Old Craftsman GDO saga....

[Alchymist]

Back story: in 2008 we bough the current residence, which has a 3 car garage. Bays 2 & 3 had Craftsman GDOs, different models. The one in bay 3 was disconnected with the door loop missing, but the one in bay 2 looked operational.

Moved the one from bat 2 to bay 1 and bought a new remote for it. Worked good for several years, then started acting intermittently not wanting to complete the cycle up or down. Finally it quit altogether. After a few months of no opener, I decided to see what was up. See pictures. So, i dropped the one in bay 3 and opened it up. Different controls, but the mechanicals were mostly identical. One connector on the pc board was burnt, so it crashed on the original owner. Was able to drop the shaft with the larger gear out without too much trouble and replace the one in the wife's opener. Seems to work ok, will see how long it lasts. First hiccup and we get a new opener.

So, being a packrat/salvage type, I pullet the motor out of the dead one, hoping it might prove usable on my belt/disk sander. Figured the wiring out, and discovered that it is VERY intermittent duty rated. In exactly one minute of no load operation, hot to the touch. At a minute and a half, turned it off before smoking it. Guess it was engineered pretty close to the edge, as were the plastic (nylon?) gears. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[Joe B.]

Ha, I just took out two old screw drive GDOs and replace them with new belt drive units. (The old ones did not have all of the new safety features.) I was going to sell the old ones on craigslist but now you have me thinking about what I could do with them.

 

[66HertzClone]

Back story: in 2008 we bough the current residence, which has a 3 car garage. Bays 2 & 3 had Craftsman GDOs, different models. The one in bay 3 was disconnected with the door loop missing, but the one in bay 2 looked operational.

Moved the one from bat 2 to bay 1 and bought a new remote for it. Worked good for several years, then started acting intermittently not wanting to complete the cycle up or down. Finally it quit altogether. After a few months of no opener, I decided to see what was up. See pictures. So, i dropped the one in bay 3 and opened it up. Different controls, but the mechanicals were mostly identical. One connector on the pc board was burnt, so it crashed on the original owner. Was able to drop the shaft with the larger gear out without too much trouble and replace the one in the wife's opener. Seems to work ok, will see how long it lasts. First hiccup and we get a new opener.

So, being a packrat/salvage type, I pullet the motor out of the dead one, hoping it might prove usable on my belt/disk sander. Figured the wiring out, and discovered that it is VERY intermittent duty rated. In exactly one minute of no load operation, hot to the touch. At a minute and a half, turned it off before smoking it. Guess it was engineered pretty close to the edge, as were the plastic (nylon?) gears. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Interested in parting with the logic board? What color is the "learn" button, if it's read let me know.

 

[Alchymist]

Interested in parting with the logic board? What color is the "learn" button, if it's read let me know.

Picture of the board. If you can use it it's yours for postage.

 

[BRIANBB]

Planned obsolesance.

 

[s10xtremist]

You should check the balance and manual operation of your doors and have the spring tension adjusted and tracks lubed if necessary. A poorly balanced and/or rough operating door will wear out the gears in the operator. They're made of nylon as a safety to the operator. If something were to get in a jam, the gears will strip instead of the operator binding and breaking other more expensive parts. A gear kit is about $20. These operators are quite reliable and have been built the exact same way for decades with mostly just the electronics changing as necessary for safety and UL requirements. I hope you liberally greased those gears while you had it open. If not, you can remove the metal cover with the operator in place and access the gears that way.

 

[Alchymist]

You should check the balance and manual operation of your doors and have the spring tension adjusted and tracks lubed if necessary. A poorly balanced and/or rough operating door will wear out the gears in the operator. They're made of nylon as a safety to the operator. If something were to get in a jam, the gears will strip instead of the operator binding and breaking other more expensive parts. A gear kit is about $20. These operators are quite reliable and have been built the exact same way for decades with mostly just the electronics changing as necessary for safety and UL requirements. I hope you liberally greased those gears while you had it open. If not, you can remove the metal cover with the operator in place and access the gears that way.

I don't know how long those openers were installed before we got the house, I know they are at least 10 years old, perhaps older. As I say, the one in bay 3 was inop from day one, which is why I used the one from bay 2. The door was lubed and adjusted well before the opener was installed, as my wife had to open it manually. I had it where she could lift and close it one handed.

The GDO was cleaned and lubed, including the track, before use. We got perhaps 2-3 years out of it, plus whatever we get from it now that the gear has been swapped. When it eventually dies, I have no complaints - won't mind shelling out for a new one then. I think once the driven gear starts to wear, it just slowly eats itself up. The worm gear showed little signs of wear.

 

[s10xtremist]

I don't know how long those openers were installed before we got the house, I know they are at least 10 years old, perhaps older. As I say, the one in bay 3 was inop from day one, which is why I used the one from bay 2. The door was lubed and adjusted well before the opener was installed, as my wife had to open it manually. I had it where she could lift and close it one handed.

The GDO was cleaned and lubed, including the track, before use. We got perhaps 2-3 years out of it, plus whatever we get from it now that the gear has been swapped. When it eventually dies, I have no complaints - won't mind shelling out for a new one then. I think once the driven gear starts to wear, it just slowly eats itself up. The worm gear showed little signs of wear.

Yeah, the worm gear is a much harder plastic/nylon/whatever. It sounds like the gears wore just from simple age (and from the grease wearing off over time), and not from poorly-operating doors. I had to mention it as most people with an automated overhead door take it's operation for granted until the operator breaks. THEN, they wanna perform maintenance on it.

 

[chicane]

Holy **** is that a GDO or a salt shaker.