"Fat-Dumb and Happy" wrote in message ...
Lots of cool videos on youtube about installing, repairing and
adjusting garage doors. The safety sensors seem to be a common
problem. One of mine had quit working. 40 bucks at Lowes! You can get
them on amazon for around 20 bucks or e-bay, while looking at them at
Amazon in one of the comments,
" if you are handy with a soldering iron, crack open the sensor and
replace the 470micro farad Cap. For just pennies you can repair it
yourself. These caps will dry out over the years, and I fixed mine like
this."
Which is what I did, 1.61 for the capacitor at Radio Shack, it was
longer than the original and I just drilled a hole in the case and let
the end of the capacitor stick out.
For those that are interested,
The sensors generate a signal which has to be received by the main
controller circuit board in the unit. This is why you cannot simply
wire around them,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbmufXgpl14

Good job and nice video. I've found that capacitors are a problem area in a lot of gadgets. My car died once and the mechanical traced it to the computer. Before buying $$$$ another one, I pulled it open and could smell a burned cap and then saw one that was leading. Replaced it for 15-cents. Turns out (digging online) that those caps were known to the car maker that they were failing after 3-5 years. (One of the few times I actually fixed something, my wife says. LOL!)