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Craftsman 1/2 HP Garage Door opened automatically and then closed

18 years ago

I have a 1/2 hp craftsman, don't recall model, but it isn't more than 2 years bought.

At 2 am. after being closed for 5 hours, the garage door opened by itself and 30 seconds later closed and 30 seconds later opened. I flipped the outside lights on and it stopped doing it. the green light on the pad was steady green.

What are the chances of a Thief being able to descramble my code or someone new in the neighborhood driving by and having the same code all of a sudden? I promise, I looked outside when I heard it and no cars in site.

The manaual says it may open and close by itself but what exactly does that mean. Out of no where it will just open and close a few times and stop and not do it again?

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Comments (3)

Don_
18 years ago
See your duplicate post under Home Repair.
installer01
18 years ago
The garage door opener "can't" close by itself. It can reopen itself if the "photocells" are even "slightly" out of alignment. The only way the door can open,(at 2:00 the bars get out??? someone is fooling around??) is if someone has a programmed remote control to your door, or there is a slight short in the wire from the doorbell (wall) button end or the end of the wall button that connects to the back of the door opener. I have seen this. Sometimes they use speaker type wire that has several strands of wire. They may have frayed just slight. If just one strand of frayed wire is just barely touching the other contact. It will activate the door opener. Just a person walking above the door opener can activate the door without knowing. Most of the time they use a single strand wire and this does not usually happen. Lets try this first...Clear your board of all frequencies,(by holding in the programming button on the back of the board, it will be a colored button). Re program your exisiting remote controls and keypad back into the board. Check the wire behind the wall control, check the connection where the wires connect to the back of the opener. Make sure they are connected and are tight and not touching other contacts. There are many reasons for the door to "reverse". The door should "never" close without a command from a remote or wall control.. Dan
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Craftsman 1/2 HP Garage Door Opener won't Close
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Comments (2)
Ok.. Just try running the garage door by pushing the button and see if it catches the latch just fine. It will probably be just fine.... What your friend was trying to tell you to do is to grab the garage door and manually open or close it to catch the latch back onto the chain. You don't want to pull on the red cord when you are doing this - just grab the bottom of the door and either open it or close it to catch the latch. You REALLY don't want to do this with all your strength - or you might break something in the garage door latch.. It's usually harder to open and close the door - so it takes some strength to open it up without the help of the motor... but you want to go slowly when it's hooking the latch back up or you might break that part. Here's what is going on.... The Red pull handle thingey has a spring loaded latch inside it... kinda like how a door knob works. That latch grabs onto the hole on a plate connected to the door opener chain - and the garage door goes up and down when the motor runs. (It holds together like how a door latch holds a door closed) When you pull the string - you just pull the latch out of the hole in the metal plate connected to the chain.. like how turning a door knob lets you open a door.... and you can manually pull the garage door go up and down without the motor moving the chain. Does this make sense...
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Craftsman 1/2 hp Garage Door opener won't open
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Comments (2)
Cut your losses and chunk the Craftsman garage door opener. Get a Genie and you will never post a question about openers on this forum again. A little research on this forum will show you hundreds of posts about those badly engineered and cheaply produced monsters. There are probably more questions about them than anything else on this forum. I recommend the Genie "Excelerator". Opens twice as fast, quiet, has two lights, and extremely reliable. See the Genie link below. Here is a link that might be useful: Genie Excelerator at Home Depot
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Craftsman garage door opener 1/2hp won't open/close just clicks
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Comments (2)
It ssems that it tries to work when the chain is going one way but not reverse.
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craftsman 1/2 HP garage door opener
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Comments (5)
yes you can. With the door sensors in a fault condition the door will close completely if the button is depressed and held for the full close cycle. Releasing the button before full closure will cause the door to stop and return to fully open By holding the button down until the door closes, the system assumes that the operator is present and is watching the door and will stop it if it hits something.
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mave
18 years ago
Your GDO problem seem to be almost the same as my GDO
problem I had several years ago. I had a 1/2 hp craftsman
GDO only 7 month old when it to started to open and close
by itself (day or night). But I was not the only one in
town that had the same problem.

Do you have very active airports, military bases, and large
microwave towers in your area? Because it turn out to be
the military doing their new thing with RF and microwave
signals.

For this reason I and others had to replace our GDO to
different brand GDO that is design to handle these signals.
So once I replace the craftsman GDO for a new brand GDO.
No more problems ever again.

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