Garage door has a mind of its own

[drewmo]

Our garage door has just started to give us some trouble. When closing, sometimes it closes. Sometimes it closes 3/4 of the way then opens again. Sometimes it makes it an inch then opens. And sometimes it doesn't budge. There's a good line of sight between eyes with nothing blocking them. The track is in good shape. The rollers roll. I've cranked the force at which it will open all the way up (9 kg I believe). The open/close limiters are where they need to be. When it trips back open, the LED light flashes four times, and the big buld flashes 10, which I believe indicates an issue with the safety eyes. To make sure it closes, we need to press and hold the button on the wall mount. Any thoughts? Should I try replacing the safety eyes? Bad solder on the board?

 

[peakbagger]

I have odd door hardware and the safety eyes would not fit where they needed to fit. No kids or pets in the house so eyes have been mounted on the door frame 3' apart since the door went in 28 years ago. I do need to clean the spider webs off the lenses on occasion.

 

[stoveliker]

check for continuity in the wires to the eyes; vibrations in combination with a poor contact could lead to random behavior like you observe.

 

[tlc1976]

Sometimes my sensors get knocked out of alignment. Also my sensor wires don’t look that great but it’s not a priority for me right now, it’s just me here. I just wiggle them every now and then.

But the#1 cause of that for me is junk hanging from garage door seal. Grass clippings, leaves, whatever. Gets stuck on the seal and trips the sensor when the door is almost all the way down. I get into the habit of making sure the door is closed and waiting a few more seconds before leaving the driveway.

 

[PaulOinMA]

I've had to replace a safety eye due to wonky behavior. I think the wiring was shot. Inexpensive enough that it wasn't worth the time to mess around replacing the wiring.

Check the wiring to the eyes, too, especially any splices.

Also had poor performance due to a split pulley. Was driving me crazy why one side was hanging up until I noticed the pulley had split, the wire was just dragging through it. Was months for me to figure out. Duh!

 

[Bad LP]

True story.
Two guys I know live across the street from each other in a nice neighborhood. Both these guys are too funny and have an extremely high level of humor. Bill asked Ev to watch his house over a trip and handed him the remote for his garage door for access into the house.
Ev takes a spare remote and reprogrammed the code into it.
Bill returns and gifts Ev a nice bottle of scotch as a thank you. Bill is also not allowed to smoke his cigars in the house so he uses the garage when the weather is sour.
From across the street Ev starts randomly opening and closing Bill’s garage door and it went on for weeks.
I shot on both the pistol and trap teams with these two and a lot of laughter was the norm but the garage door was one of the best.

 

[maineiak]

I've had this happen to me several times. You have a couple adjustments on your door opener. One is how much it opens and closes. The other is how much torque it uses to open or close. The torque setting you want to increase, mine has a + sign. Sometimes lubrication or worn parts will need extra strength to work. I'm from Maine also.
Good luck,
Norm