Safety edge on motorised garage door

[cjcoffin]

I have a Securoglide Compact garage door about 10 yrs old.

The rubber safety strip at the bottom has shrunk away from the ends so the safety circuit does not work and you have to hold the "down" button in for the entire distance.

Apparently it has two copper wires in it which are shorted together when the strip encounters an obstacle, but has been replaced by a different type of safety edge with optical detection.

Have had a new motor fitted but the installer says to convert safety edge to new type will also need a new control unit and will cost an additional ~£500 on top of the motor.

Does anyone know where I can get a replacement strip of the old type? Needs to be ~2200 mm long.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Have had a new motor fitted but the installer says to convert safety edge to new type will also need a new control unit and will cost an additional ~£500 on top of the motor.

I retrofitted a fixed IR beam across my roller door, at a height to match the tow-ball of my car, which I simply wired into the up wired control. I also modified it, to include an LED at the back of the garage, which lights up, once the door is clear of obstruction, that confirms I have driven the car just far enough in, to close the door. It picks up anyone walking into the garage, the dog breaking the beam etc., whilst the door is closing, and causes it to safely reverse.

For your present system, to defeat the safety strip, you should be able to simply short the two safety contacts out.

 

[robinbanks]

Sounds like it would have been cheaper and easier to replace the motor with one that does current overload monitoring to check whether the door has hit something on the way down.

Back when I was looking for new fobs for my Hörmann Garador ProMatic 3 I noted it was possible to buy a brand new ProMatic 4 motor, with track and 2 fobs, for about 250 quid, and less than a hundred for an older model second hand (there's one on there now at 40 quid no bids). As far as I remember from reading in the manual when I was setting up the fobs, the motors also have an optical safety input connector if you want that kind of system too; not sure I'd want to hit the close button and drive off only to have my cat run in and reverse the door, leaving the garage open all day but different strokes..

For your present system, to defeat the safety strip, you should be able to simply short the two safety contacts out.

I thought the OP said that system became ruined by being permanently shorted and had already been replaced by an optical system that didn't work?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Sounds like it would have been cheaper and easier to replace the motor with one that does current overload monitoring to check whether the door has hit something on the way down.

Would not work - The heaviest load on the motor, is when the door is fully open, maximum amount of door on the roll. As the door closes, the motor loading reduces, because gravity assists, and so minimum load is near closed. If the door is stopped from going down by an obstruction, the motor just pushes the rest of the door up in the air.

As far as I remember from reading in the manual when I was setting up the fobs, the motors also have an optical safety input connector if you want that kind of system too; not sure I'd want to hit the close button and drive off only to have my cat run in and reverse the door, leaving the garage open all day but different strokes..

I think you must be talking about the controller, not the motor? My own controller has a variety of external control inputs, and outputs - so I'm surprised the OP's does not support such a sensor directly. Most sensor have the option of NC and NO contacts anyway.

In my case, my garage is some way up my drive - The process is reverse my car out of the garage, flick the remote switch in the car, to close the garage door, then spend quite a while reversing down my drive and out onto the road. My door closes much quicker, than the time it takes me to reverse out, and my final check, is to ensure the door has closed.

I thought the OP said that system became ruined by being permanently shorted and had already been replaced by an optical system that didn't work?

The OP was saying his installer had said his new 'motor' did not support a modern sensor. Motor, I read as controller. The motor is just a dumb item, with limits, and an open and close terminals.

 

[cjcoffin]

To clarify:

I thought the OP said that system became ruined by being permanently shorted and had already been replaced by an optical system that didn't work?

The existing safety edge operates on the principle that there are internal copper electrodes which get shorted together when it contacts anything - or so the installer said yesterday. SFAIK it is not "permananently shorted". I suspect the connections might have come adrift as the rubber has shrunk in length by about 25mm at each end. Plan to investigate on Sunday when parking is free in the neighbourhood.

The OP was saying his installer had said his new 'motor' did not support a modern sensor. Motor, I read as controller. The motor is just a dumb item, with limits, and an open and close terminals.

He replaced just the motor (with a more powerful one) as it would no longer lift the door in cold weather. It strikes me as an odd fault for a motor, IME they usually fail catastophically e.g. with burnt-out windings or a failed capacitor, or continue to provide the specified torque. Perhaps the lubricants gradually seize up? Is there a reduction gearbox integral with the motor, I would imagine so to get the low rotational speed.

The original control box remains. (It does have motor stall detection, though it was switched off to help with the motor torque problem. I will see what happens if I turn it back on. I would be surprised though if it works in the down direction when the door is nearly at the ground, that is when the load on the motor is least of all.)

He said it would need to be changed to accomodate the new optical type of safety edge. However I see having found the original installation and service manual that it has terminals for an external photo-electric cell detector, so fitting that is perhaps a cheaper option than the new type of control box and safety edge if I can't fix the current one. I think he is over-concerned about safety which is why he will only fit the new type and would not tell me how to defeat the safety edge - but it is in the instructions I have now found!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

He said it would need to be changed to accomodate the new optical type of safety edge. However I see having found the original installation and service manual that it has terminals for an external photo-electric cell detector, so fitting that is perhaps a cheaper option than the new type of control box and safety edge if I can't fix the current one. I think he is over-concerned about safety which is why he will only fit the new type and would not tell me how to defeat the safety edge - but it is in the instructions I have now found!

Maybe post a photo of the instructions, and details of the optical detector, on here for advice?

As already said, the motor simply does as the controller demands - simply rotates up, or down. The controller unit, does the clever stuff - so it would be the controller which needed to support the detector.

He replaced just the motor (with a more powerful one) as it would no longer lift the door in cold weather. It strikes me as an odd fault for a motor, IME they usually fail catastophically e.g. with burnt-out windings or a failed capacitor, or continue to provide the specified torque.

If they are regularly over-loaded, then the drive shaft has a deliberate weak point, which will snap. Which is what happened to mine. The replacement motor cost me £60, which comes as motor + gearbox + built in limit switches.

 

[cjcoffin]

I have a Securoglide Compact garage door about 10 yrs old.

The rubber safety strip at the bottom has shrunk away from the ends so the safety circuit does not work and you have to hold the "down" button in for the entire distance.

Apparently it has two copper wires in it which are shorted together when the strip encounters an obstacle, but has been replaced by a different type of safety edge with optical detection.

Have had a new motor fitted but the installer says to convert safety edge to new type will also need a new control unit and will cost an additional ~£500 on top of the motor.

Does anyone know where I can get a replacement strip of the old type? Needs to be ~2200 mm long.

Have finally got a good outcome which I will post here in case it helps others

• The original type of resistive safety edge for my garage door is still available, from Security Direct Ltd https://securitydirectuk.com/ and they quoted me £90.20 for 2.2m length which compares favourably with similar products online.
  
  
• Fortunately I did not need a new one as thanks to their help and advice I changed the batteries in the bottom slat transmitter and after re-commissioning it using the blue button in the control box it now works OK.

Was not impressed with the original manufacturers SWS Seceuroglide. They refused to the point of rudeness to give me any service information even to confirm that the original safety edge had been superseded. They would only refer me back to the installer who had told me this, or to another one who had failed to contact me at all.

Equally not impressed with the installer who fitted the new motor, he had lost the single cover screw for the control box so live parts were accessible without tools, and didn't re-fit the cover over the shutter either, saying it is better left off so you can see the mechanism(!). Took OH and me over an hour to get it back on so I guess he cba.