Your garage door is acting up, it is not allowing you to close the door, even when there is nothing physically blocking the sensors, there is no other way than bypassing the sensors.
Your garage door sensors are valuable assets, they allow you to open the garage and close it on your commands.
But now when it malfunctions, not functioning like the way it use to be, there is time you take notice of that but for now, bypass the sensors so that you could close the door for now.
In this post, I am going to pen down a detailed guide about bypassing the garage door sensors and to make you diagnose the issue, so that you could get the right use of the sensors to stop the door from closing if there is something in between the garage door’.
Easy Ways To Bypass Garage Door Sensors
Most of us use technology and we don’t even know the purpose of different features in any tech gadget or device. The same goes for the garage door and its sensors.
Well, Garage doors are pretty heavy. What if after taking your car out of the garage door you press the close button, and suddenly your toddler or your pet comes right in the middle of the garage door?
I am sure you know the consequences, most of the garage doors we use are pretty heavy and can easily damage or hurt anything that comes under them.
So, it will damage anything that comes under even an animal, human, or your very own car.
Sensors are designed to prevent such accidents. If you press the close button, and something comes under the door, the doors will start retracting, preventing the damage.
If they malfunctioned, either they would not close, and act like something is in between the doors, or they would not open. Whatever the case it is, your life would be put into disarray.
The only option you will have been, to bypass the garage door sensors. Before you bypass the garage door, try to fix it.
Clean the garage door sensors
Like the way I mentioned, before you go and bypass it, or remove the sensors completely, let’s try to clean it, maybe some grime built-up is taking their way and stopping them to learn that there is nothing in between the garage door.
First, take a dry damp cloth and clean the lenses of the sensors. If there is dust and grime build-up, maybe that was preventing the door from getting closed or opened.
You can use a microfiber cloth because microfiber cloth will have no scratch on the lenses even if you go a little hard on them, compare to wool or cotton cloth.
One more thing, move your car away if it is parked near the garage door, maybe the sensors are picking something they should not pick.
Check if the sensors are working, if not then, let’s move towards the second step of fixing them before bypassing them or uninstalling them.
Check if the sensors are positioned correctly
If the garage door sensors are misaligned, they would not function the way they should. Sometime they will work, and sometimes not.
Check if they are aligned properly, to get this done, check the places where they are held.
They are small black options positioned left and right-hand sides of the door. They are taken into their places using the wingnuts.
You can use your fingers to tighten them or use anything you could find nearby, like a screwdriver, or some stick too.
Push them as far as they go, and make sure they are sitting in the right position. If they have LEDs, they will be on the steady green light when are properly aligned.
If their green light is on, they are properly aligned. I myself prefer sensors with green light, it is the easiest way to learn if they are misaligned.
Damaged Wiring:
Yes, damaged wiring too can put your sensor’s functionality in disarray. If the wires are not working properly, they will no longer be working.
Sometimes the wires get cracked or loosen, sometimes the sensors will work, and sometimes not.
So, don’t go at how they look, they might look complete, not cracked.
To get that fixed, you may have to take the help of an electrician, because you don’t have some electrical tools required to know if the electric current is flowing properly if there is any crack in the wire.
But if you see physical evidence of wires damaged or cut off, turn off the electricity right away to avoid injuries, if you are a DIYer, you can repair that crack easily, or for that too, hire an electrician.
If there is no sign of any kind of wire cracking or damage, that’s the time for bypassing the sensors.
related: How To Program Garage Door Opener In Car Without Remote
Close the Door
To prevent any damage to the door or any accident, the better it is to close the door before disengaging the sensors. What if the door’s springs are not working properly, and you hit the close button, obviously it will fall close when you close it manually, it can hit your foot or can get damaged itself too?
When there is physical damage to the door or any part of it is not working, the sensors would not have any impact, they would not be able to get the door retracted or prevent it from falling or closing.
What if the door is stuck open?
The previous step recommended you manually close the door, but what if it is stuck open? Don’t fret we got a solution for that too.
If the door is stuck open, measure its distance from the ground, and find something of that height around you that could hold the door.
The best would be, to find two pieces of timber of 2×4 size, and position one piece of the timber under either side of the door. Position both of the timber in a way that they hold the door.
Now use your hammer and knock so that they are tightly squeezed in the gap so that they don’t slam down when you disengage the sensors and switch to manual mode.
Manual Mode
Now comes the point to remove the trolley that opens and closes the garage door.
To do that you need to put the garage door on manual mode, to do this, look for the cord. That cord is usually set near the motor that powers the garage door.
It is usually red in color, put that cord and now you can open and close the garage door manually.
If the door was stuck open, you can ask someone to hold the door and remove the timbers you have placed under it before.
Keep in mind, that there must be an adult with good power, and tell him the situation, that he/she is going to hold the weight of the door, so be ready for that.
Open the door manually
Now, when we have closed the door manually, after a good struggle, that’s the time to open it manually.
Remember the red cord that we had used before, the same cord is going to help us open the door but with a good force.
Pull down on the rod, it will require a great amount of force, if you can’t pull it down, have someone assist you to get this done.
Now you have removed the garage door from sensors control with that if you want to switch it back to the automatic mode, pull the rod towards the rood while opening the door.
The door will get back to the automatic system now, after this gets done, you will see the door is again back to the automatic system.
Check for Warning indicators
If your garage door comes with a pre-installed diagnostic system, it is a great idea to check for the warning.
These warnings or notifications may let you know the real problem, or help you diagnose the problem with your garage door and its opener.
Before you start fixing or even diagnosing, if your door has this system, go check for warnings.
How to know if the garage door sensors are misaligned
Most of the advanced garage door sensors, notify you when the sensors are misaligned. Such as Security plus 2.0, comes with two arrows installed in the opener, up and down.
If the up-arrow flashes four times and the down arrow six times that means, the openers are misaligned.
In some openers the learn button can also flash four times to indicate the misaligned sensor issue.
The sensors with LED light installed if the LED light is steady green that means everything is aligned properly. If it is dim or flickering, that means there is some issue.
Is it safe to bypass the sensors?
I don’t think it is safe to let your garage door stay disconnected from the sensors for a long time.
Recap the sole purpose of sensors, they are installed to prevent doors from closing even if you press the close button when there is something in the middle of the door.
It prevents you and your family from meeting dreadful accidents or damages.
In my view, the best thing would be you cut the power of your garage door.
In that way, the garage door will not be able to open or close, if you can do without it. When you fix the sensor issue, get the door on automatic mode.
Conclusion
You might have found this guide complicated to follow, unfortunately, there is no simple way to bypass the garage door sensors.
Actually, in bypassing the sensors you complicate things, so the better advice is, to either power cut the garage door, in that case, you would not be able to use the door, or remove the sensors altogether.
Well, removing the sensors can be dangerous especially if you have pets and kids around you, it can damage them, as the doors will get closed when you press the close button.
By following the guide, you can bypass the sensors, but don’t get used to the temporary settings, get the sensors fixed as quickly as possible.
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