All About Pocket Knives

This is a true story. It happened to me last week. It's not a big deal, but it could save you hundreds of dollars trying to find a solution. I'm posting this in hopes that one day it could help you or someone you know.


Last week my wife is leaving for work. She gets in her car, opens the garage door, and backs out into the driveway. She tries to close the garage door with the remote in her car but the door won't shut. She get out of the car and walks right up to the door, tries again, and this time the door closes.

When she gets home, she asks me to change the battery in her remote. I do. The next day when she leaves for work, the same scenario happens. The door won't shut from her car, but it will if she walks right up to the door.

She tells me there is something wrong with her remote and tells me what happened. I try it with the remote in my car, as well as the spare. Same thing happens. The door will open fine, but it won't shut unless you get right up on the door.

I call the manufacturers "Tech Support". I explain my issues. The first thing he asks me is: "Have you changed the light bulbs in your door opener lately"? I tell him that I did. I changed the bulbs from regular to "LED".

He says to me: "How long after you changed the bulbs did this start happening"? I said "the very next day". He tells me: "Remove the LED bulbs, put the old ones back in, and your problem will be solved".

I did exactly as he said and all 3 remote openers work fine. No issues. He also said that some brands of LED bulbs will work fine but I would have to try different ones and see which ones work and which ones don't.

Who would have thought that certain brands of LED light bulbs could interfere with transmission signals from a garage door opener?

Strange...but true.

_______
Mike

I'm glad you posted this, Mike. I would have used LED bulbs the next time one burnt out in my garage door opener. Now I know.

Thank you very much for the heads up! It saved me a lot of headaches.

Actually same thing happened to me about 2 years ago. I did a google search for the
Craftsman Opener ( the one we have) and it was mentioned as a possible problem.

I think those LED's give off a frequency that can cause a problem.

Bob

How crazy is that? I never would have thought of that in a million years. Thanks for the heads up.

Strange...and interesting.

Great post Mike...you very well may save a lot of AAPK members a whole lot
of trouble as well as the 1000's of folk's who visit.
When I heard about all the light bulbs changing years back, I stocked
up on various watt old style ones so I would not ever have to switch.

Will
http://www.allaboutpocketknives.com/stagman

Not rocket science. My mother in laws hall light LED bulb whines so loud I can hear it upstairs. Electronic circuit is interfering. Had a burnt out Fl curly cube bulb in the ceiling light. Thought it was just dead. Went to change and the porcelain part was very hot. Still using electric while not lit. Years ago I was putting the antenna lead on a TV, it caused a tiny spark. Mom;s garage door closed. as for not closing they usually have a sensor at the floor incase a kid or object their. May have threw the signal off?

Thanks to Mike's post I will be avoiding some serious stress and confusion by sticking with incandescent bulbs for my garage door opener.

On the other hand, I've changed out almost all of my bulbs in the house to LED bulbs and I just love the dang things. I haven't had any problems with any of them (yet) and they last an impressively long time. I like not having to change bulbs so often and the energy savings is the icing on the cake.

When I switched our front porch bulb to an LED bulb I recorded the date that I installed it because I wanted to know how much longer these things last. That bulb burns from dusk till dawn every night. I used to have to change the incandescent bulb on the porch about once every 6 weeks. This LED bulb has burned all night every night since 1/21/17 and it's still going strong. Most of the other bulbs in my house burn for shorter time frames so I'm expecting those to last even longer.

I like em!

....we had an old style overhead 4 lamp fluorescent light(which I helped design) in the kitchen that burned out and had to have the ballasts and lamps replaced with the new LED stuff.. -now, the only way we can watch tv is turn it off, it interferes with the tv for some reason!!............ ....................

I like ‘em too. I was initially against them, but now am changing out all of the old incandescent bulbs as they fail, replacing them with LEDs. Yes they’re more expensive to buy initially but some have been going strong for over three years now, whereas the old ones had to be replaced at least annually. The prices on LEDs is dropping as more competitors emerge and production volumes are increasing. None of the LED bulbs have failed, and so far we’ve encountered no problems with any kind of electrical interference.

Ken