Garage Door Opener,Craftsman, Keeps Running

18 years ago

I have a 1/2hp Craftsman GDO Model#139.53638SRT manfactured 8/92. My problem started with what seems to be the norm for these operators which is replacing the worm and drive gears. Well, that was easy enough, but when I put the unit back together and tried it out it raised the door with no problem. The problem was that it got all the way up and stopped on the safety bolt, stopping the door, but the motor was still trying to keep going. I checked the limiter switch for the up-stop limit and the contact went right on past it bending it backwards and continued until it reached the end of the line. Thinking it might be just a bad connection, I cleaned the contacts on the limit switches(no change)then connected the up-limit wire straight to the gray common wire in the switch with no change. I tried to reverse the door direction, but the switch on the wall had no affect/control. I took the chain back off and let the opener run without anything connected to it, but it did the same running(in up direction)until it got hot and quit. The thing is stuck in up mode and will not go down or turn off when it reaches the limit switch. I put everything back the way it was (wires, etc.) and don't see anything unusual(burns or darkening)of the circuit board. Is there something I need to adjust or is my circuitboard fried. HELP!!!

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Comments (3)

techdave
18 years ago
Hi pinchik, first off, I sympathize with your plight. Lots of people post here with adjustment problems after gearkit installation and I have NO idea how they get that way!

I have done 100s if not 100s of them and NEVER had limit problem after a gearkit install. Of course we do test the limit switch functionality before giving the estimate as a board and a gearkit is almost never worth doing.

You seem like a cautious and meticulous sort of person, if you did everything properly and put it all back the same the board was probably bad when the gear failed. I see this 1 or 2 times a year at most.

This scenario of stripped gears can be avoided by keeping the gears lubed and the door in good balance-which allows the force limits to be set low enough a travel limit failure will not soon ruin the gears.

If you had recent storm activity it is possible the board has damage. If unplug replug wont help, yo are going toneed a board. Try for used one froma local GDO company?? the pn is on board-like 41a4207-6r or something like that. Not saying thats yor board, jsut thats what the number might look like, dozs of boards, MUST have right one for saftey!
HTH Dave.
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waterbird
18 years ago
hey,the thing is 15 year's old...replace it and move on..
you'll sleep a lot better at night...instead of worrying
about it!..
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techdave
18 years ago
Hi Pinchik, my wife agrees with waterbird! She says you can get better features, and save valuable time by buying a new one. How much is your time worth? How much time will it take to chase down the board, and it may not be the board?

And after a couple of decades of being around the repair business she has a good insight into what's going on. HTH Dave.
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Garage Door Opener,Craftsman, Keeps Running

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techdave

waterbird

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