Garage Door Sensor

The garage door sensor is a built in safety mechanism for most garages which are placed on the track about 6 inches above the floor.  From here these sensors detect if anything is blocking the path of the garage door and if so, the sensors have the door stop and begin moving in reverse (back up).

It’s important to have these installed in the event that for some reason something falls down in the path of the garage door, or heaven forbid, a young one is playing and finds themselves under the garage door as it is closing.

Now for safety reasons, If you find your garage door sensor is not working for whatever reason, you’re going to want to go ahead and replace that right away, the only question is which garage door sensor should you pick up?  Well, here is a listing of some of the best ones out on the market and their specs:

The Genie 34094R Garage Door Opener Replacement Safe-T-Beam Kit

-This is a kit that is compatible with Genie openers that have 2 pin connector safety beams.  This package comes with brackets, a bell wire, infrared eyes and of course a hardware installation manual
-This will either repair or take the place of your existing Genie Safe-T-Beam System
-This sensor kit is compatible with Genie openers that were made from 1995 on

Digi-Code Universal Safety Beam Sensor Replacement Kit CR-2149

-This works with many different types of garage door openers such as Chamberlain, GenieTM, Challenger, Stanley, Linear, Liftmaster, CraftsmanTM, Overhead, Moore-O-Matic as well as Raynor
-Installation is easy
-They’re not polarized so you can’t set them up backwards

Liftmaster 41A4373A Garage Door Opener Safety Beam

-This is compatible with other fail safe units from Chamberlain, Liftmaster Crafstman and Sears
-Comes with the wires and connectors needed to hook it up, but not the brackets
-Can be used with the all of the 1993 to 1997 operators that have the safety sensor option

Now  there are many other sensors to choose from but those are some of the bigger name brands that you should be considering. 

As far as what you’ll need to do in order to install the sensors, be sure to follow these steps:

1.  Turn off the power to the garage door opener then take out the wiring from your sensors.  Next, unscrew the mounted sensors and then remove them.

2. Take out your new sensors and place them in the exact same spot as the old ones.  Screw them into place, but not too tightly just in case you need to re-align them a bit later.

3. Reconnect all the wiring.

4. Now you need to align these sensors so that they are facing each other properly.

5. Finally tighten up the screws once you’re happy with the garage door sensor placement.

6. Turn on the garage door and test the sensor by placing something under it to see if it reacts as expected by retracting.

That’s about it, good luck in your search for new garage door sensor!