Extended range of garage door opener - $15

Les White

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My garage door opener has been somewhat flaky. Some times it'll work from the end of the driveway - 350ft - other times it won't work while standing next to the garage. Yes, I replaced the battery. A replacement remote on eBay was $20 and I wasn't convinced it would solve the issue.

Then I found this.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JGDV8UM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For a single garage door it's just 4 lousy wires, but it can do two doors. Just run jumpers from the common and N/O to the wires to your wall mount opener, feed it 12-24v (polarity doesn't matter), and make sure the dip switches are both OFF (pulse setting). Then follow the programming instructions for the fobs - just press and hold PRG1, then the corresponding button on the fob, watch the lights blink, and done.

Now I can push the button on the fob to open the door while coming down the road and have the door open for me when I get there.

$15 well spent. I can think of a LOT of other applications this could be used for.

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I can open mine (in Charlotte) while I'm sitting here in the outskirts of Baltimore. :D

But, it may be something worth looking into. My wife and I both have the built-in openers in our cars. Mine will open the door while I'm coming down the street. Hers will barely open it from the mailbox, which is ~40' away.

ETA: Not that this has much to do with the distance solution, but I did something to my TJ (no doors/top/etc) years ago that was pretty handy. Mounted a small black momentary switch in a vacant location on my dash. Wired it to my garage door fob. Double-sided tape to stick the fob to the firewall behind the dash. Since a lot of those fobs use 12V batteries, it was pretty straightforward to wire it to an always-on circuit (or straight to the battery). That way you're not having to change a battery, and not having a garage door opening sitting out in the open somewhere.
 
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