OT: Garage Door opener keeps frying

[blinwmiaol.com]

I have two Sears garage door openers that keep blowing
the motherboard. They both did it the first time within the
warranty. But the labor to have them replaced was going to
be more than me buying the parts and replacing it myself. I
talked to a professional door installer and he said that if I'm
having problems I need to put in surge protectors on both
garage door openers. I bought one surge protector just for
garage doors from Sears and bought another one off eBay
and installed at the same time I put in the new
motherboards. The half horse model lasted just over 6
months before it blew the surge protector and the
motherboard. It was on a secondary door but I don't use it
much so I just unplugged it and left it alone. About a month
later the three quarter horse opener on my main door blew
it's motherboard while being plugged into the surge
protector but did not blow the surge protector. So I called
the company that made the surge protector and file the
warranty claim because it was only 9 months old and they
sent me a new motherboard. I installed new motherboard
and plug the unit into the surge protector that still worked.
Now 6 weeks later the motherboard is once again blown
and the surge protector works just fine. what in the world is
causing this and what can I do to quit spending $100 a shot
on a new motherboard? The garage door openers are on
their own separate circuit and the breaker for that serve it
has never been blown. The only other thing in the garage
plugged in using electricity is a freezer but it is on its own
circuit. This just isn't making sense to me nothing else in
the house or the garage seems to have an electrical
problem but these two garage door openers.

 

[rrlund]

"what can I do to quit spending $100 a shot
on a new motherboard?"

Get out of the car and open the door? lol

 

[dpendzic]

I would check your settings--distance trying to travel at closing and also the force setting to reverse when closing

 

[johndeerefan]

Get rid of those junky sears brand openers and get a good Chamberlain door opener that is sized for your door and your problems will be solved.

 

[BobHnwOh]

Don"t buy Sears crap!!

 

[IH2444]

Umm Chaimberland makes Sears openers.
Or at least they did a few years ago.

 

[Chip812]

(quoted from post at 15:20:19 10/02/13) Don"t buy Sears crap!!

Yep.... This right here... exactly...

 

[blinwmiaol.com]

Sorry maybe I didn't make clear what I was trying to say. By the way the opener I'm dealing with is a three quarter horse Sears made by Chamberlain and it's plenty has enough power to lift my 8 foot door. The opener isn't at fault, there's no way that two garage door openers blown exactly the same way. The converter on the logic board that converts from 110 to down to 24 volts is what keeps blowing. It has nothing to do with the garage door or the opener. I'm trying to figure out while using surge protectors how is it possible for transient voltage to come thru and keep trying the logic board. It is happened to both openers but it different times. the logic board that I just replaced about 6 weeks ago was a Chamberlain logic board straight from the factory and now it's blown too. Where is it possible that the voltage could be coming from and how is it possible that it's going through the surge protector frying the logic board but not frying the surge protector. That was my question not anything about the garage door size or the brand of opener

 

[IH2444]

I would suspect possibly a bad receptacle or bad connection on the receptacle or where the wire hooks up to the breaker.
Use good quality receptacles not the .89 ones.

Just a thought.

 

[Ted in NE-OH]

Check your line voltage at the outlet. May be too high or too low.

 

[glennster]

not an electrical expert here, maybe john t will chime in. i would get a dvom meter on the outlet and see what kind of power you have. then put a load on it and see what happens. maybe a 3 speed box fan, small air compressor, ect , something that will draw some amps. could be you have a bad neutral somewhere.

 

[FBH44]

Glennster had a good thought, a loose neutral. Might call the power company, complain about possible loose neutral, have them check their side. If you have split-bolt connectors, anyplace, abandon them and get crimp-on.

 

[Motorcraftman]

Also don't forget to check, and be sure You have a GOOD GROUND connection that feeds the voltage to the Opener.. That can do it also, Larry

 

[BobHnwOh]

But they are made to Sears specs!

 

[JMS/.MN]

Wow! He has a door? Reminded me of a builder when we did the new house- he thought we should have in floor garage heat. I said I"m just glad we"ll finally have a garage door! When I saw he had a cover sheet on the bid form, slowly lowering it with his explanation, I knew we weren"t going with him.

 

[Wheat Farmer]

What size of wire? Is it Copper or Aluminum? How far is the unit from the breaker box? Do you have any place Copper wire is hocked to Aluminum wire?
Are all lugs in the breaker box tight? What is the voltage and Amps at the opener? Unhook the opener, and you lift the door by hand?

