Sears Garage Door Opener Question

[Jeff Wisnia]

The Sears Craftsman garage door opener which I installed myself when we built our home 30 years ago was finally giving up the ghost and stopping or reversing intermittently when asked to open or close.

I'd serviced it over the years including installing a new worm gear and wheel when the original ones finally wore out, replacing the motor run capacitor and fixing a cracked solder joint on one of the power transformer pins.

I figured it was time... So I bought a new Craftsman opener and installed it today.

The old opener was from an era before the use of a photoelectric safety beam across the bottom of the door opening, but the new one I installed naturally has them.

All seems to be working well, but one thing has me wondering. The door was open, it was daytime and I walked into the garage to grab a gardening tool I needed outside.

When my leg crossed the photoelectric beam the Opener's light came on and stayed on for the same time it would have if I'd just opened the door.

Is this a normal action for Craftsman openers? I can live with it, but it sure seems uneccessary and won't help the life of the light bulb, will it?

Do others with Craftsman openers see the same effect? I'll await words of wisdom from the group.

Jeff

[Don Y]

This is common behavior for many openers. I'm sure there is some rationalization for it. I've learned to exploit it at night when going out through the garage: leave the REAL garage light off and let the initial light from opening the door guide me out; then, when returning, cross the "beam" to turn the light back on so I can navigate through the garage (which would have now been dark)

[trader_4]

I have a Craftsman that is ~15 years old and it has that feature. I've seen other makes that do the same thing. It's a great feature, lights up the garage at night if you've had the door open and come in from outside.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Thanks for the speedy replies. I had a feeling that effect was an "undocumented feature" and not something wrong with the new opener.

Jeff

[Dan Espen]

Yep.

Went though same steps, old opener, then new opener with photocells and daytime light. Not a big deal for me and a little extra light helps sometimes.

[danny burstein]

[anip]

Oh, and if the fixture uses standard Edison base medium threads, replace the incandescents with LEDs.

You'll appreciate the much longer lifespan and fewer "oull out the rickety ladder" deal..

[Don Y]

+1

It also minimizes the chance of the plastic "shade" getting burned/discolored when someone installs a too bulb having too large a dissipation.

[Tony Hwang]

Our opener(Genie Power Max 1500) I installed has IR sensor shaped like dome sticking out at the bottom of the unit. Whenever car is coming in or people, dog, cat come in to garage lights turn on and after set delay time, it goes off. This is one of safety feature I think. Your door is using the safety sensor,our door uses separate IR sensor.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Must be my age, but though I've used compact florescents for many years in lots of places in our home it just never dawned on me to put one in the garage door opener.

I just took the bulb out of the junked opener and screwed it into the new opener. Speaking of screwing in a light bulb...Click below:

Jeff

[Tony Hwang]

Ditto, 2 ea. Daylight LED bulbs which consumes 9W ea.

[Don Y]

I'm not sure a CFL will like being turned on and off as often as the lamp would experience WHEN THE DOOR DETECTS A JAM (which usually blinks the lamp at ~1Hz). It may prematurely age the inverter in the lamp.

I had a problem with the load represented by the 60W (?) incandescent causing arcing in the base (cheap "fixture"). After replacing the base, I opted to install LED lamps hoping that the 4-5 fold reduction in power would make this less of a problem (of course, there's no guarantee that the initial *surge* in the LED isn't just as bad!)

[Diesel]

It's a normal feature on many openers. Some do allow you to disable it if you decide you don't like it. You might look for a dip switch to toggle and/or a jumper to move on the back/side of the unit itself.

[larrymoencurly]

It's normal for the lightbulb to come on that way with all openers made by Chamberlain (Sears, Chamberlain, and Liftmaster), and it doesn't hurt the lifespan anywhere as much as motor vibration does. I haven't bought any rough service (vibration resistant) bulbs in a long time, but Sears brand rough service incandescent bulbs used to be some of the cheapest good ones. If you live where the winters aren't too cold, like below 0 Fahrenheit, you can use ordinary CFLs instead.

It's a lot better to have a newer opener because burglars could easily defeat the coding of the old remotes, either by copying it when a remote was used or by using a gadget to transmit all

1,000 - 50,000 different codes. OTOH if your garage door has clear windows near the top, the new openers are still vulnerable to somebody poking a long stiff wire with a hook at the end between the top of the door and the threshold and looking through the window to guide wire to just behind the emergency release and pulling it forward. I think the only brand without that weakness was Stanley because the release had to be pulled straight down. the release