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Cleaning And Inspecting A Garage Door’s Photo Eye – Sadly, an estimated amount of 20,000 injuries related to garage doors are reported each year.
Although being one of the most useful utilities of your home, it can also become one of the most dangerous.
Because of the risks it poses, the Government has required manufacturers to produce garage door openers with safety devices.
Ever since the law was passed in the early 1990s, many safety features have been made, such as door retractors that sense pressure or garage door “photo eyes”.
These features are critical when it comes to ensuring the safety of your family, and in this article, you will learn how to take better care of your garage door’s photo eyes, so read on and protect your family.
Garage Door Photo Eyes: How It Works
Before you learn how to maintain it properly, you must first know what it does and how it does what it does.
The photo eyes’ primary function is to make sure that nothing is blocking the garage door’s path as it closes.
Usually situated at both side frames of a garage door, the photo eye pair must continually see each other by an infra-red beam’s ray.
If that ray is obstructed, that will automatically send an instruction to the garage door opener to do a reverse and thus open it instead of shutting it close.
Until the obstruction is removed, it will not let the door to continue its closing operation, and this can keep your children, pets, and family– even your car– safe from harm.
Garage Door Photo Eyes’ Maintenance
As one of the vital parts of your garage door system, constant cleaning and inspecting must be done to ensure your photo eyes are in its best shape.
If you observe that your garage door is not working as smoothly as it should be, and you think that maybe it could be because of the photo eyes, read on to learn more about how to maintain it properly.
Make sure to check the following:
1) Clean Away Dirt
Because of its proximity to the ground, photo eyes can become filthy; dirt can obstruct the infra-red beam’s ray and thus halting the garage doors’ operations.
Usually, garage door photo eyes are made of glass, and thus, scratches and markings will ultimately disrupt its proper functions.
As a camera, it must be treated with care and delicateness.
Using a soft rag and a mild soap, wipe away the photo eyes’ muck as gently as possible while still making sure that you are removing what needs to be removed.
2) Check Its Alignment
This can be done in two ways: visually or with measuring equipment.
Using a measuring stick, or any long measuring device that is available, check the height of both photo eyes if it is the same, then using a level, check whether both are staring straight at each other.
A laser level can also be used but is not necessary.
3) Remove Obstructions
It is usually assumed that obstructions are massive, such as your car or a person, but most of the time, this is not the case.
Photo eyes are sensitive, so check for anything sitting near your garage door–such as boxes or children’s toys
that could be the possible reason that the ray is blocked.
4) Observe The Lights
Garage door photo eyes are usually equipped with a small LED light that blinks to let you know if the equipment is working as it is supposed to be.
Check the LED lights on both photo eyes, and see if one of them is flickering, and if one of them is, try adjusting the LED light on its mount because someone or something may have bumped it accidentally.
5) Move The Bracket
A pivot bracket holds photo eyes, so if they slightly moved, it may have misaligned the beam.
Fix it by unfastening the bolt, moving it around until it is facing the other device, then tighten it back into position.
6) Take A Look At The Wiring
If everything else above fails to resolve the issue, it may be time to check if there are any obstructions on the wiring that is stopping your photo eyes from working correctly.
If the problem is the wires getting tangled up with something, you can free it by yourself.
If the problems are stuff like fraying, it is better to leave it alone and call professionals– such as the experts in Garagedoorsproontario.
If you are in locations such as Ottawa, Kanata, Orleans, and Ontario, you are in luck, because they got your back!
If you require services such as garage door repairs, contact Garagedoorsproontario now!
