25 March 2011

Wall Button Says No

The garage door openers mysteriously stopped working the other day, and could we find the manual?? What a ridiculous question.

Internet to the rescue! We have a Chamberlain (Chamberlain also manufactures the Craftsman openers), but I could not find the manual for our specific model on the site. It’s probably there (or elsewhere, like Manuals Online), but I stopped looking. Because I found the generalized instruction for reprogramming the remotes. And assumed that was the problem.

Reprogrammed the remotes. (If you need to do this, it’s easy-peasy – just involves some button-pushing while standing on a stepladder.) Wait – now the touchpad and wall button don’t work. Did they work before I reprogrammed?? I didn’t check. 

[Insert annoyed hour of trying to individually reprogram each thing while accidentally deprogramming other things before finally deciding that I hadn’t really given the Internet a chance.]

The Kev pointed out that the symptom I had not Googled was the flashing wall button. (I assumed that this was the result of my rewiring job on the button after I hit its wire several times with a hammer, thereby fraying it beyond use. Accidentally. Well, “coincidentally” at least.) Turns out a flashing wall button means it has been set (accidentally) to “vacation lock-out” mode, making the remotes inoperable. 

My searches indicated that one would need to press the button and the “lock” button together to achieve lock-out. Umm…I don’t have a model fancy enough to have a “lock” button! I just have a button. So I tried just pushing the button down for a couple of seconds. No more flashing! Wall button works! Keypad works! Remotes do not work because of the inappropriate reprogramming, so I just reprogrammed them again. Remotes work! Awesome! 

Somewhat related:  When and if you get up next to your opener, you may notice a loose wire dangling out of the back of the box. This is the antenna for the remotes – do NOT trim it back, as tempting as that may be. 

No comments:

Post a Comment