To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Lights not working on Liftmaster 8500 openers

U

UCODE13

New member
Joined
Mar 4, 2017
Messages
3
Location
Massachusetts
So here's what I got, a two car garage with two 9' wide doors and 12' ceilings. I have a BendPak lift on the right and open floor on the left (wife's car). The house is less than a year old and the garage has two liftmaster 8500 jackshaft openers. Both work fine mechanically however the wireless lights are not working correctly, they have a mind of their own. They rarely come on when they are supposed to and never work when breaking the light signal at the base of the doors, the door reverses but the light doesn't come on. I tried swapping the bulbs from incandescent to LED and back again but that didn't help. I had the garage door folks who installed them out 3 times but they couldn't figure it out either. I finally called liftmaster and they told me the wall controllers are too close to each other and interfering, they should be at least 5 feet apart. I told the door company this and they said that's BS because they install them this way all the time. Right now they are installed right next to each other, I haven't tried separating them since it would be very strange having them 5 feet apart from each other. In my last house I had a single 16' garage door and only one of these openers, it worked flawlessly. Is anyone else having these issues with the 8500s? I can't seem to find an answer from anyone. I guess i'll try separating the controllers but if that is the issue not sure what I'm going to do.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
R

Raisedonadeere

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 31, 2017
Messages
436
Location
Central KY
Does anyone know if the light control can be hard wired to the Motor? I am in process of installing two 8500s, one at each end of 36' garage. Wondering if there is some sort of hack for this. I was planning on locating both wall controls near the man door side by side.
 
W

wssix99

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 2, 2011
Messages
5,172
Location
Chicago, IL
UCODE13 said:
I finally called liftmaster and they told me the wall controllers are too close to each other and interfering, they should be at least 5 feet apart.
Click to expand...

This is BS.

I believe the transmitter is actually in the motor unit. (The antenna hangs down from the thing.)

I expect that its more likely you have interference between your motor unit and the lights. Do you have a lot of metal in between? Any steel beams? Steel joists? Metal ceiling?

You may have better luck removing the remote boards from the light, mounting them close the motor units and then wiring your lights off from that.

Have you seen the threads where some of us have removed these boards and used electrical contractors to wire up the regular lights in our garages?
 
N

nadogail

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 23, 2009
Messages
32,278
Location
Coronado, CA
UCODE13 said:
So here's what I got, a two car garage with two 9' wide doors and 12' ceilings. I have a BendPak lift on the right and open floor on the left (wife's car). The house is less than a year old and the garage has two liftmaster 8500 jackshaft openers. Both work fine mechanically however the wireless lights are not working correctly, they have a mind of their own. They rarely come on when they are supposed to and never work when breaking the light signal at the base of the doors, the door reverses but the light doesn't come on. I tried swapping the bulbs from incandescent to LED and back again but that didn't help. I had the garage door folks who installed them out 3 times but they couldn't figure it out either. I finally called liftmaster and they told me the wall controllers are too close to each other and interfering, they should be at least 5 feet apart. I told the door company this and they said that's BS because they install them this way all the time. Right now they are installed right next to each other, I haven't tried separating them since it would be very strange having them 5 feet apart from each other. In my last house I had a single 16' garage door and only one of these openers, it worked flawlessly. Is anyone else having these issues with the 8500s? I can't seem to find an answer from anyone. I guess i'll try separating the controllers but if that is the issue not sure what I'm going to do.
Click to expand...

If the Garage Door Installer is saying that Liftmaster is giving you BS and that Liftmaster is ignorant about garage door openers, I suggest you have the person making that claim get on the phone with Liftmaster.

IMHO, you should get out of the middle of this disagreement. Let them duke it out, there is no reason for you to take the strain of the fight between the two sides of this battle.

If I had to place a bet on who is correct, I would put my money on the manufacturer supported by an engineering department over a bewildered mechanic looking for a way out of a problem his OJT (on the job training) did not prepare him for.
 
H

Hot Rod Grampa

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 7, 2017
Messages
812
Location
Near Cooperstown New York
The wall controllers are hard wires with 2 wires. Make a the,porary extension and just hang one of the controllers 6 feet away as an experiment. My guess is the heads are interfering with each other. Have they been re-programmed? Sometimes you need to clear both codes from the units and re do them. In the end I would listen to the factory. You may be able to build a simple metal shield to go between the wall controllers.
 
