After opening up my Genie GCG350L garage door opener unit, I knew the control board (sequencer) was fried. There was a big black mark on it. I ordered a new one off of ebay for $50 plus $10 shipping. Later I found on of the Safe-T-Beam eye-beam sensors was blown apart. I found a little black mark on it. I searched ebay, but decided I could not save alot of money over going to Home Depot. So I went to Home Depot and bought new sensors. I thought the wire might be damaged too, but I wasn’t sure. I found a small black mark on the sensor wire where the electricty exited.
The new board came on Saturday. It was pretty easy to install. I just removed the old one by removing three screws. Unplugged the wires was the hardest part. The plugged locked in place. It took a couple screw drivers to get it loose. One to push down the lock part, and one to pry the plug off.
I The new board had 6 terminals, where the old board had only three. So I had to remove three little knockouts on the plastic part where the sequensor board goes. This took a little bit of work. Two were easy with a screwdriver, but the third I had to cut out with a utlity knife. Soon I had the new board plugged in and installed.
Replacing the sensors took only a few minutes. Just unclip a couple wires from the old ones, and screw them onto the new sensors. Then attach the sensors to the brackets.
I powered the garage door opener up. Everything seemed to light up except the one sensor where the one had been fried. As I thought, the wire was damaged. I bought some new bell wire at Home Depot. I didn’t want to replace the whole wire right now. So I cut about a foot off the end of the where that contained the exit mark. I attached the sensor and powered the unit up just to make sure it worked. The sensor now lit up. So I shut it down, and removed the sensor. I attached some of the new wire and installed the sensor.
The garage door opener now worked! Yay! I still needed to make some adjustments to the force controls and the reprogram the remote controls. But it works!
We had a storm last night while I was at karate class. When I got home, my garage door opener didn’t work. I suspected the remote control which is sometimes flakey, and will lose its sync withe opener on rare occasions for no reason. So I got up by the door with it, still didn’t work. Then I thought maybe we had a power failure. But the meter was stilll running. So I came in the front door, and went to go into the garage. The utility room light didn’t work. So I got a flash light and checked the breaker box. Sure enough I found a breaker that was tripped. I reset it. Now the utility room light worked. Then I used the button in the garage, but the door still wouldn’t open. I opened my wife’s door, which worked fine. Just not mine.
I started examining the garage door opener for a reset switch, or a fuse or something, but couldn’t find one. I got out the manual, but it didn’t mention a breaker of fuse.
I plugged a utility light into the outlet that the garage door opener plugged into, and it worked. So there was power. Then I noticed some black soot on the transluscent light cover.
I got a wrench and removed the cover from the garage door opener unit. The control board (sequencer) and a big char mark on it. It was fried.
The garage door opener I have is a Genie GCG350L. I bought it at Home Depot about 6 years ago when wwe bought our house. I installed it myself. I didn’t want to buy a whole new unit if just the board was fried.
I did some searching, and found a new board on eBay for $50, plus $10 shipping. That was the cheapest I found. The unit I bought is a 20380S. It has six terminals. The board I have in my opener has three terminals which is the 20380R. But the six terminal 20380S is supposed to work in my opener. I just need to knock out some tabs.
Then next day I found one of the little Safe-T-Beam sensors was open, and apart. I found a small char mark on the sensor board. So it looked like it might be fried too, or at least a good chance of it.
I bought some new Safe-T-Beam sensors at Home Depot for $30. I installed those tonight which only took a few minutes since I just had to pull the old ones off, and hook up the new ones. The brackets were the same.
Geez…maybe I should have bought a whole new garage door opener.
What it looks like is the power spike came in through the AC house power. When into the garage door opener, fried it, went through the sensor wire, and fried the sensor, and fried it. There was a small char mark on the wire, and wall. So I think the electricy jumped to the wall. On the other side of the wall (the outside of the house), I found mortar knocked from between a couple cinder blocks. I found pieces of mortar 8 feet away. I think the power spike or lightning blew the mortar out. Pretty wild!
The new board should come Saturday. I also want to replace the garage doo springs.
Yesterday was a busy day. One of the tires on my wife’s car had a slow leak. I visited one place (BJ’s Wholesale) right after they opened and was told I would have to wait two and a half hours as there were 4 cars ahead of me. I didn’t want to sit around for 2 1/2 hours as I had other stuff to do. So I went to another place (a Bridgestone/Firestone place) and they got me right in. It cost me $10 more which sucked. Oh well. While I was waiting for them to fix her tire, I looked around. I found some stuff called Ever-Wear Headlight Restoration Kit. I asked how much it cost, and was told they didn’t sell the stuff. But the service cost $100. I asked why, and he starts telling me it was labor and how they have to remove the lenses, etc to do the insides. This didn’t seem to make sence to me that they would have to do the insides of the lenses.
After the tire was fixed (it had a nail in it), I visited Advance Auto Parts and found they sold a product called CV Headlight Restorer made by Crystal View. It was $20. Still seemed a bit pricey. I came home and did some searches. I found some pages that swore that you could use toothpaste. I read other places saying you could use toothpaste, but that it wouldn’t last. I searched for reviews for the CV Headlight Restorer. The reviews were all very good. From the stuff I read online, there was a bunch of stuff in the kit. So I headed back to the autoparts store, and bought the CV Headlight Restorer. I didn’t have time to do it right away, so last night I had time.
I found a video from the company that shows how to use the CV Headlight Restorer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGMBGQUMtOo
I used the stuff mostly like the video showed. The CV1 stuff kept drying out, so I was using a mister water bottle often.
The process took a while. But it turned out pretty well. If you look up close, I don’t think they looked like “new” but step back a little and they look close. I think the results could have been much better with practice. There were a couple spots that could have stood to have a little more sanding. I bet a shop that does these often, can get fantastic results. But I think my headlights turned out pretty well. If you take your time, you will get some good results. You need to be carefull while sanding not to go off the lens and scratch the paint of your car.
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After:
