Author Topic: Electric Garage Door  (Read 1012 times)

Electric Garage Door
« on: 19 December, 2019, 02:40:47 pm »
My Father still keeps his car in the garage.    It's got a fairly new up & under type door, which due to age induced feebleness he's finding it harder to open & close.

Is it possible / practical to convert this door to electric opening or does the entire lot need to be replaced ?   What are the power requirements likely to be ?  I'm not sure if there is electrickery in the garage. 
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Re: Electric Garage Door
« Reply #1 on: 20 December, 2019, 07:33:36 am »
There is more than one design of up and over door - do you have any further details? One type runs the top corners along tracks with arms guiding the bottom, another uses pivoting arms top and bottom. There may be others.

It looks like this drive can be adapted to more than one design, from the description: https://www.screwfix.com/p/garador-europro-700-garage-door-opener/86441?kpid=86441&ds_kid=92700048793315984&ds_rl=1244072&gclid=CjwKCAiA3OzvBRBXEiwALNKDP7ApMrFOuDmITjK5NX6JvqwKebfA204vnKdSY8eP-x2-6K2BVOfvhBoCnH8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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Re: Electric Garage Door
« Reply #2 on: 20 December, 2019, 10:15:29 am »
The doors that have no mechanism or track inside the garage are usually the type where the top of the door stops moving inwards on the last part of travel, when the bottom of the door is moving upwards. Those are difficult to automate because pulling on the top of the door won't finish the operation.

https://www.accessgaragedoors.com/mechanism/

In our previous house we had two doors like that, and there are things called canopy adaptors, which we used, but the movement in the last part of opening is quite fast and the end position is uncertain, so the sharp bottom corners of the door could end up at head height.

https://www.easygatesdirect.co.uk/store/garage-door-openers/liftmaster-garage-doors/accessories/1703e-canopy-adaptor

Also they put a lot of bending force on the top edge of the doors, and one was starting to break when we moved out.

I would suggest changing the door if it's one of them.

The door openers will take about 200 W of power. If you are getting an inverter to run one from a battery, you may need more to get the door started. However, most of the energy that a door opener uses is while it is just in standby and the radio receiver is on, so it is likely to be impractical to leave the inverter and door closer turned on if you do run it from a battery. You would need some way to isolate the battery until the door is in use, or the battery life will be a few days at most.

You might be able to fettle something to run the radio receiver straight from the battery, and only turn on the inverter when the door is moving.

It would be far easier to put a few yards of steel wire armoured cable in, which will give you light in the garage, either from a light on on the opener or with minimal further effort.
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Re: Electric Garage Door
« Reply #3 on: 20 December, 2019, 11:03:33 am »
I’ll have to take a look at it. Thinking on I recall a power switch on the wall & a light fitting, but don’t know if it’s live.
Not fast & rarely furious

tweeting occasional in(s)anities as andrewxclark