 

[Bob]

Yep. Poor neural connection somewhere in the panel will cause low voltage to heavily loaded circuits and overvoltage to the others.

 

[dondeereb]

hi;
i installed and repaired sears operators for thirty years. if it takes out only your 24v circuit it is not likely your high voltage source, the problem could be in the 24v load, ie the wiring to your door button or to the door sensors or somewhere in between. that being said, the fact that both operators are involved is very curious. also check your travel adjustment and force adjustment. door should reverse automaticlaly on a one inch obstruction, like a one inch board. if it does not, adjust your force and travel until it does. travel is adjusted so the operator closes the door completely and when stopped is applying light down pressure on the door also the operator is not designed to operate an out of balance door. don't expect it to lift an door you cannot lift easy yourself. with the operator disconnected from it. a sectional door should not come crashing down when you open it about half to three quarter of the way. if it does it needs adjust, don't try to do that your self, you could get hurt. a one piece door properly balanced will hang in air about belt buckle high without crashing down. soooooo if your travel is set so the operator does not shut off at end of travel and force is not set light enough to let it reverse it can sit there in that position and cook the board and or motor.
good luck, hope this helps

 

[John B.]

Have you added anything electrical to your house?
If these mother boards have been blowing look back on when they started failing and think of any changes you may have made as for adding new circuits to your main distribution electric box.

 

[Stubbyie]

Quote: "The converter on the logic board that converts from 110 to down to 24 volts is what keeps blowing."

You sound capable so you may be able to consider this point: Is the voltage 'converter' an iron-chunk transformer or a zener diode?

If transformer, look for a wiring fault in the circuit feeding the opener---bad ground, bad neutral. Unlikely but possible is bad incoming voltage from grid--bad breaker, bad bus bar connection in panel. I had something similar and turned out the neutral was nonexistent and I had been running off the earth ground to complete the circuit. Oops.

If 'solid state' "converter" look for poor heat sinking. Look for chunk of aluminum under the device. May not be properly heat sinked or need conductive heat sink grease-like material. In short, you could be experiencing overheat failures.

Do failures coincide with summer high temps in garage? Might experiment by placing small 'trucker fan' near opener and seeing if makes a difference over time.

Do failures seem more or less evident when using radio control compared to wall button? Is wall button hard-wired or also radio type?

Call up maker and be persistent until you get to talk with one of their engineering staff instead of TechRep reading from manuscript. Squeaky wheel and all that. Could be design flaw. Keep asking questions. Ask for replacements of entire unit direct from factory.

Please post back your experiences so we may all learn.

 

[showcrop]

(quoted from post at 15:19:50 10/02/13) Glennster had a good thought, a loose neutral. Might call the power company, complain about possible loose neutral, have them check their side. If you have split-bolt connectors, anyplace, abandon them and get crimp-on.

What is the matter with split bolts? I have used plenty of them in commercial applications to replace big wire nuts that were heating up that installing electricians used.

 

[mkirsch]

The blown surge protector, and the fact that it happens on two separate openers suggests that the issue is related to the AC electrical system.

 

[blinwmiaol.com]

The transformer is the solid metal block type. The last time the logic board blew I was in the house and the kitchen lights dimmed for a half second. I didn't think much of it but went to use the car 20 minutes later and the opener was toast. I have a hard wired wall button and the wireless outside button.

 

[buickanddeere]

Could be a Bubba wiring job on the plug? The ground has to be a true ground to earth with no neutral current on it and no voltage above true earth. Green round pin.
Neutral has to be a insulated current carrying conductor at or near earth potential. Silver wide slot.
Live Line has to on black narrow slot.

Any loose connection causing flickers will also cause faults.

 

[36 Coupe]

Lightning strikes on the power lines are common.A loose neutral can destroy appliances.Fence chargers seem to get a lot of lightning strike damage on the power line side.Battery chargers and battery maintainers get shorted diodes from power line lightning strikes.When that happens transformers burn as in flames out the top of the chargers.If you leave an AC/DC welder plugged in lightning strikes can short the diodes.Lightning jumps open switchs with ease.On the door opener problem I would have the power co put a voltage recorder on the power outlet for a week.We did this in a service shop in the 60s.The voltage dropped way down about 11 am and stayed low until 1pm.Same thing happened around 5 pm.TV pictures would shrink on low voltage,wasnt the tvs fault.