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:
With the price of gas over $4/gallon, I have been paying close attention to the maintenance on my car. After using my old tire gauge, I found it was off by about 5 pounds. Ouch! I had pumped my tires to what I thought was 35psi. The new day the gauge said they were at 40psi. I let 5 psi of air out of the tires. When I notice my old gauge bottomed out at 5psi, and didn’t go down to 0. Using the gauge on my compressor, I found my tired were really ay 30psi. Ouch!
I went to target and found the Accutire MS-4350B Tire Gauge. It was $15. They sell another Accutire digital tire gauge for $10, but they were out of stock on that one. So I bought the MS-4350B. It has a programmable feature that allows you to enter the tire pressure for the front and rear tires. This seems to be the only extra feature for the extra $5. And really it is kind of a stupid feature since I can walk the 3 feet the to drivers side door and read the proper tire pressures. Anyway, I bought the $15 Accutire digital tire gauge.
The net morning when my tires were cooled off, I went to measure the tire pressure. I had a heck of a time trying to get the gauge to seal on the valve stem. I kept hearing the hiss of air coming out before I finally got a seal, and got a pressure reading. I bought a tire gauge to messure how much air was in my tires, not how much air is left in my tires after trying to get a frigging reading.
I returned the tire gauge back to Target today and got my money back. What a piece of junk. Don’t buy the Accutire MS-4350B Tire Gauge. Other Accutire tire gauges might be better. I don’t know. I found Accutire MS-5510B Racing Tire Gauge listed on Amazon. That one looks pretty cool. It seems to have the same type of connector that I have for the tire inflator attachment for my compressor has. That connector works great, and leaks no air. But the $55 price tag on the Accutire MS-5510B seems a bit pricey. Maybe I will check to the local auto parts store. I liked my other tire gauge until it broke and was off by 5 psi.
With gas prices getting higher and higher everyday, I have been paying more attention to the maintenance on my car. FOr instance, I have been trying to make sure the tires are properly inflated.
I had a small tire inflator thing that plugged into the lighter socket. The pressure gauge was broken on it from have been in the trunk of my car, and been bashed around. I debated about getting a new inflator or possibly buying a regular air compressor with a tank. The little air inflator still works, but it is very slow, and noisy, and vibrates all over the place. I have to pump air into the tire, pull it off, use a tire gauge to check the pressure, and if it’s too low, pump up the tire some more. Very tedious!
I checked around at various places: Walmart, Target, Sears, Advance Auto Parts, Harbor Freight, Amazon, etc, trying to decide what I wanted. When I was Target, I noticed they had a Black & Decker air compressor (BDCP200) on clearance. And it was packaged with a small cyclonic car vacuum. It was priced 30% off at $69.99. I originally thought it was 30% off the marked price, till I re-read the sign. I saw this same package at another Target marked as a special buy and priced at the $99.99 price.
The compressor is just a small one, with a small 2 gallon tank. But it is portable. One of the things I don’t like about the small 12 volt tire inflators is having the drag the cord around as I got from tire to tire. With a small compressor with a tank, I can carry it around from tire to tire. Looking around, the $70 price seemed to be pretty good. I found a Campbell Hausfeld air compressor at Walmart for $72, and it didn’t come with a car vac. And I know the Black & Decker name. I have never heard of Campbell Hausfeld. Heck, Black & Decker make the DeWalt stuff!
Anyway, I was torn between buying a new tire inflator for $15, or the Black and Decker air compressor. I broke down, and bought the Black & Decker air compressor. I hope it is big enough to run some air tools, at least in a limited way. I wont need to run them for hours and hours. But it might be nice to be able to run them some.
I got the thing home, did the break in stuff like the instructions said. Then I inflated my tires. It seemed to inflate them quickly. On problem is the gauge is pretty broad. It goes from 0-200. It was difficult to pump them to 35psi. I ended up pumping them to about 40 psi, then using a tire gauge, letting air out until they were at 35psi. It was night being able to just carry the tank from tire to tire without having to drag a cord.
I saw a tire accessory thing at walmart that fits onto a air compressir hose that is made for inflating tires, and has a pressure gauge built on. It was only $15 I think. Or I might look at a digital air pressure gauge. Accutire makes some that look pretty cool. Or I might buy both.