Why the Things on the Huge Scary To-Do List Never Get Done

[rowyn]

My garage came with an opener and one (1) remote when I bought the house six years ago. We lost the remote about five years ago. I tried to replace it by ordering one online around four years ago. The replacement didn't work, though I can no longer remember whether or not we could tell why it didn't work. When I ordered a new garage door in May, I told the representative at Lowe's, "I need a new garage door opener too."

"You don't have one?"

"Well ... technically I have one, but I don't know if it'll still work after being frozen in 1/4-open position for a month by the garage door being broken. Also, we lost the remote ages ago and the replacement we tried for it didn't work."

"Oh, you don't need a new garage door opener. Just come back here with the model and the make and we can sell you a replacement remote."

" ... I really think I'd rather just replace it." So my initial quote included an opener.

When the contractor came out to measure my garage door for replacement, he too tried to talk me out of a new opener. "No, I really want to replace it."

When I went out to Lowe's to sign the contract for the new garage door, the actual quote (based on the contractor's assessment) did not include an opener. Okay, fine, I'll try replacing the remote. Again.

That was two months ago.

This afternoon, while Lut took a break from City of Heroes to nap and terrycloth went to pick up his comics and get lunch, I decided to go to Costco. Since there's a Lowe's in the same plaza with Costco, I figured I'd stop in and finally see about buying a replacement garage door opener remote. So I went into the garage first, and took notes on all possible relevant pieces of information. The cover for the motor said "Genie" prominently, and featured no other identifying marks. The box that plugged into the wall, which includes a button to push to open it, said on the back:

Model 635CB
FCC ID HBW1128

along with various other uninformative or unique bits of text.And a Canada ID, which I did not write down.

It also had 47423 printed in silver letters crosswise to the white text.

So I wrote all this down, took some pictures of it, and went to Lowe's to look at remotes.

Genie sells two kinds of remotes. They were labeled prominently: one worked with all Genie openers from 1997 and earlier, and the other worked with all Genie Intellicode openers, from 1998 and later.

You will note which piece of information was not available from my examination of my opener.

I searched for an attendant, and located one. "Which one of these should I get?"

"What year was your opener made?"

"I have no idea."

"Is it older than ten years?"

"I still have no idea."

"Do you have a remote for it now?"

"If I had one for it now I wouldn't be buying a new one. I wrote down the model number from the box, though. Can you put it into Google and see what results it gets?"

"I don't have Internet access here."

"Okay, I'll use my phone." Google didn't recognize the model number either.

The representative gave me a helpless look. "... I'm sorry, I can't help you without actually seeing it, then."

"Seeing it would help? I took pictures!" I showed him the pictures.

"That looks pretty recent. I'd go with the intellicode one. The other one involves switches."

"Ohh ... I think from last time I remember there being switches."

"Oh! If it's got switches, then it's from 1997 or earlier and you need the older one."

"But setting the switches to match didn't help."

"Was it a universal remote? Sometimes those don't work."

"I think it was."

So I bought the older one, and went home. I unscrewed the back from the plug-in box, after trying to get the front panel off with no success.

There were no switches.

I made another effort to get the front panel off, and decided again that the panel probably didn't actually come off and was just all one big button for opening the garage door.

OK, so maybe the reason the other remote with switches didn't work was that the remote had switches that needed to be set and my garage door opener didn't.

I drove back out to Lowe's, rather regreting that I'd gone to the Lowe's ten miles away near Costco instead of the Lowe's two miles away near my house. Halfway there it occured to me that maybe the switches were on the motor. OK, so I'll ask about that while I'm there, instead of just returning the remote and getting the other one.

I got there and talked to a different man. "It should have switches on the motor, underneath a small removable panel."

"There is no removable panel, just a big cover." I showed him the pictures.

"It doesn't say Intellicode anywhere on it?"

"No."

"Then it can't be Intellicode. You must have the right one."

I went home again, clambered up to look at the motor cover, which did not say Intellicode anywhere on it, or have any removable panels. It did say "Model CH125", though. I clambered down, and got out the screwdriver set again, clambered up, unscrewed one side of the cover, clambered down and then up to the other side of the cover, and unscrewed the far side.

I looked at the revealed motor.

It did not have any switches.

I peered at it some more.

