How to identify the type of wired control for garage door and gate openers

Garage door and gate openers can be controlled by wireless or wired controls. This article is a brief summary of the 3 types of wired controls and how to identify them.

Garage door and gate openers have traditionally been controlled by a simple but effective method known as "dry contact" control. This simply means "touch 2 wires or terminals together to complete a circuit". For garage door openers this is done with a push button that is connected by 2 wires to the garage door opener. The homeowner presses the button on the wall. This completes the circuit momentarily and the door opens. They press it again and the door closes.
 

3 ways to control a garage door or gate opener

Gate openers and commercial garage door openers often have separate buttons for open, close, and stop. These still use the same principle of completing the circuit (touch 2 wires together by pressing the button). However,  it uses 3 separate buttons and has 3 separate circuits. The stop button is wired slightly different. Pressing the stop button opens the circuit rather than closing it.

Some modern garage door openers use digital signals. Rather than just completing a circuit, there is digital data flowing back and forth between the garage door opener and the button / wall station. Frequently with this type of garage door opener, any control hardware that uses "dry contact" will not work. For example, trying to use a standard doorbell button switch that works on most garage door openers will generally not work on one that uses digital control signals. There are some garage door openers that work with both digital signals and dry contact control, such as Chamberlain / Liftmaster / Craftsman openers with a purple learn button. However, those same brands with a yellow learn button only work with digital controls.

How do I identify what type of control my garage door or gate opener has?

If you have a wired wall control that has separate open, close, and stop buttons, it's 3 button dry contact control. If you look on the control board and see separate terminals for open, close, and stop that also indicates 3 button dry contact control.

To find out if your opener uses dry contact control, identify the 2 terminals on your opener where the wires from your wall control are connected to it. Use something metal such as a short piece of wire or a pair of needle nose pliers and briefly touch those 2 terminals together. If you can open and close your door or gate by doing this, it is compatible with dry contact control. This means that each Tailwind IQ3 2.1 controller can control up to 3 of them as long as you have additional door kits for the extra doors and you choose an IQ3 2.1 kit that includes a door sensor. When using dry contact control, each door requires a door sensor.

2 slight exceptions to this are Performax and Xtreme branded openers sold at Menards, and Guardian branded openers. Some of these openers use a wall control that plugs into a connector on the garage door opener. Do not touch those. These openers use dry contact control, but not on those terminals. The 2 terminals on the right side of the terminal block are used for dry contact control. As we update our SmartFit Guide a drawing will be included for these specific openers.

If your opener does not respond by opening / closing when you touch the 2 terminals together, it most likely uses digital control. Our Tailwind IQ3 2.0 and 2.1 controllers are compatible with all known garage door and gate openers, including ones that use digital control. One exception to this is the new Chamberlain / Liftmaster Security+ 3.0 garage door openers with a white learn button, which is noted in our SmartFit Guide and product pages. While our IQ3 2.1 controller can control up to 3 garage door openers with dry contact control, it can only control 1 garage door opener using digital control or 3 button dry contact control. Please refer to our SmartFit Guide for more information.