Garage door opener

This is the remote that operates MY garage door opener. Your garage remote will vary depending on make and model of your garage door opener.

GENIE mini remote control.

Picked this up at Home Depot for $21.96

Generic 12 Volt 30A 4-post relay

Picked this up at Pep Boys for $4.99. I also picked up some male/female terminals and some T-TAPs. I knew I had some terminals at home, but didn't want to come all the way back, just in case I could find them at home.

1st STEP: is to TEST out the remote.

Make sure battery is installed. You also need to program, teach/learn, OR set dip switches on your garage remote to work with your garage door opener. You may need to read/follow the directions of your garage door opener.
Make sure the remote operates your garage door opener properly. Make sure it OPENS, CLOSES, and can STOP the door midstream before going onto the next step.

2nd STEP is take the remote apart.

Warning: This will VOID the warranty of the remote and you may not be able to return the unit if you screw up!

First order of business is to find out which two pads your going to solder two wires to. If you look at the micro-button, you'll probably find 4 post soldered to the circuit board. two of the posts will actually do something and the other two probably go nowhere or do anything. You'll probably find it easy to eliminate two of them right off the bat. Holding the switch over a bright light or sunlight, you may be able to follow the tracings on the board.

Once you think you know which two pads to solder the wires to, you can verify it by shorting out the pads. With the remote battery installed, you can use a piece of wire, paper clip, or metal tool (needle nose pliers) to short out two pads. If the garage door opener operates, then you know you got the right ones!

You can see the micro-button (switch) in this picture (Blue button top center). You can also see the 12 position dip switch. The dip switch is in the stock position (I'll keep my code a secret). You need to set the switch the same as your garage door opener. That is if you have this type of garage door opener. There is also a notch on the left & bottom side of the circuit board. I'll use the left notch to route the wire from the backside to the front.

Some of the newer garage door openers & remotes operate differently. On some new garage openers, there is a LEARN Remote button. You press the Learn button on the garage door opener, then you press the button on the new remote within 10-15 seconds and the garage door opener learns the new remote.

Left remote is the one I've modified, the right remote is an unmodified remote. I have the four micro-button pads highlighted with the yellow circles. The micro-button is on the other side of the circuit board. The two left pads go nowhere and just secure the switch to the circuit board. The two right pads have tracings leading all over the circuit board. I shorted out the two pads with a piece of wire and could hear the garage open & close when I did this. I soldered two wires (7 inch leads) to these pads.

Re-assemble the remote. You can see how I route the wires out of the remote. You may need to drill a small hole in your garage remote to route the wires out of it.

I was lucky and there is already a hole on the side. Hole is for the transmitter antenna. Modified remote is on the left and the stock remote is one the right.

I made two more Wire leads for the relay. Wire leads were about 5-6 inches in length. The relay side of the wires required female terminals. I crimped them onto the remote leads and to one end of the other two leads.

Since one of leads is going to be grounded to a bolt, I put a Ring-tongue connector on it. The other lead was going to connect to the T-TAP, it required a male terminal. The T-TAP was going to tap/splice into the Yellow High beam wire from the headlight assembly. Specifically the small Yellow wire that goes to the High beam indicator light on the Speedometer (Blue idiot light).

3rd STEP: is to install the remote, relay, and wire tap.

I checked the wiring diagram of the Warrior in the Service Manual. Black wire is ground and the Yellow wires are the High beam wires.
There are TWO Yellow wires for the High beam. The large one is the power lead for the High beam filament. The small yellow wire goes to the High beam indicator light (idiot light) on the speedo.

I have grounded the Ring Tongue lead onto one of the bottom bolts holding the headlight assembly to the bottom triple tree.

I've highlighted the remote and the relay. I've got the remote lying flat against the back of the headlight dome. The relay is tucked back to the side of the headlight dome. You may have to move the wires & connectors around until you can fit the headlight into the dome. Just remember to hook the 12 o'clock clip of the headlight bezel to the dome first, before screwing the two Philips bolts onto the headlight bezel.

The way I have the remote and relay hooked up, the remote will be activated by using the High beam switch on the handlebar. So, if I activate the High beam switch on the handlebar just once it will open or close the garage door (depending if the garage door is open or closed at the time).

By operating the high beam switch, you can control the garage door. When I activate the High beam switch on the handlebar to open the garage door, and if I turn the switch off then on (Low beam - High beam) before the garage door opens all the way. It'll stop the door mid-stream. If I turn the handlebar switch off and on again (Low beam - High beam), it'll close the garage door.

Old NEWS

The down side of how I got it currently set up... when the high beams are on, it's draining the remote battery. This will be a problem if you ride with your high beams on frequently. Some remotes may actually only activate the switch for a set time, then auto shut off to conserve the remote battery in case the remote button is depressed for a long time. I haven't verified that with my remote.

One way to solve this, is to wire the remote to the bikes electrical system. Should be real easy to do, since my remote is a 12V unit. All you have to do is solder two more wires to the remote.

Updated NEWS - May 2006

	Remove remote 12V battery from the remote. NOTE: not all garage remotes are powered by 12V batteries.
	Solder one wire (BLACK) to the '-' remote control battery terminal... which I would then ground to the same bolt I used for the relay.
	Solder a wire (RED) to the '+' remote control battery terminal and T-TAP it to the same small YELLOW Hi-beam wire used above..

I cut the Ring-Tongue I crimped earlier for the relay switch. I twisted the ground wire from the relay AND the remote's negative "-" wire and recrimped BOTH wires onto a new Ring-Tongue terminal. I then bolted these ground wires to the bolt in the headlight bezel.

The WHITE wire I crimped earlier from the relay switch to the small YELLOW high-beam indicator wire was removed. I then twisted the WHITE wire from the relay switch with the RED "+" wire coming from the remote. I recrimped BOTH wires onto a male terminal and reconnected it to the T-Tap terminal that is on the small YELLOW high-beam indicator wire.

The remote is now powered by the bike's 12 volt system and operates the garage door just fine.

FYI, the battery in the remote lasted two years, before I finally wired the remote into the bike's 12V system. It work perfectly for more than a year and a half. Although it had been operating poorly of late, do to the weak remote battery for the last few months. It would work fine in the morning when I left for work. But, if I rode home and used the high-beams for any length of time, the remotes battery would be too weak to open the garage when I got home.

Now.. I won't ever have that problem. :)