- Joined
- Oct 7, 2020
- Threads
- 1
- Messages
- 8
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- 60
- Location
- Mississippi
- Vehicle(s)
- 2015 Ford Mustang Ecoboost; 1997 Jeep Wrangler
- Your Bronco Model
- Outer Banks
- Thread starter
- #1
When I built my Bronco, I was too cheap to splurge for the Lux package, so I stopped at High. But I knew I'd miss the convenience of the Homelink for the garage door, and I don't like the look of having an opener clipped to my visor. So my solution was to wire up my garage door opener directly to one of the upfitter switches. Overall, it's pretty straightforward but my first attempt was a fail, so thought I'd post what didn't work and what did.
What didn't work:
My initial plan was to open up the Genie remote and solder a jumper across the OPEN button so that it's "always pressed." Then, solder wires to the positive & negative ends of the circuit where the battery fits in the slot, and use the Aux switch to supply/remove power as needed. The remote uses a 3V coin battery, so I purchased a 12V to 3V converter to step the voltage down from the aux switch voltage to the remote supply voltage.
First step was to take the board out of my Genie remote so I could work with it. Here's a generic picture of what it looked like before. If you have the one-button instead of this 3-button, I think it still works the same for the purpose of what I did.
Picture of the remote with the jumper soldered across the top button.
Battery slot with wires soldered to POS & NEG ends.
The useless finished product in a weatherproof box. Sorry about the terrible images, making a how-to was an afterthought so these are all I had of the failed attempt.
For me, this seemed like the easiest solution, but unfortunately didn't work. After much frustration, I came to the conclusion that if the button on the remote is already pressed when power is supplied, either the remote won't give the command to open/close or the receiver won't accept it. Whatever the reason, I never could get it to function with this setup. So on to Plan B..
What did work:
Instead of using the Aux switch to supply/remove power from the remote, I switched the design to have the Aux switch press/depress the OPEN button on the remote. I did this by soldering the push button to a circuit with a relay, and using the Aux switch to power the relay and complete the push button circuit on the remote. For powering the remote, I decided to just reinstall the coin battery for convenience. If it goes dead, I made it accessible enough to replace.
Works great so far! I flip the switch for a second then switch it back off. Same as pressing then releasing the opener button. I still don't have a great place for the box. Right now it's just zip tied under the hood near the fuse box on the driver side. Eventually I'll find a more permanent home for it. Just wanted to share if anyone else was thinking of trying this. Intuitively, I thought my first idea would have been the simpler fix, but I just never could get it to work correctly.
What didn't work:
My initial plan was to open up the Genie remote and solder a jumper across the OPEN button so that it's "always pressed." Then, solder wires to the positive & negative ends of the circuit where the battery fits in the slot, and use the Aux switch to supply/remove power as needed. The remote uses a 3V coin battery, so I purchased a 12V to 3V converter to step the voltage down from the aux switch voltage to the remote supply voltage.
First step was to take the board out of my Genie remote so I could work with it. Here's a generic picture of what it looked like before. If you have the one-button instead of this 3-button, I think it still works the same for the purpose of what I did.
Picture of the remote with the jumper soldered across the top button.
Battery slot with wires soldered to POS & NEG ends.
The useless finished product in a weatherproof box. Sorry about the terrible images, making a how-to was an afterthought so these are all I had of the failed attempt.
For me, this seemed like the easiest solution, but unfortunately didn't work. After much frustration, I came to the conclusion that if the button on the remote is already pressed when power is supplied, either the remote won't give the command to open/close or the receiver won't accept it. Whatever the reason, I never could get it to function with this setup. So on to Plan B..
What did work:
Instead of using the Aux switch to supply/remove power from the remote, I switched the design to have the Aux switch press/depress the OPEN button on the remote. I did this by soldering the push button to a circuit with a relay, and using the Aux switch to power the relay and complete the push button circuit on the remote. For powering the remote, I decided to just reinstall the coin battery for convenience. If it goes dead, I made it accessible enough to replace.
Works great so far! I flip the switch for a second then switch it back off. Same as pressing then releasing the opener button. I still don't have a great place for the box. Right now it's just zip tied under the hood near the fuse box on the driver side. Eventually I'll find a more permanent home for it. Just wanted to share if anyone else was thinking of trying this. Intuitively, I thought my first idea would have been the simpler fix, but I just never could get it to work correctly.
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