Lift Master Garage Door - remote hardly works from outside the garage

Question

Scenario

When pulling up to our home the garage door opener only works sometimes - roughly 1/10 clicks. Our Lift Master was installed in 2011.

Troubleshooting

• tried new batteries in all remotes
• tried removing / disabling lights in the garage (potential interference)
• remote works every time from INSIDE the garage
• wall button wired to motor works every time
• keypad remote outside the garage almost never works

Question

What could be going on here? I initially thought it might be a logic board on the motor assembly but since the remotes work inside every time maybe this is all caused because of old tx/rx parts ?

Answer 1

It sounds like the electronics in the receiver have drifted with time. The Receiver/logic board has some frequency sensitive parts. The ambient conditions such as temperature and humidity tend to age the parts. The primary but not the only parts are the capacitors. These values will drift with time causing the circuit to change. As these parts change so do the receiver/transmitter parameters. The filters and the oscillators change, this in turns affects sensitivity and frequency. Considering the average lifespan of a garage door opener is about 12 years you have gotten a good life. Playing with the antenna length may help resolve the problem by changing the receiver tuning a bit. One of the early signs is the sensitive (range) slowly decrease over time. You could get one of these china wireless remotes with a relay output and use it as an additional button but do not expect it to last very long or be immune to false trips. Expect to purchase a new control board in the not to distant future.

Answer 2

One possibility is your receiver antennas are not extended properly. Usually a thin wire drooping from the motor unit ... if it's coiled up or broken or not extended properly you might have VERY limited distance for the remotes.

If that's not the problem, maybe something about your home construction, e.g. all-metal garage door combined with metal lath wall construction above the door. If you want to test this theory you can try the remote with the door open 10%, 20%, etc ... at some point, with the door open not very much, the remotes and keypad should work.

If that is the case you need to look into extenders for the motor unit. Some motors allow you to replace the antenna with an external one using a longer cable. I don't think most residential ones do though. Liftmaster makes a remote radio receiver where you wire the receiver to your motor using bell wire and mount the receiver in the front of your garage with the antenna sticking out through the wall.

The keypad is probably wireless and having the same issue. If you fix the problem for the remotes it should start working too.

Answer 3

Chamberlain remotes made after 2005 transmit at 315MHz - very far away from any of the ISM radio bands (900M, 2.4G, 5.8G, etc) so interference from microwaves, Wi-Fi, Cell phones, etc. is unlikely to be an issue unless someone is running a highly modified radio running at WAY over legal power.

You mentioned that you changed the batteries, but did you test the batteries you used? I maintain gate openers at our office campus and they happen to use the same remotes and receivers as Chamberlain garage door openers. For the C-level mucky-mucks, we usually offer to give them a remote or program their existing compatible garage door remotes so they don't have to stop and open the window upon arriving at the office.

All that background serves to say: check the voltage on those batteries. Out of a sleeve of new A23 batteries (nominal voltage 12V) purchased from a giganto retailer named after a rainforest, more than half tested less than 10V at no load, straight out of the package. I've found that those little remotes lose most of their transmit power when the battery voltage is less than perfect, so definitely try another battery before you resort to adding remote receivers, etc.

Answer 4

It's possible that there is RF interference coming from somewhere outside your house.

WiFi routers use 2.4GHz signals and that happens to be a publicly accessible band that is used for a broad range of consumer RF devices from cordless phones to microwave output and, I believe, garage door openers.

Someone in your neighborhood may have installed a new router or repositioned an existing one and it's now emitting enough signal to stomp on the signal from your garage door opener remote. Heck, if you installed or moved a router, you might be stepping on yourself.

Yes, newer WiFi routers often include 5GHz radios, but they also include 2.4GHz radios for backwards compatibility and for increased range (albeit at lower speeds). Many routers allow one or both radios to be turned off, but most people don't ever adjust any of their router's settings. (This was the reason that so many home networks were so easily "hacked" in the early days of WiFi - the UID/PWD for each manufacturer was the same and well known. It was expected to be changed by the user, but most didn't. This is why newer ones come with the UID/PWD printed on the back and they're randomized at the factory.)

Answer 5

Remotes and keypads wear out. This is a very common problem. The conductive coating on the push buttons gradually loses it's conductivity and sends a weak signal. You should be able to get new remotes from Lift Master or compatible ones from other vendors and program them to your opener. Also check to make sure the antenna for your opener is stretched out if your unit has one.