GDO issues - Stopped working - Konnected Alarm panel ising 5v Relay

Konnected Alarm Panels
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I posted this on FB and thought Ishould try here as well. This is not necessarrily a Konnected issue, but perhaps someone has seen something similar on a GDO white, or maybe the GDO White developers saw this when desigining it.

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Then Suddenly… Nothing happened.

I have a puzzlement for you all and I am looking for ideas on where to go next.

Situation:

  • Original Konnected Alarm panel

  • Zone 3 is a momentary switch that triggers a 5v relay (NO) which activates the garage door opener.

  • Relay is wired in parallel to the same two terminals as the lighted push button on the garage wall.

  • When I push the lighted wall button the door operates as expected.

This has run for at least 5 years without an issue. A few days ago it just stopped working. The relay clicks on/off but there is no door activation. I have a similar setup in a separate building that is running just fine.

Troubleshooting thus far:

. Verified the wiring end-to-end using a continuity tester on the bitter end of the wiring in the garage. I triggered the GDO from the ST app and I got a momentary BEEP as expected.

. Replaced the crimp connectors in the garage in case of corrosion/faulty connections

. Replaced the relay with a spare

. Tested without the lighted button connected (eliminates alt path for current)

. If I short the two terminals on the opener with a piece of wire the door activates as expected

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I know that the opener provides a few volts dc to power the light in the wall switch. There are some resistors/capacitors in the wall button circuitry and when the switch is pushed the current on the circuit changes (probably goes up due to less resistance)

So the opener is looking for a certain signal when the light is on and then a certain change in that signal when the button is pushed.

The only thing I can come up with is an impedance issue. If my relay/wiring has more impedance than than the opener control board expects then my relay might be ‘invisible’.

The question also remains why did it suddenly stop working. Something has changed, but I am at a loss as to what that may be.

Any thoughts out there?

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My GDO white just stopped working after less than a year. Didn’t have the relay setup, just a standard install to mimic a button press. Perhaps totally unrelated issue but a failure just the same. My GDO Blacks have been fine.

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R E S O L V E D - It was warm today and I was able to do some more detailed testing. It turns out the problem was in the wiring after all. (Occam’s Razor)

With everything at Idle I measured about 17Vdc across the GDO terminals - this represents the power level needed to illuminate the OEM push button on the wall.

When pushed, the OEM button creates a direct short on the wires which the GDO controller board sees and reacts to.

When I triggered the relay from the ST app I was seeing something other than a direct short - about 800 Ohms. This is a higher resistance value than the OEM push button exhibits at idle state. Given that electrical current takes the path of least resistance, the relay closure was not detected by the GDO controller board.

A loose, intermittent, or corroded connection will raise resistance, so all of the connections in the wiring were suspect at this point. Rather than look for which connection was at fault I cut all of the connections off and re-terminated the wires using weatherproof connectors.

Lesson Learned - Continuity can only tell you so much. The simple continuity tests I had previously done were insufficient to locate the source of my issue.

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