Switches failed to materialize. Anything identifying it as Intellicode also failed to materialize. I peered at the plug-box as well, which also failed to have either switches or a label suggesting it was Intellicode.

...

Yeah.

I'm not really sure what to do now. Except maybe "get a new garage door opener installed like I wanted to back in May".

Comments

[level-head.livejournal.com]

The CH125 is visible on this chart.

http://www.genie-garage-opener.com/coch.html

I'm looking around.

===|==============/ Level Head

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Amusingly, the search[Genie 635CB] produced six hits, the first of which was your entry.

Another was to the "ButtMonth" contest.

None were helpful or (other than this one) relevant.

I do think your unit is an older one -- but that would mean that it has a set of DIP switches on it somewhere. On my unit, they are under the light cover on the end of the drive.

Your unit may have a built in or a remote receiver. If the antenna wire (often white) is dangling from the actual motor housing, that's where the switches are. If the antenna is hanging from the box on the wall, then the switches are there.

Look for anything like a light cover that would be (gently!) removable.

===|==============/ Level Head

[rowyn]

There is a grey antenna wire dangling from the box, but there's just nothing on it that can get off of it other than the back. Grah. I may try forcing the front button off on the theory that it's supposed to be removeable and is stuck. At this point breaking the thing doesn't seem to be that much of a risk, since it's pretty useless as-is.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Is there a light on the box? Often, garage openers have a light that comes on for a few minutes after operating -- and the area underneath that (usually off-white) cover is where the switches are, sometimes under a separate little hatch under the light cover.

If it doesn't say "Intellicode" somewhere on that box, it almost certainly will have switches to set the ID number of the unit (to keep it from conflicting with neighbors). Perhaps on the upper surface?

===|==============/ Level Head

[rowyn]

There's a light on the motor that comes on -- actually, a bare light bulb, with nothing behind it but a blank piece of metal, on the other side of which is the now-exposed motor assembly. The box with the antenna is plugged into the wall, and doesn't have a light. Neither the motor nor the box with the plug have any evident removable panels/covers that haven't already been removed. Breaking off the front button is about the only thing left I can think of.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Ah, I missed that "the box" was not "the motor."

If it's an Intellicode unit, it would have (on that box) a small pushbutton and an LED, to learn new codes. I'm presuming that you don't have that, since you haven't mentioned anything like that.

I've just learned that some models have a receiver box mounted on the ceiling and connected to the motor by wires -- but that wouldn't make sense in your case since the antenna wire is on the unit plugged into the wall.

Are you able to dismount the box with the antenna wire and see the back of it? I'm guessing that you did, and that this is where the Model 635CB came from.

The CB suggests to me that this was a unit manufactured for Chamberlain. Does that name appear anywhere?

Here's a list of replacement receiver boxes with remotes. But you still don't know if your main unit works.
http://www.usdoorcontrol.com/parts-genie-receivers.html

I suspect that you can just connect wires to force it -- but I do not know.

There's a crucial piece of information that I did not spot here:

When you push the button, does the motor still work?

===|==============/ Level Head

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Gah, I hate when that happens.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth garage openers are the devils spawn. I have three remotes for mine, any one of which I can make work. However I can't make any two of the work at the same time. This can lead to low key arguments about who gets the remote and who has to use the keyless entry mounted on the garage, especially once it gets cold out and the snow starts piling up.

[rowyn]

And here I was thinking that "Well, if I can get a remote to work, I can buy a spare so this won't happen again." Or ... not. O_o

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

We always just opened the garage door by hand. Of course, we didn't store the car in there -- it was full to the brim with junk, so we'd only ever open it when we wanted to put more junk in.

[rowyn]

Our garage has the junk scattered across it in a thin layer. Right now the riding mower takes up the space the car would go in, but the garage is big and empty enough that we could shift some of the junk over to accommodate both mower and car. If, y'know, we had a working remote for the opener. :P

After a lot of reading and googling

[(Anonymous)]

After a lot of reading and googling, it looks like the 635CB or 635LM is a 390MHz frequency receiver that uses the LiftMaster 971LM transmitter. I just moved into a new house with a 635CB (hooked to an old Craftsman opener) and have been trying to figure it out. I'm planning on buying 971LM to verify. I see plenty of places to buy online. I don't know if i can buy at local hardware store or not.