Tailwind Beeping But Sometimes Door Doesn't Close
Over the past week or so I have noticed that sometimes the Tailwind will beep to indicate the door is going to close but then the door doesn't actually close. This happens both when driving away from the house in our car, and also when asking Google to close the door. It beeps and the light flashes and then nothing. Seems to happen about one in every 3 or 4 times. Not a huge deal, but certainly concerning as I don't want to drive away and have my garage door open for a long period of time. Is this is known issue, and if so is there a fix in the planning? Any comments and/or suggestions would be most appreciated.
Thanks,
~ Marty
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Yeah, I have the adapter for the yellow learn button as well. I wonder if that adapter thing isn't sending a signal all of the time. It happens at least one in every 7 or 8 door activation events, which is very frustrating. I am hoping the owner/moderator will chime in with some information or recommendation.
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The adapter is nothing more than a generic GD opener you can get on Amazon. They have wired what appears to be a dry contact (relay) across the switch (push button) to simulate pushing the button. I wonder about that generic device....
I have set the open and close pulse time to 0.5 seconds (sounds shorter in length than the default). Waiting to see if that solves the issue. If not, I have the Chamberlain-made remote that I used to use. I may open it up and wire into it and see if it is more consistent in the long-run.
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Thank you for the update on what you are trying. Please keep us posted, as I am very eager to see if either of your attempted solutions helps. Changing the open/close pulse time sounds rather promising and I am hoping you will have better luck with that. Looking forward to your next update. Thanks again. 👍
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So here is what I just did:
1. Using my Chamberlain (OEM, not third party) remote control device (https://www.chamberlain.com/original-clicker-stainless-steel-universal-garage-door-remote/p/KLIK5U-SSMC), I drilled a hole in the upper back of the case next to the left hand button (the one I had trained). I inserted a wire-pair and soldered a wire to the top contact of the switch on the circuit board (battery -) and another to the bottom contact (which goes to the circuit). I connected the BLUE WIRE (which appears to be the common) from the Tailwind to the wire I soldered to the TOP contact. The other one ("Door 1") to the bottom contact. Voile'! An OEM "converter". Works fine. I set Tailwind to "one pulse" and "500 ms". Everything works fine. Plus, the remote has a blue LED that flashes when it is activated, so you can see if Tailwind is sending the command.
Since I hear the Tailwind relay activate, even when the door does not respond, I am assuming something is wierd in the third-party device they use. Maybe it does not handle security properly all the time (random code?).
So far, I have opened and closed the door about 4 or 5 times with perfect results. More as the next several days go on.
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@jwmeyer.35076
If you are comfortable with the soldering iron another option is to get rid of the transmitter completely by soldering some wires directly into the wall control.
In my case there are 2 micro switches behind the door button pressing either one activates the door.
I simply added 2 wires to the back side of one of them and attached them to the dry contacts so tailwind can simulate a button press in the controller for me.
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I had considered that. One of the other companies that markets a smart garage door has a widget that they sell to do just that (without solder). But my button was installed during construction and is wired to the button inside the wall (that part of the garage is finished). I had the old clicker taking up space and the part of the garage where the door position wire runs is unfinished, so I decided to go that route. Still works great.
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Final report: The OEM Clicker has been working perfectly. The issue is not Tailwind, it is the third-party generic remote. Again, I set the Tailwind to 1 pulse, 500 ms and that has not failed, so I am not changing it. As the gentleman above notes, you could also wire to the switch in your GDO wall switch and should get equal results. I just had the OEM remote gathering dust and it was easy to wire in the basement and then just take to the garage and test. Solves the problem which is all I care about.
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Thanks guys, these ideas are GREAT! Scott B: I have easy access to my main controller on the wall of my garage. I understand where you soldered and that you used a couple of wires to solder to the backside of one of the micro switches. What I am unsure of is where you go from there. It has been a while since I installed the Tailwind device so I don't remember if there is a wire pair that I can simply run over to connect to the two wires soldered onto the back of the wall controller or not. I'm sorry if this is a really stupid question, but if you could hand-hold me a bit with some instruction I would greatly appreciate it. I really need to get my Tailwind setup so it will be more reliable for closing my garage door. Thanks in advance for your help, and I hope you have a safe and wonderful upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
Cheers,
~ Marty -
Hey Marty: The two wires you want to connect to the door switch (main controller) are the two wires that you connected to that generic remote control ("adapter"). Solder a pair of wires to your main controller and then run it over to your Tailwind. Remove the two wires you connected to that generic remote control adapter and connect them to the wires that you ran from your main controller using the same two wire-nuts. Simple as that.
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The Tailwind controller has 4 wires plugged into it 2 of them are used to read door position sensor (pre-wired) and the other 2 wires (bare) send a pulse to your opener to command it to open or close. These are the wires we would be using.
Some garage door openers used a simple switch on the wall that basically shorts the 2 wires going up to the opener together completing a circuit. If this is the case you simply hook the 2 bare wires to the same wires that go to the wall switch and you are done.
Other wall controls (like mine) do not short the wires together to the opener, instead the wires are used to send a command up to the opener telling it that the button was pressed. If you short these wires together like and older opener, the wall control would loose power and the signal would not be sent.
The workaround for this is to do basically the same thing as I did, but do it to a battery operated transmitter which is what Tailwind sends you. They do the soldering for you and you hook it to the bare wires and learn this new remote to your opener.
jwmeyer.35076 fix was basically to buy a higher quality transmitter and solder the wires into that.
My fix was to simulate a button press on the controllers circuit board instead of using the Tailwind transmitter.
If you look at the back of the circuit board where the microswitch is located there are traces on it (basically wires attached to the board itself). I marked these with red. If you look at the microswitch itself you can see the 4 connections that it has. When you press the microswitch the 2 red lines are connected together by the green line completing a circuit. The 2 bare wires on the Tailwind control can do the same thing by completing this circuit without actually pressing the button.
The trick here is to find the correct orientation of the switch as the trace it could be up down or left right, but if you look at the trace (red line) its typically fairly easy to see since the same trace hooks to 2 terminals on the microswitch and a separate trace connects to the other 2 terminals. All you need to do is connect one wire to each side of these 2 traces.
What I did was cut a foot long section of wiring and soldered that to my controller. I then ran the 2 bare wires from the Tailwind controller down to the wall control and used wire nuts to splice the bare wires to the new wires i soldered into the wall controller.
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Thanks guys! Scott B: I am going to setup my main wall controller like this, and I really appreciate the detailed instructions. I just haven't had the time to do this yet, but I plan to do so when on holiday break in a couple of weeks. Thank you SO much for your help. I am confident this is going to resolve my problems with the Tailwind so I can trust the device to actually close my garage door every time when I drive away from my home. Wishing you both, and your families, a safe and wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday season.
Cheers,
~ Marty
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