If your garage door is reversing before it fully closes, your garage door sensors are likely to blame.
Bypassing your sensors will temporarily fix your issue, but it’s in your best interest to find the root of the problem.
Below you’ll find out how to fix any issue you have with your garage door sensors and even a way to permanently bypass them.
Let’s get into it.
Before You Try Bypassing Your Garage Door Sensors
If you don’t have much time, you can rely on our garage door technicians to give you a hand. Simply click the button below to get a free quote to help you fix your garage door sensors.
1. Clean the Lenses
Before you go and get the wire cutters out, start by cleaning the lenses on both sensors. Garage door sensors work when the infrared beam is making a connection. You should see solid lights on both sensors.
It’s also a good time to see if you have any loose wires. If there are any damaged wires that need replacing, turn off your garage door opener before doing electrical work.
Reconnect any wires that have disconnected and see if that remedies the problem.
2. Check the Path
Check to see if there is anything blocking the path in the way of the sensors. If there isn’t something blocking the path then the next step is to see if the sunlight is causing any problems.
If your sensors have sunlight pointing directly at the eye, it can cause connection loss. Try moving the sensors so they’re under the shade and see if that remedies the issue.
3. Check the Lights
The lights on your sensors indicate if they’re working properly. Most garage door sensors will have one yellow and one green light when they’re in alignment. Genie garage door openers may also have a green and red light.
All you need to do is check if the lights are solid. If they’re not solid, that means that there is an issue with either the alignment or the sensor themselves. Try to align the sensors and see if that fixes your issue. If you can’t get a good connection whatsoever, you might need to purchase a new set of sensors.
How to Bypass Garage Door Sensors
1. Prop the Door Open
This step is only required if the garage door is stuck and won’t close fully. If it’s closed, move on to Step 2.
Propping up your garage door will require another person to ensure safety.
Get a 2×4 or ladder that can hold the garage door in place. With the other person holding the garage door open, get the object under the garage door and prop it open.
Make sure everything is stable before letting go of the weight of the garage. This will prevent your garage door from slamming down if the garage spring is damaged.
2. Turn Your Garage Door on Manual Mode
Make sure your garage door is fully closed before engaging manual mode. If your garage door spring has been damaged, it can come crashing down. If you can’t fully close it, make sure you’ve propped it open before continuing.
Pull the manual release cord (red rope) down and back towards your garage door motor which disconnects the trolley from your garage door’s automatic system. Now you can manually open and close the door.
3. Manually Close or Open the Garage Door
Remove any objects that were propping open the garage door. Tell your friend to be aware that they will need to be ready to hold the garage door as you remove the objects holding it up.
Now that it’s in manual mode, you can open and close your garage door manually. Grab the bottom of your garage door and lift up. It should easily move without any issue. If you notice that it’s difficult to move, then you have damaged springs.
If you want to stop using manual mode, pull the cord towards the garage door entrance while you open the garage door. This will reconnect your garage door to the automatic track and enable automatic mode again. You should be able to use your open button again.
How to Permanently Bypass Your Garage Door Sensors
Do the next steps at your own risk. It is not recommended to bypass your sensors if you have any pets or children around that can get in harm’s way.
Make sure that you disconnect your garage door opener from the power supply. Also, make sure that you close the door as well. The following steps will only work if your sensors still function.
If you aren’t comfortable with wiring, I suggest not proceeding any further.
1. Cut the Wires
With wire cutters, cut 4-5″ from the garage door sensor. Cover the end of the wire coming from your home with electric tape to prevent damage.
2. Tape the Sensors Together
With electrical tape, tape together your sensors so the eyes are pointing at each other. This will trick your garage door opener into thinking that the sensors are working properly.
3. Rewire Sensors to Opener
Get a ladder and go to the back of your garage door opener. You should see 4 holes for wires.
From the left, it should have a red, white, white, and black block. The far-left two should have one wire coming out of each, you won’t need to pay attention to those.
The white and black (or grey) blocks are where you need to reattach your sensors. You should already have wires installed in both blocks. These wires were previously connected to your sensors.
Your sensors should have two wires, one white, and one black. What you want to do is connect the black wire from each sensor together and then wire them into the black box on your garage door opener. Do the same with the solid white wire.
Here’s a video explaining in detail what you need to do:
4. Put the Sensors on Top of Your Garage Door Opener
If your garage door sensors are now making a connection, you can stuff them on top of the opener. You should be able to use the garage door while bypassing your sensors.
If these steps fail, you may have issues with the sensors themselves.
Last Resort Options to Bypass Your Garage Door Sensors
1. Get a free quote from our Local Garage Door Technicians
Click the button below to get an estimate from our garage door technicians ready to help.
2. Disconnect the Sensors Altogether
If all else fails, you’re going to need to disconnect your sensors. This will prevent your garage door from functioning properly until you’ve reattached them.
Start by loosening the wingnuts that hold your sensors in place. Cut the black and white wires. Your sensors are now disconnected.
3. Buy New Sensors
Purchase new sensors that work with the model of your garage door opener. Check the manual that comes with your sensors and reattach them as described.
This should fix any problems you’ve been having and you shouldn’t need to bypass garage door sensors.
Image Credit: Flickr
