Lift Master garage door opener - easiest way to bypass eye sensor?

I've got LED light bulbs in the lift now so garage is bright.

Hope your next post isn't asking how to get the garage door off your neighbor's dog...

First, disconnect the door from the opener and try it by hand. Does it go up-down easily? If not the springs may need adjustment. If ok then lube rollers and hinges with a light spray lube no grease. Operator chains can be tightened to tight but if it's sagging tighten up to take out slack. Once you have everything adjusted and serviced you need to turn the pressure switches back to around 5. 9 is to high and if the door comes down on something like a car you could damage the door or opener or both. If you can't get it to work at a lower setting the board may bad and at that point I'd just replace the opener given the age.

Thanks. I just turned it to 9 on both as a start point. Door opens fine by hand, just want the method to fine down to a lower number today.

How much chain slack is correct?

When it's disconnected from the door the chain should not sag below the rail but somewhere just above the bottom. It's better to be a little on loose side than to tight. If it's to tight it will usually vibrate. A to tight chain will wear out the drive gear. 5 is a good starting point, if the door functions ok at 5 you could turn it back to 4 and try that. The idea is to find the lightest number the door will still work with because you don't have the photo beams operational.

Found a spec that the chain at the middle point should be 1/2" about the T rail. It was way loose so now it's 1/4" or so.

...and when I tightened it that brought up the next clusterfuck. Went to manually move the door up and down and the top of the door hit the t bar. Wtf? The lift is mounted under an added loft and the top door panel curves around as the lift is too low. I see it's been rubbing for years. Quick solution sawzall a proper notch out.

Anyway it works, it's old and when it dies I install a jackshaft lift and put a new door on at the same time.

Replaced a few hinges, glued and screwed back a broken section, primed the bottom edge and installed a bottom seal. Seems to all work good. Feels like I just rebuilt and old neglected Moto

It's a man cave not a car parking spot so if the lift dies manual use works just fine for the time.

Seems happiest a 6. Every so often set at 5 the door safety stops going down. No binding, rubbing or catching seen in the rollers. I think the jack new spring might be adjusted too tight. Would not surprise as everything else was wrong. PO of house did nothing right.

At 6 I was under it and stopped it and went back up just fine. If wife gets caught under it she's just too damn slow.

Tape 'em up, more chlorine for the gene pool.

Sounds like you figured it out.

Yep. First time ever messing around with an opener. I'm sure there is more to learn but I have a good grasp of how the adjust these now.

Lol. Funny I googled how to do this to a lift master and the 4th search result was this thread.

I’m going to tape mine. For some reason my will go down to about 2 feet and then reopen but it only happens in the afternoon when the south facing sun in in the door. My garage door is pretty dame sensitive even with out the sensor. It’s 2 years old and looks to be the lightest cheapest thing ever built.

Maybe reverse location of sensor set if sunlight is the issue.

First make sure the problem is the sensor. After the door reveres does the opener lite flash? If it does it is the sensor, if not it is most likely the down sensitive. If it’s sunlight you can flip the sensors or move them farther away from the jamb. Another solution I’ve done is put some electrical tape around the end of the lenses to make a little hood.

I set a 3 inch piece of heater hose around the lens on the sensor that faces the sun so it shades the lens itself but it can still "see" the light. Also, I found the problem was the reflection of the sun off the smooth concrete floor and apron, and I glued down pieces of a hard fiber black doormat across the garage floor just inside the door.

Don't overthink it.

I taped the sensors in a piece of vinyl siding "J" molding looking at each other, then atop the drop ceiling where they'll do the most good. Door guy told me vaseline will work to relube the plastic gears on a chain drive opener like mine.

Here's mine, we should start a new thread, "How I hacked my garage door"

Then another, "Who can I get to defend me court cause my hacked garage door killed my neighbors dog, kid, cat, etc......"

I ran mine like that for 15 years in our old house. Finally hooked them up the “right” way when we sold last year. Figured it would wind up on the inspection report....

The opener for the right garage door started doing the same, last year. That's the side that Mrs. TM parks on, and she was happy to provide continued reminders that her garage door now had multiple personality disorder. Figuring that the culprit was the afternoon sun shining on the red LED (i.e., primary) sensor, I replaced it with a NOS spare unit. The door operation returned to normal. An autopsy of the original sensor revealed a mildly warped plastic case and evidence of prior insect activity.

Just an FYI.

Another FYI: I've two garage doors, with matching openers. Each pair of safety sensors must be mounted (configured) in such a manner as to not interfere with the other pair. I can't reverse them and maintain correct door opener operation. Thus my backstock of spare sensors when one of them goes south, as I describe above.