I installed one of these to my Vera system and my garage door opener system in a very short amount of time. It was easy to get it working, and I set up email notifications on open/close without any trouble.
In the box, there are some zip ties that I believe are intended to bind the sensor wiring to the door opener rail - did anyone actually attach the wire to the rail? I totally don’t see how this is possible on any opener without causing issues with the trolley.
Also, my GDC1 false alerts a fair amount. I will routinely get a half dozen false open/close alerts per week. Most of these happen during the overnight hours, and it’s a bit unnerving to wake up and think that someone had your door open overnight. For the record, any time I have been awake when an alert came through at an odd time, I’ve checked and verified that the door was not actually opened.
I want to tie the opening of the door to a girt circuit to light the garage and then turn the lights off ten minutes after the door closes. But, the false alerts will cause the lights to cycle unnecessarily. Anyone have any thoughts ?
As you pointed out, the zip ties provided cannot be used to secure the cable to most GDO trolleys without getting in the way of the mechanism. I secured the cable directly to the wall and ceiling.
Needless to say, false open alerts should not be happening ever. I have never encountered this problem since installing my GDC1 almost a year ago. The most likely reason you are getting false open alerts is because the magnetic switch is not close enough to the magnet to ensure the switch stays closed even if there is slight movement of the door due to wind or temperature changes. You should try adjusting the position of the magnet and the switch so that they stay in very close proximity (i.e. practically touching) each other when the door is closed.
I had thought that slight door movements might be to blame, but I also tried to ensure that the sensor was installed close enough to the magnet to ensure that there would not be any lack of “strength” to break the field while also ensuring that the sensor would not interfere with movement of the door.
I’ve also tried “covering” the magnet with my hand and pulling the top of the door back away from the wall (simulating movement from wind) and that never causes an alert.
Any tips on how to ensure that I have it placed properly?
There really aren’t any tips or tricks I can provide aside from the obvious - which is that the magnet and the sensor should be within a few millimeters of each other when the door is closed, and there should be very little possible movement between the magnet and the sensor when the door is closed. If you are certain this part of your installation has been done correctly there is a possibility the fault lies elsewhere: a small break in the cable, a poor connection of the cable to the sensor switch or the GDC1, a faulty magnetic switch, or in the GDC1 itself. If this problem keeps happening and is frequent enough I suppose my next troubleshooting step would be to directly jumper the sensor cable connections directly at the GDC1 - if the false open alerts stopped, it would isolate the cause of the problem to the cable or sensor.
Hmmm. I could disconnect the wires at the DGC1 and just jumper a wire across the terminals to see if I get any false notices over a few days’ time. If not, I would remove the jumper wire and then connect the ‘far ends’ of the signal wire together for a few days. Keep working my way toward the switch.
I’ve been running a GDC1 for over a year now without any issues. I’ve not received any false alerts from mine.
Zipties : A lot of rail covers have eyelets or similar connections at the top for connecting the door sensor wiring through. That’s where I ziptied my sensor wire too.
False alerts : There is a LED under the GDC1 cover that indicates sensor status. Solid is closed, slow blinking is open. Perhaps there is a small break in the wire going from the sensor to the unit. If you have one, put a multi meter on each of the wires and have someone jiggle it at various locations to ensure it has good end to end contact.
If jumpering the connections resolves the false alerts it is most likely the wire or the sensor. If not, it could be the GDC1 itself. One of Telguard’s people checks on these forums. His ID is shawnwelsh, you may want to PM him.
I have noticed the LED slow-blinking a couple of times when the door was closed, but I didn’t get a false alert at those points. Definitely have to testing to do.
As a quick sanity check step, I grabbed the top center of the door (16’) and pulled -in- on it. There’s enough give in the door that I can cause it to read “open”, but wind would have to be blowing awfully hard to move the door that far.
How much slop do you have in the drive? You shouldn’t be able to move the door on the rails very much. Is it chain, belt, or screw drive? If you have a lot of slop then the door, rails, or drive is not adjusted properly as it should be firmly seated on the garage floor when closed.
I understand how it’s “supposed” to be adjusted, but this is a 16’ door (not your typical 8’). Everything was professionally installed and adjusted, and it operates correctly. While I -could- increase the downward travel slightly to put more pressure on the door causing it to press up against the frame more tightly, that will result in too much downward pressure on close and it will end up reversing all of the time.
The only way that I -might- be able to make a change would be to lengthen the connecting arm and adjust the upward and downward travel distances accordingly. That way, the link arm will be at more of an angle when closed instead of straight up and down, and it will change how the door acts along the top middle in terms of being able to pull away from the frame.
I thought I would follow up here in case anyone has been following along.
I talked to Telguard and they were basically useless. It turns out that they have no actual troubleshooting steps to determine whether any particular pieces are faulty or not and they have no specific guidelines for installing the sensor and magnet. They pretty much take your call, apologize for any issue, then tell you to call the dealer.
The dealer then issues an RMA to repair the unit, even though no one has actually identified anything being broken, and doesn’t tell you anything beyond you’re responsible for the shipping costs.
Pretty disappointed in the customer service and warranty and definitely would NOT recommend this unit to others as a result. It would be one thing if someone could actually tell me to do “X”, determine a faulty part, then get it repaired. But, with no one able to actually tell me anything is broken, I’m simply not willing to spend money shipping it out for “repair” since there is clearly no way to tell if it’s working properly or not.
I’m still getting false open alerts, and I’m wondering now if maybe there might be an issue with connectivity to Vera?
Here’s my question: EXACTLY how does the Vera understand the difference between an open and a close status? And, what does the Vera “think” is the status if the connection to the GDC1 is lost at any point? The distance from the Vera to the GDC1 is a little longer (50’ or so?) and through a garage wall (which would mean extra insulation and sheetrock). There is a repeating pair of switches at about the halfway mark, but one of those CONSTANTLY shows a status of “BUSY” in the Vera interface.
Anyone have any thoughts here? Is there a chance that this is a comm. issue?
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