Garage Door Remote Range

[mudcat]

Bought a house about 6 months ago and the previous owner didnt leave or have a remote for one of the garage door openers. It is a Craftsman 1/2 hp opener about 6 years old. I contacted sears support and eventually ended up with a Chamberlin universal remote. I went through the steps for programming and can only get the remote to work from about 4 feet away. Have went rounds with Chamberlin and Sears Tech Support with no help. Hoping maybe somebody has had the same problem or knows of a solution. The other door has a very old garage door opener on it that works fantastic. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks GJ.

 

[upndown]

Hey mudcat, First off Welcome!! As dumb as it sounds, gonna point a couple of sometime overlooked possibilities.

Check your antenna..Should be dangling down freely! Some people don't like the way that looks so they tuck it up under the cover. Big no no! I've even had them cut it off.

A new remote doesn't mean a good battery!! Voltage loss in these small battery's will greatly affect distance. check your battery under load (press the button)

Unfortunately the days of opening the door from a block away are long gone! Big brother wants you to see your door move, and they don't give a **** how close you have to be. Hope it's something simple!!

 

[BD1]

My opener did the same thing. Found out it was the receiver board was bad.
I replaced with complete new unit. Wasn't worth screwing around with parts on a old unit.
The new chamberlain works 300 feet away. I have a longgggggggggg driveway. Got the new unit for 189.00 3/4 HP with battery backup. Board for unit was around 100.00

 

[pattenp]

Since the remote is new you can probably rule that out. So it may be that the receiver in the GDO is the problem. By the time you figure it out it may be just easier to buy a new GDO. What is the model# of the Craftsman GDO? Did you check that the batteries in the remote are good. If the remote came with batteries sometimes they can be weak from sitting on the shelf too long.

Edit: I didn't mean to repeat what has already been said. I type really slooow.....

 

[Falcon67]

Same deal here - bought used house, no openers. Tossed old opener, problem solved. As far as range, our Sears openers are good for 1/2 a city block or so. The one built into the Dart is good for about 1/4 block.

 

[mudcat]

Thanks for the responses guys. I did try replacing the battereis first. I am afraid it probably is the receiver board. I was going to try turning off power to everything except the GDO and see if maybe something is messing up the signal. Don't have much confidence in that test but one more thing to try before replacing GDO.

 

[pmiranda]

Had a similar problem at the old house... cut the antenna off the opener completely and bought one of these: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00283OBS4/?tag=atomicindus08-20
Worked great.

 

[AndyL]

Before ya start swapping parts...

Does it have a CFL (curly fluorescent) in it? LED? 95% of my range problems are found to be these new fandangled bulbs, throw a good old incandescent bulb in the opener, range problems dissapear.

 

[pattenp]

Before ya start swapping parts...

Does it have a CFL (curly fluorescent) in it? LED? 95% of my range problems are found to be these new fandangled bulbs, throw a good old incandescent bulb in the opener, range problems dissapear.

It's good that you mentioned this because I had problems with my remote light for my LM3800 not turning off when using the manual on/off. The light would come on if the door opened or if I manually turned it on. But at times it would not turn off automatically or when I tried manually to turn it off. I discovered it was the CFL bulbs. Once the light was on, I guess the CFL caused enough interference that the signal was not getting through to turn the light off. I put in regular incandescent bulbs and the problem went away. The CFL's were some off brand and I have not tried a different brand to see if the same problem exits with a higher priced CFL bulb.