Genie garage door opener stopped completely

My Genie opener appears to have quit. No light at the wall pushbutton, no lights on the sensors at the door, won't open or close, of course. Power at the outlet---I checked. Similar action about a week ago; I opened up the case and turned the shaft of the motor by hand (figuring something was stuck), and that brought it back to life. The nearest repair place is two hours and thirty bucks' worth of gas away. Any ideas before I go out and buy a new one?

Thanks -- Terry

Reply to
prfesser
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The motor winding is shorting out on the inside of the motor case when it stops in a certain spot. You can replace the motor winding, but for what you will spend & the time involved I would suggest you buy a new one.

DoorDoc www.Acti> My Genieopenerappears to have quit. No light at the wall

Reply to
doordoc

Probably correct diagnosis but I'd suggest before giving up entirely, call the overhead door repair/supply place(s) and see if they've got old units and what they'd let a replacement motor go for. Here, at least, the guy keeps all the old stuff for parts and could probably get the replacement motor for $20 or less...as example, the old Stanley he gave me the full head piece for the transmission gears for $10 -- it was working unit replaced for other reasons...

Reply to
dpb

Uh, ..... unless he's got the unit plugged into an ungrounded circuit, just why isn't it blowing a breaker or fuse upstream.

And if it ISN'T grounded, why should that short remove power from the wall pushbutton light?

Much more likely there's a "loose disconnection" disconnecting power from the transformer. I had that happen to one of my Craftsman openers many years ago, the weight of the power transformer hanging off a vertical circuit board, combined with the vibration every time the unit operated caused one of the transformer's soldered joints to crack.

I resoldered it and beefed up the transformer support with a small block of wood epoxied in place. I'd swear that was over ten years ago and it's still goung strong.

So, to the OP, remove the unit's cover, and with the power on CAREFULLY use a small piece of dowel to push and wiggle things inside while someone watches the pushbutton light. You may find a repairable loose electrical connection.

HTH,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Maybe I didn't word that quite properly & should of said inside of the cover. Personally i was never able to find the actual short & inspecting the motor winding wouldn't help at all, but I have seen that exact problem in Genie openers numerous times and it would never trip a breaker (they don't have any internal fuses). Since I couldn't find the short, I can't tell you why the breaker doesn't trip.

The clue is when he spins the screw (thus the motor winding turns) the opener will start working again for a while until the motor winding stops again in that one spot.

The motor has a built in thermal overload that the incoming power goes thru to the rest of the unit, so if the power isn't going thru the overload it kills power to the entire unit & thus no lights will come on & the opener does not make a sound.

I can tell you from experience that you can change any other part in the opener as many times as you want but the problem will never go away completely until you change the motor winding & once the winding is changed the problem does not re-occur. The difficult part in troubleshooting it is that the problem is intermittent (any minor movement of the winding & the problem will disappear & may not come back for days) & that you can't see the winding while the opener is operational.

He asked for advice and I gave him mine from experience of working on hundreds of these openers since 1978 (did full time service from then until the late 90's) & others are certainly free to offer any suggestions or ideas that come to their mind.

DoorDoc

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Reply to
doordoc

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The problem is not that there's a short but a break in the winding so there's a dead spot. There isn't a short but an open, but I recognized what you were intending...

Reply to
dpb

I defer to your significant experience, after your rephrasing.

But, just so I might better understand things, do those particular openers use "universal" motors with brushes, or induction motors?

If they have brushes, I can well believe that when the brushes wear down or get sticky in their holders the motor could stop with a brush not quite touching a low spot on the commutator, and a little fiddling with the motor shaft could let it start the next time. (Just like whacking a "dead" starter motor on a car with a BFH to get one more start out of it.)

But if they are induction motors, I don't quite get what you mean by "(thus the motor winding turns)" unless by "winding" you are referring to the bars on a squirrel cage rotor. One of those might get disconnected from the rings on the ends of the rotor and fail to produce enough starting torque after stopping in just the wrong place.

If that happened I can surely believe that the motor would draw enough current to heat to the point where a thermal overload could kick open, and while it was open, the pilot light could go out, as you explained.

But, I'd call the actual fault an "open" and not a "short".

So, in summary, I now concur with your condemnation of the motor in his unit.

Peace,

Jeff

Reply to
Jeff Wisnia

Many thanks to doordoc, dpb, and Jeff for their help on this problem. After messing with the opener for a while (and opening the door by hand the last week or so) it appears I'm not going to be able to fix the old one, so a new one is in order. At least I won't have to put up the screw drive again...

Thanks again -- Terry

Reply to
prfesser

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