Would the normal load of a garage door opener, on the GDO receiver relay, be more than the current it takes to close a simple relay? Using 16 volts AC for the relay coil, through the normally open dry relay contacts of the GDO receiver?
I bought a new receiver and two (Viper brand, aiui) remotes, and the receiver worked about 5 times in the first 5 minutes, but after that it didn't control anything. My friend held it in his fingers and could feel it vibrating slightly, but nothing else happened. The whole receiver is a lot smaller than a pack of cigarettes, maybe the size of 3 packs of Juicy Fruit, and when I opened a different brand, it used a reed switch as a relay. I'm sure this one does too.
My friend, the one I'm always talking about, for some silly reason, threw away the garage door opener receiver that was used to control the floodlights around his house from his wife's car. (A second transmitter was in the house to turn the lights off again.) The receiver controlled a one-inch by 3/4 inch external relay (using
16volts AC for both the coil and the load, which controlled a pretty large latching relay with a 24 volt AC coil, which carried the 110 volt current to the lights. This had worked for years for the previous owners of the house, and for months for my friend, until he cut out and threw away the receiver.We bought a replacement on ebay, with one receiver and two fobs (It had no packaging and was plainly put together from left-over burglar-alarm fobs and a receiver.) The fob batteries dead or almost dead, but that doesn't bother me.
Did I likely buy something that wasn't big enough for the job, or did it just fail like one of the fobs did?