A warm glow :-)

[Jim K..]

You mean several garages all open at once?

[Harry Bloomfield]

Having just had to fit a new tube motor to my garage's roller shutter door, then finally got around to tidying up its control unit box which has sat with it's PCB dangling out for years - I took a look at another frustration.

I have two wireless remote controls for it, one in the car, other in the house, then a wired one inside the garage. The buttons contacts on the remotes have been variable for a few years and being side by side, with two spare unused buttons it has always been rather confusing which to press for open and which for close door. One bluetacked near back door, the other bluetacked on top of my rear view mirror.

Earlier in the week, I decided I needed to find a solution to the remote button problems and confusion, so I ordered up some tiny momentary on/off/on toggle switches. These wired across the remote's failing buttons using some hdd ribbon cable, meant I could mount the switches more sensibly - push up for open/ down for closed, simple, no confusion.

[Chris Green]

You can get new remotes for just about anything like this from eBay or aliexpress, cost very little too.

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 30/05/2019, Chris Green supposed :

I'm sure I could, but it would have to match my system so perhaps a lot of trial and error to get the right one. I would still be stuck with trying to remember which button was up and which down - hit the wrong button and then the right one has to be pressed three times for some strange reason, to reset the system - to get it to obey.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Be very, very careful - those door motors have a 4 minute run time limit. :oÞ

[Brian Gaff]

Yes I have often wondered about switches fitted to devices. Most are el cheapo or worse, just conductive foam, and usually fail in about a year. Back in the early days of infra red tv remotes we had little click switches with hard button tops, never ever went wrong. Has to be a lesson there. Brian

[Harry Bloomfield]

Jim GM4DHJ ... explained on 31/05/2019 :

Where is the DIY in that?

[Chris Green]

They're actually pretty generic as far as I've found, the only issue is the frequency they use, if I remember old ones are 433MHz and new ones are 485Mhz (433Mhz is theoretically illegal now but you can still get 433MHz remotes if you try hard). I have several old 433MHz driven garage doors and all the 433MHz remotes I have tried seem to work (I bought quite a few over the years for different places - in the car, on the 'bike keyring and hanging by the front door).

[Harry Bloomfield]

Brian Gaff submitted this idea :

These were actual tiny push button switches, I guess they used metal, linking two contacts, there was no click. I got 5x on/off/on tiny momentary switches for £4.49, used two and was able to fit them on brackets.

[Graeme]

In message <qcqn7h$aeb$ [e-mail], Brian Gaff [e-mail]> writes

Yes Brian. The lesson learned by the manufacturers is that if things don't break, consumers are less likely to replace them.

[nothanks]

I've disabled the wireless part of the garage door controller for that very reason. I don't know whether there is any unique coding but it's very basic tech so I didn't want to take the risk.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And quality costs money. It all goes back to T Bliars 'investing in people' - basiocally they gave mony to people woith no sense, no class and no brains who hadn't earnt it, and 'buying stuff' became their hobby then.

So the Rattner generation was born.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Do you mean what is generally called a tactile switch?

Just replaced the ones on my car remote. Got a new case for it too off Ebay. Total cost about £20. New one from a dealer, £350, including coding.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I found a box of assorted ones on Ebay. 10 each of ten sizes. About a tenner and took about ten weeks to arrive from China. ;-)

[Chris Green]

No, strangely. :-) The remotes are programmable and most seem to have four buttons (presumably they all use the same chip inside) and so you can set them up to operate up to four doors (or other things). We do actually have three remotely operated doors on two garages.

[Harry Bloomfield]

[e-mail] presented the following explanation :

As used for car locking/unlocking, they use a rolling code - they only respond to a correct code, so fairly safe.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Chris Green explained on 31/05/2019 :

One button opens the door, a second one closes it. Buttons three and four do nothing. I also have an electronic code lock on the small side door, with an option to use a Yale type key if that fails. I got fed up of having to go back to the house, to grab the Yale key when I forgot it, so fitted a key pad system, with an 8 digit code entry.

[nothanks]

My door controller was probably installed 20 years ago (before I bought the house) and is pretty basic. The garage is a workshop so I'm happy to operate a switch if I need the doors open.

[Marland]

Ratner (one T) made his gaff denigrating his firms own products in 1991 when the Major Government was still fairly young. T Blair didn?t get into power till 1997. You must be really desperate to make a connection when there is such a time difference, It is so wide of the mark that it makes you look ridiculous or suffering from an age related mental illness.

GH