Thread: Garage door opener

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Got a free garage door opener....... Now what to do with it..... I need to figure out how to reset it automatically or a trip sensor..... I am thinking that the kids walking thru my maze haunt will walk down a dead end hall and trip a sensor that will activate the gdo and move a ghoul towards them..... Now I just need to find out how to resend it bact to its original position.

If it is a fairly new one , I think there is a circuit that will automatically reverse when there is an obstruction,se if that is the case and if so you could put a "positive" stop on each end so that when the prop goes to the max limit it will hit this stop and then reverse. There are a lot of other ways to do this but this might be the easiest and cheapest way........

Need to know what model it is.

My current unit is a screw drive. It has a slip drive. A hall effect receptor and stator on the drive will reverse the motor if the drive is loaded to a stall before the forward limit switch is reached. Other units may read the amperage load and reverse if the current exceeds a certain limit. In all cases what you need to do is stall the drive prior to any limit adjustment. This is of course the safety feature that is designed to protect not only the unit from overload, but it is also designed to protect animals and or people from injury from being trapped by the door. Of course most also have break beam protection to stop the door in case there is any obstruction in the path of the door.

It should be fairly easy to test this. Simply place a clamp on the rail that will stop the shuttle. The unit the door attaches too. Shuttle may not be the correct term, but it is the unit that runs back and forth on the track. The shuttle should move outward and then when it reaches your clamp, it will stop and reverse. Be ready to pull the plug if it does not reverse within a few seconds. No more than 3.

be careful as a garage door opener is not designed for repetive use. I you cycle the motor too frequently you may burn it up

Thanks for the input Spin Man.... .. And Scareisburg. If it burns up oh well it was a freebie.

Hey Glug, just noticed your in the big town of Ritzville Wa. My aunt lives there and my brother in law in Lind. Family has a farm outside of paha

you from e burg?

Nope, Grandfathers farm, grewup in Walla Walla but made many trips to the Ritz and surrounding towns.

Well I found out that a garage door opener will automatically return to its origional position if you don't have the safety sensors hooked up...... So all I need to do is hook up a timed relay to run for 8 seconds ( thats 3 seconds less then it takes to reach the end of the arm ) and voila instant resetting. This should be an awesome animation for a spider crawling across the ceiling..... Oh wait woo hoo I just bought 3 of the monster guts prop controllers woohoo.... problem solved....