The most common DIY repairs are those related to remote interference with your garage door’s performance. Sometimes, the laser sensors on either side of the garage door are out of alignment. Or, you may have to reprogram the remote’s signal. Now, led lights can interfere with frequencies emitted by your remote control, interrupting your garage door’s performance.
Learn All About The Downside Of LED Lights And Garage Doors
How do LED lights interfere with garage door opening/closing?
All garage door mechanisms have a light bulb that illuminates whenever the door is opened or closed, and if the door is switched into a safety mode or when you first switch it from the automatic system to the manual mode (typically indicated by a flashing light).
In order to promote energy-efficiency, garage door manufacturers have migrated away from the use of more energy-consumptive incandescent bulbs to more efficient options such as fluorescent or LED lights.
LED lights are the most efficient options of all. According to energy.gov, LED light bulbs are as much as 80% more efficient than incandescent bulbs and upwards of 20% or more efficient than fluorescent. Plus, the bulbs last up to 10 years, which means you should only have to replace them once or twice over the course of your garage door’s lifetime.
Pulse-width modulation and interfering megahertz (MHz)
One of the reasons LED lights are so efficient is that they have a high pulse-width modulation. This rapid pulsing is invisible to the naked eye but reduces the amount of time the light is actually “on” or using electricity. Most LED lights have a pulse-width modulation rate of about 15 times per second.
However, they run on a radio frequency of 30 and 300 megahertz (MHz). Your garage door opener operates between around 288 and 360 MHz. When those two frequencies are emitted at the same time, the LED lights cause interference that can override the signal from your garage door opener.
Troubleshooting potential interference with your garage doors performance
Review these troubleshooting tips if your garage door isn’t opening and closing like it should when you use the remote control.
- Could it be other LED lights? The LED light in your garage door opener may not be the problem. As LED lights have become the norm in the holiday and decorative twinkle light market, garage door interference is increasing. Unplug any decorative lights to see if they are the culprits instead.
- Check the LED bulb manufacturer. The large majority of LED-related garage door interference is caused by cheap, foreign-made LED lights. Try replacing cheap, foreign-made LED light bulbs with a higher-quality LED bulbs. If it doesn’t fix the issue, you can always return the new bulbs and get your money back. Genie LED lights are intentionally designed to prevent garage door signal interference. They cost a bit more but are well worth it.
- Switch out your garage light fixtures. It could be LED lights in existing garage door light fixtures that are causing the problem. Switch their bulbs as well to see if that does the trick. Or, you may need to switch the garage light fixtures out for more contemporary options.
Additional garage door troubleshooting tips
If the garage door still isn’t operating correctly, it may not be the LED lights at all. In that case, continue down this list of additional garage door troubleshooting tips.
- Check the power source. There is nothing more embarrassing to a homeowner who’s diligently troubleshot their garage door, only to have a tech come out and…plug it back in. Make sure the garage door opener is plugged in to an outlet that has power. If it’s plugged in, unplug it and plug something else in to ensure the outlet has power. You may need to reset a tripped breaker.
- Verify the control pad is unlocked. Most garage door openers have a lock function on their control pad as a garage door safety feature. If it was locked by mistake, your door will work again as soon as the control pad is unlocked.
- Replace the batteries in the remote(s). When’s the last time you changed your garage remote’s batteries? If the door opens and closes via the hardwired button on the garage door wall, but fails when you use the remote, tired or dead batteries may be the culprits.
- Try reprogramming the remotes. Every once in a while, the garage door remote’s signal gets wiped out (or is interfered with by competing signals from the surrounding environment. Follow the garage door manufacturer’s instructions on how to reprogram the remote. If you can’t find the manual, just search the make/model (written on the automatic door opener’s exterior) and “how to reprogram the remote” in your search engine to find online instructions.
- Contact your garage door contractor. It may be that it’s time to contact your garage door technician to come to take a look. Whether the problem is related to LED lights or not, the technician will know exactly how to identify and repair the issue.
We Can Improve Your Garage Doors Performance
Are you looking for a Bay Area garage door contractor you can trust? Contact us here at R&S Erection of Vallejo. We can talk you through some basic troubleshooting tips and are happy to send a technician out to take care of the problem ASAP.