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Garage Door Sensor questions


Kentinada

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I just got the INSTEON Garage Door Control Kit and I have a couple questions.

 

1. Adding this to my ISY994 added 2 devices: Garage Door-Relay and Garage Door-Sensor. I assume that is expected.

2. The Garage Door-Relay device stays in the On state and to operate the door, I have to send on OFF command followed by an ON command. Is that expected?

3. I made a simple program to do the OFF and ON sequence in #2 but is this the way this is supposed to operate?

 

Thanks.

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I just got the INSTEON Garage Door Control Kit and I have a couple questions.

 

1. Adding this to my ISY994 added 2 devices: Garage Door-Relay and Garage Door-Sensor. I assume that is expected.

Yes. The Relay is what will control the door. The sensor is what reads the magnetic switch and tells you if the dorr is open or closed.

 

2. The Garage Door-Relay device stays in the On state and to operate the door, I have to send on OFF command followed by an ON command. Is that expected?

Yes. However, if you have the IOLinc in one of the momentary modes, the relay actually turns off after the preset delay, the ISY is just unaware of that fact since the relay is a responder only device. It does not send a status message when it turns off. I like you have coded my programs to send an off command to the relay just to fix the status - has no other effect and is NOT necessary.

 

3. I made a simple program to do the OFF and ON sequence in #2 but is this the way this is supposed to operate?

See #2

 

Thanks.

 

Anytime. Happy to help.

 

-Xathros

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I believe you want Momentary B. In latching mode, the relay will stay on until you send an off. Being there is a chance that the off command may be missed, it is safer to have the IOLinc in momentary mode with a delay of 1 to 2 seconds.

 

In the current configuration, you may not be able to operate the door with the RF remotes due to relay "holding the manual button in" in latching mode.

 

For Door status, use the status of the sensor - not the the relay status.

 

Note: the door status is likely backwards due to Smarthome including a NO (normally open) rather than NC (normally closed) mag switch in the kit. Most of use have replaced the mag switch with either an NC or NO/NC switch wired for NC operation. While you can sort of compensate for this by checking Trigger Reverse in the IOLinc options, this has some problematic side effects. A query will return the ACTUAL state of the sensor rather then the Trigger Reversed state. Safter to swap out the MAG switch. If your OK with Sensor ON meaning the door is closed, then no need to change anything but most prefer ON to mean door is open.

 

-Xathros

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I just got the INSTEON Garage Door Control Kit and I have a couple questions.

 

1. Adding this to my ISY994 added 2 devices: Garage Door-Relay and Garage Door-Sensor. I assume that is expected.

2. The Garage Door-Relay device stays in the On state and to operate the door, I have to send on OFF command followed by an ON command. Is that expected?

3. I made a simple program to do the OFF and ON sequence in #2 but is this the way this is supposed to operate?

 

Thanks.

 

Xathro knows way more than I do, but I will throw in my neophyte experience with the I/O Linc. You want the Relay to operate in one if the three (A or B or B) Momentary modes; you also want to set the duration of the On state to be long enough for the door to close, e.g. 10 seconds.

 

You set this in Admin Console, click the relay and choose the Options button.

 

Activating the relay (turning it on) has the same effect as pressing the garage opener wall button; you complete the circuit and the opener activates. Putting the relay in one of the three Momentary mode (A, B or C) will turn it off after the elapsed time.

 

I have my ISY setup to text me if/when the garage door remains open for more than 5 minutes and then again when it closes. Every 15 minutes between sunset and sunrise, another program checks the sensor and if the door is open, it activates the relay to close it.

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Xathro knows way more than I do, but I will throw in my neophyte experience with the I/O Linc. You want the Relay to operate in one if the three (A or B or B) Momentary modes; you also want to set the duration of the On state to be long enough for the door to close, e.g. 10 seconds.

This depends on the garage door opener. Many (like mine) only require a short press of a momentary button (1 to 2 secs) and the door will move to the opposite of what it was before the press. On systems like these, keeping the button held can prevent other control methods from functioning.

 

-Xathros

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  • 3 weeks later...

So if I don't want the sensor on the floor, instead of using this one:

 

http://www.smarthome.com/7455B/SECO-LARM-SM-226L-3-Magnetic-Garage-Door-Contact-Switch/p.aspx

 

Either one of these should work, correct?

 

http://www.smarthome.com/77370/SECO-LARM-Enforcer-SM-217Q-W-Miniature-Surface-Mount-Contact-Magnet/p.aspx

or

http://www.smarthome.com/77374GY/SECO-LARM-SM-216Q-GY-Wide-Gap-Magnetic-Contact-Gray/p.aspx

 

Will probably go with the smaller one since it both looks better and is cheaper. Gap is 2" vs. 2 3/4" on the larger one, but that's still plenty.

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I mounted mine on the overhead board across the top of the garage door opening. Same header my garage door opener is attached to (Wayne Dalton opener). The magnetic switch is water proof but I prefer to keep the electrical equipment off the floor.

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I also mounted mine on the header as in the picture from EricK. No reason to have it on the floor where it's harder to attach to concrete and potentially in the way.

 

I mounted mine in the middle of the door since there's a plug in my ceiling for the opener where I also plugged in the IOLinc. The contact wire follows the rail of the garage door opener across the ceiling so the wire isn't even noticeable. Made it super easy to wire the IOlinc to the opener as well with just 12" of wire.

 

I didn't bother with the giant bracket for the magnet. The magnet has two screw holes and I screwed it directly to the top of my garage door. The contact switch is designed to operate within 2.75" of separation and my gap is about an inch when closed. This means my contact will signal a door open with just an inch or so off the ground.

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I mounted the magnet of the original switch to the top of the garage door as well. Wonder if I can just leave that only when I get the 226L-3 and just put in the wired contact?

 

Probably. It'll be a simple test. Mount the switch first and see if it triggers open/close with the existing magnet. It's also worth testing your door manually to see how far it must open to trigger.

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OK so I get the 226L-3 switch today and put in the sensor. I used the red and black wires to connect to the ioLinc as instructed in an earlier post. The Garage Door-Sensor is an On state regardless of the position of the door. When the door is closed, it goes to Off briefly as the door reaches the closed state and then goes back to On. When the door is opened, it quickly goes to Off and then back to On and stays On. Is this expected behavior? I thought with this new switch, the sensor would read On if the door was closed and Off if open. Or did I get that backwards? No matter though, it reads On all the time with momentary shifts to Off.

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