How to Align the Lasers on Your Garage

Aligning the photo eye sensors on your garage door is absolutely essential to reaping the most benefit from your investment. Let's get into how your garage door sensors work, how they can go wrong and what can be done about it. 

How Photo Eye Sensors Work 

The two photo eye sensors of your garage door actually ping-pong a continuous signal back and forth to determine whether there's an obstruction blocking the door from opening and closing. To the frustration of many homeowners, a broken signal obviously disables your door from remotely opening and closing properly. 

The signal from one garage photo eye sensor to another is said to be aligned with the signal goes through unimpeded ("correct") and "broken" when the signal is either obstructed by an object or your sensors aren't aligned with one another.

Although all of this can be irritating to deal with and troubleshoot, the purpose of your garage's photo eye sensors is really to ensure your family's safety and convenience. Luckily, though, you can take steps to ensure that your garage's laser sensors remain aligned and functioning properly. 

Diagnostic Signs to Look For 

We'll get into the strict how-to troubleshooting of fixing the problem in a moment, but here's what you need to know when it comes to initial diagnostics. 

Remember that the photo eye sensors can be either "correct" or "broken." Bearing this in mind, when your garage's sensors are "correct" this means that the LEDs wiring and alignment are in tune with each other. A green LED light on the receiving sensor indicates that your garage door sensor is working as it should. 

If you're reading this article then there's a good chance that you're not seeing all green, so to speak. Granted there's no physical impediment (bike, etc.) blocking the sensors from communicating with each other, a sporadic or dim green LED signal from your garage door sensors indicates that alignment is probably needed. 

Also note that some homeowners, understandably, misinterpret the amber LED light on one of their garage sensors for a problem or misalignment indicator.

Although you could have a misalignment, the amber LED on your sending garage door indicator simply indicates that the sensor is functioning; in other words, this amber LED shines no matter whether the sensors are chatting, broken or there's some obstruction blocking the communication. 

Getting in Tune: Aligning Your Garage's Sensors 

On most systems the sending LED shines a constant green when it's working properly and flickers when you wave your hand in front of it or an object is obstructing communication. 

If you know you have a problem, then simply pop the solid green (receiving) LED from the bracket. You can do this by unscrewing the wing nut. 

From there, shine the sending sensor's LED in a different direction from the receiving one so that the LED light on the sending sensor turns totally off. Wait thirty seconds or more. Finally, turn the sensor until you see the light returning and replace the sending LED sensor in the bracket and tighten the wing nut. 

You can now test your photo eye sensors' alignment and the garage door's functionality by pushing the control button located along the wall.

If you're still having problems, check to make sure that your photo eye bracket hasn't been warped or bent in any way.  For more sophisticated troubleshooting tips, contact your garage door manufacturer directly.