Garage door stops intermittently in both directions when using opener

[DieselAmy]

My garage door and opener (probably six yrs old like the house) have worked fine for the two years I've been here.

In the last couple of weeks, the door will often stop partway up or down, whether I'm using the wall or remotes. We took the batteries out of the wireless keypad in case it was sending a goofy signal. We erased all the remote codes and reprogrammed them. I unplugged the opener and then plugged it back in a few minutes later with no change in the problems.

The door opens smoothly in both directions when done manually. No lights flash when the door stops, and it stops in many different positions. We messed with the dials to tell it where to stop but it didn't make a difference one way or the other.

The only correlation I made was that the problems started when we had several 90-degree days, then it was fine for a week when it was cooler, but now it's having problems again and the weather really hasn't gotten that different.

It's a 1/2 HP Craftsman, two car garage. Any ideas?

[Jack the Contractor]

If your opener is 6 or 7 years old, it is nearing the end of its life. My guess is that the circuit board is going out. I would probably just go buy a new opener. The Craftsman 1/2 horse is a good opener. If I remember right, openers only have about 3000 opens and closes in them. When they are used up, the opener usually needs replacement. Good Luck

[LI Tom]

DieselAmy,

When the motor reverses and the lights flash it means that there is something that is triggering the saftey circuits to kick in.

Take a look at the force settings and the infra-red lights at the bottom of the door. They may need an adjustment. Make sure that both lights are nice and bright. if not adjust them so that they are. If they are ok, goto the back of the motor, where the wires go into it, and there will be 2 screws. One is the force for the up and one for the down. From the factory they are set at the number 3. Turn them up to 5 or 6.

good luck

[dwcurry]

I had a problem similar to yours. In my case one of the wires to the safety lights had a slight break in it. If you still have a problem after you try the above suggestions, run known good wire directly from the infra-red lights to the back of the unit. If that fixes it, reroute the wire so it is out of the way.