Overhead Garage Door

[Stimw]

I have worked on a bunch of different roll up doors and while they are different the problems are usually similar.
I worked on warehouse, dock, semi trailer to name a few.
It sounds like it is binding as it starts down then when it gets past a point it shifts and is OK.
Check it when it acts up to see if it tries to shift sideways or when raising does it shift.
Some times it's barely noticeable so try it a few times and watch closely.

 

[zzvyb6]

Is the door raised up /open too much? If so, the low tension point has been overtraveled.

 

[dstig1]

Jack shaft openers don't really close the door by my understanding, they just release tension on the cable and let gravity bring it down. So you probably need to back off your springs a bit so the door is biased to close on it's own. If you think about it, it does make perfect sense - you are unwinding the cable reel, essentially. That generates no downforce, unlike a typical rail style which actually pulls or pushes the door both ways. So loosen both springs a half turn, try again, wash rinse repeat.

And why did you re-open this Zombie thread?

 

[LD1]

Another issue could be the rails are too level. Need at little downhill so as the jackshaft spins, gravity does its thing.

Dstig is spot on the description. A little binding, springs too tight, or track too level are most likely causes.

I would not bypass the sensor. If the door truly does hang up, you will have an unwound mess of cable, and a heavy door that could come down at any time. And them doors are really heavy without the assist of the springs

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I have 2 of those openers. If the door catches just a little, it can mess up the cables. Been there done that. Raise the back end of the track a little, which I need to do also.

 

[2458n]

Gravity is your friend. When a door is sprung from the factory it is designed for a person to be able to open it. This will normally call for 10 -20 lbs. of lift force. Jack shaft operators did not have the safety built into them for years. Installers were smart enough to set and install the doors correctly. Take a half round out of your spring or better yet give the back of the track a small lift. You want your cables to always be tight so they wind and unwind without ever having slack to jump the grooves on the drums. The opener you have will last for years.

 

[Oldpath05]

Can you post a picture of the cable tension monitor mounting location? I have that same operator and have had 0 issues (installed the door and operator myself)
Perhaps the monitor is mounted wrong

Jay

Re-positioning the C monitor is the first thing I tried, I dropped it 6", no difference so I put it back up close to the C spool. I'll mess with it some more this weekend.
Picture's would help, but my Photo Bucket has been disconnected and I cant figure that out either, and that's whole other ball of BLANK, have to wait for daughter to show up.

 

[crazyal]

I have a pair of them and the doors just don't have enough weight on the spring when fully open to come down fast enough compared to the door opener. The doors are steel insulated and really don't weigh much. I put doors in that would allow as tall of a vehicle into the garage as possible. Had I not done this I could have put more of a slope on the horizontal tracks to help put more weight on the torsion spring to help the door start to close quicker. My solution was to put a hunk of steel on the bottom of each door. Actually I put a 2" x 1/2" steel bar about an inch up across the bottom of each door. I have two doors, one 12' and one 9' so I split a 20' length (8 1/2' and 11 1/2'). After doing this they both work a lot better.

 

[Oldpath05]

Lot of good input here, possible door binding up top, not enough track incline>decline, spring tension to tight or not tight enough?
Door has been installed 3 year's now, it was working fine until the cable spool slipped a little, made the door un-level...... I never adjusted the track, yet.
The door dont seem to bind at the top, seems to pull down by hand easy but will recheck it tomorrow.
I thought maybe wrong spring tension might be the problem, but my son said that has nothing to do with causing slack in the cable, one thing I do is that I don't know. If anyone see's a hammer flying through the air tomorrow, you'll know why.

 

[crazyal]

You should take care of the basics first. If you've never dealt with torsion springs then you really should hire it out. They can be very dangerous. The torsion spring and the hub the cable winds up on play a very crucial role. When set up properly (without a door opener) the door should feel almost weightless no matter if open, closed, or in between. My smaller door only has one spring while my larger door has two. Hopefully you only have one spring, having two adds an extra level of complexity. Chances are one of the hubs slipped. If you would like to repair it yourself I've done both of mine several times.