Remotes for old garage door openers

[JHZR2]

My home has a detached garage, and there are two openers - one on each door. This isnt a high security system, the garage doesnt provide access into the house or anything. They are there for convenience.

These openers are Sears branded, and are 25-30 years old, I believe. They use a 9V battery powered, single button opener remote. Nothing fancy.

The issue is that the remotes seem to be flaky, seem to drain the batteries fast, and dont seem to reach as far - perhaps due to a bad circuit board.

Can one somehow get/make a transmitter to open/close the garage door from some other source? Or do you know if replacements can be had from Sears? Ive not tried, just asking because of some hassles Ive had with these recently.

They work great, though likely should get some maintenance - which is a thread for another day...

Thanks!

 

[BigCahuna]

Maybe radio shack might be able to make it happen. I know theres a limeted amount of different signals used for those. Years back it was popular with burglars to have a few openers, drive down the street trying them to see who's door opened.,

 

[Sayjac]

Mine weren't quite that old but I bought two more through a company on Amazon. Not Sears branded but they used adjustable pins and one button. Sounds similar, and they work perfectly.

 

[tchguy]

If you know how or know someone who can do electronic parts soldering, the electrolytic capacitor(s) are often what fails, and can be replaced for a few dollars.

You can also try ebay. Here is one ebay sears garage remote

 

[PandaBear]

I second ebay, that's where I get most of my antique stuff cheap.

 

[Jim 5]

One approach is to just touch your soldering pencil to each joint and re-melt.

A buddy of mine used to repair electronics and this was always his first approach when he couldn't see an obvious bulged capacitor or something. He said he had pretty decent success salvaging things this way where there didn't appear to be anything wrong.

 

[greenaccord02]

crack one open and check on the caps. That's probably the culprit, fixed with $5 at radio shack and 10 minutes of your time. If they look good or you're not trying to test your solder skills I'll second the ebay recommendation.

 

[javacontour]

Try one of the big-box home stores and look at their replacement remotes. Check to see if they work for Sears branded openers.

If your time is worth anything it might be better to drop $20-$30 on a new remote that you could probably program a button for each of the doors instead of fiddling with remotes that might just break again.

EDITED TO ADD:

Your Sears opener may be an old Chamberlain opener, so a chamberlain remote may work on that opener.

 

[javacontour]

You say 25 years ago, perhaps one of these will work:

http://www.aclickawayremotes.com/Liftmaster/61LM-garage-door-opener/index.html

Seems there is also a kit to retrofit the newer remotes to older doors. It looks like they include a module to wire up a button/receiver device that will pick up the current generation remotes.

 

[eljefino]

You're lucky it's from sears. I would start by getting the instruction manual. They'll probably give it to you for free because garage doors are "hazardous" and they don't want to get sued.

Then you can figure out if the garage door code is "learned" somehow-- then you can just buy a remote and "teach" it.

When I was looking at sears openers, half of them were chamberlains and the other half Genies. (?)

 

[NJC]

You might have success with Amazon - I ordered through them for single-button Liftmaster remotes (~17yrs old).

 

[HTSS_TR]

If the garage door openers are 25 years or older, you may want to spend some more to replace the 2 systems. Few years ago 1 of my two 15+ years garage door openers broke the main gear, the part was more than $30-40 and some hard work to replace the gear, I just bought 2 and replace the motor and chain, but kept the rail. Few months later the other one broke too. Since I bought 2 on sale for less than $100 each, I replaced the second motor and chain.

My calculation is, since I open the garage in the morning to get the car out then close, then open/close again in the evening. The motor is running 4 times a day that is almost 1,500 times a year, 30,000 times in 20 years is more than enough for it to stop working anytime after 20 years.