More Craftsman Garage Door Opener & Lightening

18 years ago

I had a lightening strike hit a large tree in my yard yesterday. I've lost several electrical devices, including the use of my garage door opener.

Symptoms and notes:

1. The glow lights on the inside opener buttons do not light up. Pressing them does absolutely nothing.

2. I reset the transmitter with the opener. When I pushed the button, the opener light flashes but nothing happened.

3. I disconnected the door from the track. Now when I push the transmitter button, the motor turns very slightly and stops (with absolutely no weight on it). I can keep doing this and it incrementally moves about 1/2 inch. The inside buttons still do absolutely nothing.

4. I know how to adjust the force and that's not the problem. The motion sensors appear to be fine.

Theory and Questions:

The way the motor is giving such a half-hearted attempt to move, I'm wondering if the motor got zapped, but the wall buttons doing nothing at all has me thinking it could be the circuit panel. Would the circuit panel or maybe the capacitor being burned out possibly cause the motor to act "sluggish"? Thoughts?

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Comments (4)

techdave
18 years ago
Boomtube, an open cap would make for just humming or a sluggish start. If you really want to know if the motor is ok, pull it out and test run it with 120 across one colored lead and white. Or check for an open in either red or blue winding as both should go thru to white. Or a short to the case, thats a failure mode too. A board with a power component burned open by the surge usually does not supply any power to the motor. Yor wall control is an active device and is probably destroyed, altough it is powere by the red wire so the supply from the logic board may just be out. If the wall control alone is bad then touching the red and white wires going from it to the GDO would turn the GDO on. HTH Dave.
boomtube
Original Author
18 years ago
Dave,

Thanks for the reply. I assume you mean by "open cap" that you mean the capacitor is blown? If that's the case, that should be a relatively easy fix as it's a replaceable component. As for the wall controls, they probably did get toasted. I've discovered a couple of more cooked electrical devices in the house this evening. That being said, I will indeed run the test you suggest before replacing them.
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drhooke
17 years ago
i had a similar thing happen to my opener. i took apart the sensors and found a diode and a blown capacitor. Radio shack had what i needed. i then realized by swapping out a good circuit board that it had also been fried. I have not been able to fix the broken circuit board. so i bought a used circuit board knowing it wasn't the exact model. The doors go up and down properly with the manual button, remote does not work, and the sensors are totally ignored (safety issue). total cost was $35 and about 4 hrs. i like mucking around with stuff, so the 4 hrs was not a big deal.
jdgt225innh
17 years ago
I believe Craftsman garage door openers are made by Chamberlain, which makes my Lift Masters. Same thing happened to mine, twice. First time, both door openers had failed mother boards and photo eyes. I replaced all bad components to the tune of $250. Thinking it must have been a power surge, I installed two surge suppresors. The very next year the same thing happened. I also noticed that one of the photo eye mount bolts was discolored, like it was spot welded on the shank. I called the company direct in AZ and the lady felt bad and sent me both mother boards and photo eyes for the price of one. Along with that she sent me two lightning suppresors that were to be wired in to the mother boards. I installed all the new parts and it's been five years with no mother board failures. However, two weeks ago I happened to be in the garage during a thunderstorm and one bolt of lightning dropped real close and I heard a loud snapping sound in the corner of the garage. The receiving photo eye of one of the doors went dead. I replaced the photo eye and all is working again. Maybe the lightning suppressor protected the mother board this time? I'd like to know where and how the lightning stray volts are getting to the photo eyes.

Anyway, I would sugggest installing the lightning suppresors. They're very easy to install and are very inexpensive.

Dave