Open garage door

[CraigG]

Have searched forum but haven't found anything - but I am pretty sure people have done this.

Is there a way to automatically open a garage door?
Start a sequence - garage door opens - finish a sequence - garage door closes? Is there a way to tap into the button that controls the door?

Cheers
CraigG
Wollongong

[jem5136]

I think you could do it using a relay. I am not 100% sure though, I would have to see the remote to the garage door. You could solder the garage door wires in the relay, and control it using a normal LOR channel. I have been wanting to do this with my fog machine. I don't know if it would work for a garage door, though. (Some help I am:D)

Jesse

P.S. Not to be rude or anything like that, but why would you want your garage door to open during the show??

[rmturner54]

Now ...dats funny rat dare!!!!!

[CraigG]

I have 2 garages, one has been converted to a study leaving about 4 feet of storage(mini tree storage)at the front.

This year we are going to put our dancing santa in there so we don't have to bring him in every night. Add a christmas tree, few fake presents, spotlight on santa and you have a ready made stage.

If I can just open the door......

[Dave Batzdorf]

I would take a remote apart and wire in a relay to the push button contacts. The main thing is to have the LOR only send a 2-3 second "on" signal to the relay. Get a 12v one from Radio Scrap and use a plug-in 12vdc adapter from the same place. You dont need a hefty relay as there isnt much current being passed. So one of the small 12vdc blue ones would work.

[tomskillman]

If your garage door uses just a simple doorbell style button, shorting the 2 wires momentarilly should open the door. If the wall button has other features such as lights, you might have more trouble. Rather than taking apart a remote though, I'd look at the button on the wall...

If it's the single doorbell style button, just hook a relay in parallel (use a 120V coil, SPST relay)

If it's the multiple-function keypad, you might have to take a look at the circuit board and hook wires to the 2 contacts of the correct button....using the same relay...

Either way, it's a simple momentary on of the channel for open, another for close, so you'll have to be careful in your sequencing.

[Steven]

Almost all garage doors will open and close when the wire to the button is shorted, even on those that use a multifunction button. (I looked inside one of these buttons once. The open/close button simply shorts the contacts, while the light on/off button has a resistor in series.) The reason this is true is that there are many third-party door controllers out there, like this one.

The tricky part is making sure you are not closing the door when you mean to be opening it. For example, suppose you are running a show and your sequence closes the door when there's a child who's really close to your dancing Santa. The door will start to close, but will stop because the visitor is blocking the infrared safety beam.

Later, when it's time to open the door again, it's already open, so now it will close.

A way to solve that problem is to use two channels and a magnetic switch that will close when the door is closed. The "open" relay will go in series with this switch, so that the "open" channel will only open the door if it is currently closed.