A month or so ago, my swinging garage doors started opening too far and banging into each other. My doors are controlled by Franklin Autoswing openers, which are designed specifically for swinging doors like mine. The only problem is, virtually no garage door service companies near me are willing/capable of working on them. I had a couple "garage and gate' companies assure me they could work on them, only to make a quick exit once they saw them in person. So, out of options, I was finally able to dig in myself see if I could fix them. I'm posting this in part because there is virtually no information about these openers on the internet, other than the mfg.'s install instructions and related materials. Happy to report I got them fixed.
The openers have internal limit switches the stop the doors when fully opened and fully closed, which are triggered by adjustable cam lobes that rotate with the motor inside. The design of the limit switch cam lobes leaves a bit to be desired, as the design puts them at risk of spinning on the shaft and getting out of alignment -- exactly what happened to mine. See pics below....
- cover-screws.jpg (968.13 KiB) Viewed 1257 times
To get the motor off the wall, I pulled circlip off the clevis pin and removed the pin to get the arm off the motor. Then removed the 4 m8 bolts holding the motor the mounting bracket. To get the top cover off the motor case, I removed the 4 tiny screws in the corners of the case (red arrows).
- power-wires.jpg (1.14 MiB) Viewed 1257 times
With the circuit breakers turned off and motor unbolted with the top off, I removed the Green, White, and Black A/C power wires (be sure to take note of which color goes where -- they vary from side to side). The other wires can remain in place. With the power wires removed, I was able to take the motor to the bench to work on it.
- limit-switch-test.jpg (1.26 MiB) Viewed 1257 times
First thing I did was take the cover off the two limit switches and confirmed they both worked. For each limit switch, when the red button is pressed, the switch should close -- giving you continuity between the 2 blades with the connectors installed.
- limit-lobe.jpg (1.39 MiB) Viewed 1257 times
The motor has these black plastic cams that rotate with the motor. When the cam gets to the limit switch, it closes the switch and stops the motor. There is an upper lobe and a lower lobe, one for stopping the door when it is fully closed and one for stopping the door where you want it to stop opening. These cams rotate on the motor shaft and can be tightened down in any location. It was clear that one of the cams had inadvertently spun on the shaft, despite the clamp-down screws, resulting in the door opening way too far (and banging into the door from the other bay).
- cam-removed.jpg (1.19 MiB) Viewed 1257 times
This little cam ring slides over the lower lobe piece to create the upper lobe. What I did was open the door to the desired open location (with the arm attached) and then rotate the cam until it just clicked the limit switch. Then did same thing with the other cam with the door closed. Worked like a champ on the first try. The left and right motors rotate in opposite direction when opening and closing, so on one side the upper cam sets the door-open position, whereas on the other side the upper cam will set the door-closed position.
