I don't even use

2x4's any more. Did that for my wife, and she doesn't need them now either. There's always something to tap, like a ladder or lawnmower handle.

[Jeff Wisnia]

It isn't just the downforce setting, it's also the inertia of the door. Our garage doors are wood, and weigh well over 200 pounds each, which makes for a lot of kinetic energy when they are in motion .

I'm scared to think of what would happen to the kid's skull if he was lying in just the wrong spot so his head was on a concrete floor and a moving door came down on it.

I remember the first time one of the door extension springs broke, and it didn't have a color code on it indicating its strength. To find out how heavy the door was I disconnected the remaining spring and used a bathroom scale with a 2:1 wood lever over it, because the scale topped out with the door directly on it.

I ended up buying "150 lb" springs and have had to replace them (in pairs) maybe three or four times times in 30 years when another one broke.

And yes, I did put safety cables inside those springs when the first one broke, something the builders didn't bother with when we had our home built. I happened to be in the garage while a door was closing the first time a spring broke and the noise of the spring whacking against the ceiling and door track scared the shit out of me. That's when I learned about the need for safety cables in extension springs.

Jeff

[Jeff Wisnia]

I've got a lally column in our garage which tells me my car is pulled in the right distance when its right side view mirror is next to that column. A front seat passenger has to get out of the car before I pull in though.

Jeff