Liftmaster Ghosting

[Johnboy89]

I have a three-car garage with three Lift Master 3800PLD openers. I have an intermittent problem with mainly one door which will open by itself every so often. It’s been doing it for the past four years and is worse in the cold weather. I have had one of the other doors do it also, but not in the past year or so. I initially thought it might be the switch on the wall, but I disconnected it and it still did it. The door is controlled by a factory visor opener in my Ford. Not sure what else to do at this point, maybe replace control board?

Thanx

 

[Jagmandave]

Have you asked liftmaster for their input?

 

[iSpark]

Do you have a wall mount switch? Not sure about the new stuff, but my old Genie wall switch is a contact switch. Could the metal tabs/parts inside the switch be close enough that they are intermittently making contact, setting the door in motion?
Expansion from temperature could explain the "worse in the cold weather".

I'm just thinking out loud.

Ah never mind, saw the disconnected part...

 

[Greeny]

Expanding on the 'worse in cold weather' symptom, try removing the battery from your visor mounted opener for a while. If the contacts in a remote are moving enough to touch with temperature changes, maybe that's causing the intermittent opening.
I had this happen with a car horn. All summer and fall everything was fine, then one of the first nights we would get below freezing, me and half the neighborhood would get woken up at 0230 by my horn going off. I pulled the fuse till spring.

 

[Perroflojo]

Expanding on the 'worse in cold weather' symptom, try removing the battery from your visor mounted opener for a while. If the contacts in a remote are moving enough to touch with temperature changes, maybe that's causing the intermittent opening.
I had this happen with a car horn. All summer and fall everything was fine, then one of the first nights we would get below freezing, me and half the neighborhood would get woken up at 0230 by my horn going off. I pulled the fuse till spring.

I have a pouch that is line w/ aluminum that blocks the signal. It was either buy a new remote or the pouch. When I need to open the door, just remove it from the pouch and when done goes back into the pouch.

 

[drivesitfar]

interesting stuff. i had no idea the cold could set off garage door openers and horns so i'll hang around and see if the liftmaster gets fixed since i own one.

 

[drmarkr]

I have a three-car garage with three Lift Master 3800PLD openers. I have an intermittent problem with mainly one door which will open by itself every so often. It’s been doing it for the past four years and is worse in the cold weather. I have had one of the other doors do it also, but not in the past year or so. I initially thought it might be the switch on the wall, but I disconnected it and it still did it. The door is controlled by a factory visor opener in my Ford. Not sure what else to do at this point, maybe replace control board?

Thanx

Google this and you'll see that the electronic control units in these things are known for failing, and then ghost opening. There a capacitor that can be replaced pretty easily, which is what actually fails. Liftmaster essentially ignores you when you try to get them to do anything about it, btw.

The one in my shop I handled by just removing the unit and replacing it with a momentary door bell style switch. I don't need a remove opener there.

The biggest issue I see is that if you're on vacation, or live in a sketchy area, and the door ghost opens, all your **** is there for the taking.

 

[marinusdees]

When remote control garage door openers were first used, they shared radio frequency with commercial airplane communications. We live in the flight path of a busy airport, and sometimes our opener would operate spontaneously. Also, a gasoline engine with a magneto would spray a plethora of radio waves and operate many openers in a neighborhood. Dunno if this helps. How old is the opener?? Newer ones obviated this problem.