5

58Yeoman

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
8,999
Location
Central IL
Seems like they named these openers 8500, as that is how many problems they have. I've so many posts on this site about problems with the 8500's, that I'll never be inclined to buy one.
 
M

m3bs

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 21, 2010
Messages
58
I also have two 8500s. Openers work great. I gave up altogether on the lights. Wasn’t worth the hassle.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
C

Chevy-SS

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Messages
1,500
Location
Rhode Island
I installed two beautiful doors with same LM 8500 openers. I also installed two of their wireless lights, and those lights NEVER worked right. Sometimes they'd come on, sometimes not, and sometimes they'd come on and never shut off. I called the installation company and the guy was great, he dropped off another light. But I still had problems when I tried to use two lights.

Interestingly, when I use only one light, it seems to work pretty good.

I ended up putting a motion sensor light in, which works 1,000 times better than the Liftmaster lights. I do wish they had a wired option for the lights.
 
C

Chuckster in NJ

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
2,381
Location
Hunterdon County NJ
My TWO controllers on my 8500’s are 2” apart and the lights work as they should........ I "HAD" a problem when I had LED bulbs installed but once the bulbs were changed to incandescent bulb and the door opener circuit was powered "off then on" I have not had a problem since then.

BTW! I opted for the "disable option" for the lights coming on when the motion sensor was activated because I am always in and out of the garage.
 
Last edited:
M

macdabs

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 22, 2007
Messages
195
I have three liftmaster 8500s door after door. I also had issues with the lights not to mention they just look cheap and ugly. I ended up installing 5 nice surface mount 4 ft led fixtures and purchased the lift master wall switch. I then wired two of the Led 4 ft fixtures to the liftmaster wall switch that activate with motion and the doors . Works great and the motion switch provides light when arriving through the man door .

Mac
 
V

Viper98912

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
1,139
Location
GA
I've had two liftmasters in two different houses, and here's what I've noticed:

If you program a single light to work with two motors, the signals will interfere with each other, including whether you have the motion sensor setting on with the wall panel.

In other words:

I had two wall panels, and only had the motion sensor setting on in one panel.

I had one light, programmed to both operners.

I would normally only use one of the garage openers (the daily driver side of the garage). For the most part, never had an issue. The lights would turn on and off as normal. Every so often (maybe once every 3-6 months) I'd open the garage and the lights wouldn't turn on.

Now, when using both garage openers at the same time, this is when the lights would start to go wonky. This is because (I'm assuming) that the openers are BOTH sending the on/off signals to the single light. After opening/closing, one opener would send the "off" signal, but then the other opener a few seconds later would detect it, and send the "on" signal, but then the first opener would say "huh? go back off", and then the back-and-forth cycle would continue for a few minutes, etc.

I don't know if this is what you're experiencing, but this is what I noticed in two previous houses with 2 motors each.
 
V

Viper98912

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 20, 2012
Messages
1,139
Location
GA
Final note I as re-read your post -

It's possible that the installer (assuming it wasn't you) programmed both lights to both openers. This is why they're interfering with each other (possibly), same as my post above about the conflicting on/off signals. Try clearing all of the lights and remotes, and only program one light to one opener. See if it works...
 
C

CraigStu

Well-known member
Joined
May 22, 2014
Messages
4,086
Location
Blacksburg, Va
I had two lights and one door and opener. Once in a while they would get messed up. I would unplug power to the opener and both lights. Wait a few minutes and plug them back in. That usually fixed the problem.
 
C

Chevy-SS

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Messages
1,500
Location
Rhode Island
macdabs said:
..... I then wired two of the Led 4 ft fixtures to the liftmaster wall switch that activate with motion and the doors . Works great and the motion switch provides light when arriving through the man door .

Mac
Click to expand...

Mac, which wall switch allows you to directly wire to it? Are you talking about a remote wall switch, or the wall switch that is itself directly wired to the motor? Thanks, Dave
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
Top Bottom