Garage Door Opener



Question:
I have a Craftsman 1/2 HP garage door opener (model #139.53615SR). I've owned my house for 4 years now and the garage door opener was here when we moved in. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It'll work fine for a couple months at a time, and then I'll pull up in the driveway and push the button and nothing happens. Sometimes I have to walk inside the house and push the button to open the door, then go back outside to put the car in the garage. Sometimes I'll sit in the car in my driveway for a minute or two pushing the button over and over again and the door will finally open. It's just very unreliable. This happens with the standard remotes and also with a keypad remote that I have installed outside the garage door. I have of course replaced batteries and I've even bought brand new opener remotes. Nothing solves the problem. I have no problem at all with the hard wired push button in the garage. So I figured the problem must be with the receiver inside the opener. I called Sears and they want over $80 to replace just the receiver assembly. That's too much. I'd rather just buy a whole new opener if I have to spend that much. Does anyone have any idea how I can fix this without spending a lot of money?

Answer:
we have a sears garage door opener, it came with one opener, we now need two, the codes have changed, they use a different frequency, the FCC made them stop manufacturing on the old frequency, so to get another remote we bought a new reciever(the box in the garage that is wired to the wall and then to the opener via door bell wire. well i could not get the thing to work, was 10 feet away from the receiver with the new remotes through a glass window in the garage door. new receiver with two remotes cost $80 at sears, ten minutes later we returned this junk as it did not work, that might be your problem, it could be that the remotes are off and need to be reset as the opener will work off the push button switch(live metal to metal contact). if you dont have the papers for the gar.door opener, go to www.sears.com and check off PARTS, this will bring you to another sears page that you enter your model number into it and see what parts are available, look for MANUAL, DIAGRAM, OWNERS MANUAL.. they want a few bucks for it, its only printeed paper, cant be that much, then call sears via toll free 1-800 number and order the part(manuals) via credit card and you will have it in a few days and you can then check to see how to set up the remotes, and will also have the diagrams for future needs............ I had a similar problem years ago, the metal antenna sticking out the top of the receiver box on the wall had broken off and fell into the plastic box. i took it off the wall and observed that the foil pc board inside had come off and the thing that was holding the antenna(piece of silver wire bendt over) was not attached to the pc board. i took and drilled a hole in the bottom of the plastic box, about the size of a nail(you can always heat a nail over the stove while holding it with a pair of pliers and then insert it into the plastic to get the same results) and took a piece of 18 inch long plastic coated wire, like a piece of a lamp cord, and soldered it to the pc board where the antenna should have been attached. i then let the 18 inch long wire hand out the hole and curled it like a pig tail in a small curl and it fell to about 8 inches. it worked great, picked up the signal from the remotes about 100 feet away outside the garage.





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