Table of Contents
The mechanisms behind overhead doors won’t work without a specific part, which people often call the “brain,” the photo-eye.
With so many safety-related concerns of many citizens, the law has intervened and dictated that every other garage door should have safety features installed or at least something that could help reduce accidents or eliminate it.
Most photo-eye nowadays don’t take too much space, which reduces manufacturing costs, therefore having a fairly reasonable price in the market.
Despite its obvious importance, a garage door repair must be needed in one way or another to make sure that the photo eye is working as intended.
Without too much money to spare, there are many ways to inspect and even clean a garage door, making DIY a lot more an obvious choice.
Calling a professional help can also be an effective option as they are well-equipped with tools and knowledge to deal with photo-eye cleaning.
However, the DIY route gives garage door owners the chance to save some money if the budget is tight.
Manual Equipment Inspection
One of the most common inspection protocols done by homeowners is by manually checking for damages and faults on the photo-eye before even asking for a professional overhead door repair help.
To do this, the client must walk over the photo-eye while deactivating the whole mechanism.
Next, if possible, unmount the photo-eye from its location to see a better view.
It is essential to look for obvious physical damages as they might be the source of a malfunctioning or even errors in processing requests.
Ability Test
After checking the photo eye’s physical state, one must test its working capabilities by simulating events that it would typically encounter.
One indicator that a photo-eye has a problem with its placement is that it won’t entirely be closed.
There are two obvious causes for a photo eye that sends signals for garage doors not to close properly;
the photo eye’s field of vision is misaligned, or the lens is dirty.
To accurately check if it is working, put an object or obstacle in front of the photo eye and see if the mechanism pushes through the cycle properly.
If it fails to do so, then some work should be done to restore the photo-eye in its usual routine.
The good thing, however, photo eyes help clients to simplify their lives by giving apparent signals such as flashing lights whenever it is suffering a misalignment.
It is essential to keep this in mind and make it a habit to save precious time and resources trying to fix a photo-eye.
Dirty Photo Eyes
As mentioned above, dirt is a menace for photo eyes as it could easily interrupt its recognition of its assigned surrounding.
While other parts might suffer some interference too, the photo lens is the central part that should be monitored closely of dirt.
This problem’s symptoms are just the same for the misalignment one, making photo-eye problems a lot confusing, especially for beginner garage door owners.
While it is advised to clean the photo lens as soon as possible, one should be careful when dealing with it as the lens is a susceptible part, which means that even the slightest scratch could only bring more problems.
A very soft cloth is much recommended when it comes to cleaning a dirty photo-eye.
Test Repetition
Before concluding the tests’ results, it is important to repeat these steps a couple of times to ensure that the photo eye is malfunctioning.
Several pieces of equipment aren’t malfunctioning, and it is worth giving them another try to make sure that things are in order.
Test repetition also allows owners to save some resources in case a repair wouldn’t be entirely needed.
Conclusion
Photo eyes aren’t that much pricey, to begin with, but taking care of them is very crucial as they are the central part of the whole process of the garage door mechanism.
The name speaks for itself, and losing a functional one would prove to be a hassle even if it is just brief.
A garage door repair company like us suggests that garage door owners should seek professional help if these DIY fixes aren’t significant as there are more possible problems that a photo-eye can encounter.
We help people gain knowledge about this field by providing a straight forward fix and solution.
