Repair a garage door opener?

Anything is repairable. You have to open it up to see what is broken, then you have to find out if you can get the parts.

It's probably a motor start capacitor, easily replaceable.

GWE

It the motor hums it could be a capacitor. If the motor runs but the chain doesn't move its the 41A2817 gear kit that needs replaced.

Doordoc

I had the same symptoms. Took it apart, found nothing wrong, put it back together; it ran for about 2 cycles before not working. Tried it again, same results. The third time was too much; it never worked again. Contacted Chamberlin and asked if it was the capacitor. They said, sure, maybe. I replaced the capacitor. Didn't help.

Bought a new opener. I hope you have better luck.

Check it again today. Perhaps you overused the opener by opening and closing the garage door repeatedly, and possibly the motor shut down due to overheating. It may start working once it cools down. Happened to me once.

Motor hums, chain does not move.

It all started after trying to open it and it moved a little bit and made the awfulest racket.

The one time I fixed a garage door opener it was a broken drive belt. Up a ladder, remove the case screws, and have a look. It was a Sears unit, and they sold me a new belt for a couple bucks. Replace belt, and we're good to go.

Might also be lubrication problems. Read the owners manual, or do some netsearch. Many times when motors don't turn, they need lubrication. I have disassembled a lot of electric motors, cleaned them out with solvent, and relubricated them.

Might also be that something in the gears or chain needs lubrication.

Can you pull the disconnect & move the door by hand? If not, it may be one of the tension springs that help lift the door, assuming you have that type of door. The spring looked OK at first glance, but if you looked closely, it was broken. Was an interesting process watching &helping the door repair guy! And no, I would not have attempted to replace one of those coiled tension springs myself then..but now I might! ;-)

The time this happened to me, it was a stripped plastic worm wheel. "Anything can be repaired" is correct, but you are in for an interesting machining task, if that is what it is.

I replaced it with a Genie screw drive, which I like quite a bit better.

Can you not just buy a new worm wheel?

Yes, the door works fine by hand.

Check for worn plastic gears in the unit. Also, confirm whether correct springs were used for offsetting the weight of the door. With the drive disconnected via the "pulldown disconnect", very little force should be required to open the door. Similarly, the unit should see very little load when operating, otherwise, accelerated wear takes place. Homedepot (if you're in the US) sells springs if it's necessary to repalce them.

If the gears were stripped, do you think the motor would spin rapidly. Having no load?

I really don't know, never worked on a device as this. If memory serves the OP said the motor hummed but didn't turn.

there is thermal shutdown circuit in the motor. If it is hot, it won't run....

Might be that the pin holding the sprocket to the gears has broken... The gears would spin, but the sprocket is loose on the shaft.

Open it and see what the problem is. They are simple machines.

electronics: You have 1)R/C circuits (remote control)

mechanics: motor, gear box, sprocket, chain

The limit switches are connected to the gear box.

Rich

Where can I get the gear if it is that?

The racket he heard was probably the gears coming to a grinding halt as bits of teeth got in the way of "surviving" teeth.

I used to do a lot of work on the roll-up doors on truck trailers.. Those springs are very interesting to wind up.. hammered out a couple of special tools and it made it a lot easier.

John

Very common problem is the plastic worm gear/spur gear combo. These *will* chew themselves out sooner or later, sooner if your door springs aren't balanced.

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