Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

[Solittle]

I recently added two florescent light fixtures to the cieling of our garage. One of them is an eight footer and is within 1' of the motor for the garage door opener. The garage door opener is opened and closed by either a wired switch by the door to the house or one of two remotes (one in one of the cars and the other mounted on the outside garage door frame). Everything worked just fine before I added the lights. Now the remotes will not work if the garage lights are on. They work if the lights are off. I suspect that there is some kind of interferance betweewn the light and the opener.

Any other possibilities or thoughts?

 

[JB]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Flourescent light "starters" often radiate harmless amounts of RFI. My guess is that they swamp the receiver in the mechanism.

Before changing anything else I would enclose the starters in grounded copper screening.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Can you locate a remote antenna so it is further away from the opener. I know there are remote antenna options for most and a simple move of about 10' should be fine.

 

[Pierutrus]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

It's the tubes.
They spray RF. Moves the lights away from the opener.
And the ballast's ARE grounded when you screw them into the fixture.
Starter's are only used on very small fixtures that use transformer's.

Correct me if I'm wrong JB.

 

[fat fanny]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Had this problem once wrapped the ballast in aluminum foil and is it worked fine

 

[Pierutrus]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Had this problem once wrapped the ballast in aluminum foil and is it worked fine

That's funny, worked on TV rabbit ears too?

 

[Fireman431]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Had this problem once wrapped the ballast in aluminum foil and is it worked fine

Foil is great. I use it as a hat to keep the government from reading my mind...

 

[NSBCraig]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Foil is great. I use it as a hat to keep the government from reading my mind...

Oh come now they read it just fine it was the lack of data that made them shut down the project!

 

[dockwrecker]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

oh come now they read it just fine it was the lack of data that made them shut down the project!

ouch!!!

 

[cribber]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Flourescent lights are notorious for putting out RFI especially if they are only inches away from the motor assembly.

 

[dvandsm64]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

do the lites and motor share a neutral??

 

[Fireman431]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

Oh come now they read it just fine it was the lack of data that made them shut down the project!

Zing!.....OK...Now I owe you one....

You gonna make St. Augustine?!?

 

[Av8nBill]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

I replaced the light bulbs in my opener with 100w equivalent compact fluorescents and haven't had any trouble. I'm guessing the larger tubes and larger ballasts put out a LOT more interference. I was planning to mount some larger shop lights pretty close to the opener but am re-thinking it now!

 

[Pierutrus]

Re: Garage Door Openers & Florescent lights

I replaced the light bulbs in my opener with 100w equivalent compact fluorescents and haven't had any trouble.

That's because the compact ones, or curly Q's as their called, only put out a minimum of RFI when they first start up and continue until they fill out completely. Then the RFI stops. Not the same with the tubes. They keep spraying.
If you have a signal tracer, like the "FOX & Hound", take the inductor and turn it all the way up. You can hear the RFI off of each.