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Written by : Nick 19-02-2023

General algorithm of looking for gate automation faults 2

It is a second part of the article about steps you should go through to fix your gate. If you checked the gate on manual and it worked fine, if you couldn’t see any control board or wire damage, but the gate is still didn’t go try these steps (again you must be an electrician to do it as you should work with the controller with power turned on):

1. First you should get a manual for the controller. Open the controller box and turn the power On , and check the board indication. Some boards have only light diode indication, other have screens. Usually the board indicate about any fault happens. Look though the manual and see that the indication means. Also you can try to press the remote button and check again if anything changed . You can get the info about problem happened from manual and it save you time.
2. If there is no fault indication you should disconnect everything from the controller (take a picture of all connection before) but leave only motors wire connections. Put a link between COM and Photocells contact if you have photocells. Check the inputs of the controller by manual. Sometimes inputs and outputs are labeled and you can clear see which is COM or Photo or Trigger. Sometimes they have just numbers on it. COM input has a lot of wires connected, Photocells – usually one. Trigger (PP, OPEN) usually has from 1 to 3 wires connected depends on how many control units (intercom, keypad, external receiver) you have. So try the board only with motor/motors connected.
3. If the motor/motors work fine. It means the problem is with accessories. If not – problem with motors or motor wires/connections. If you see that only one motor moves, swap them on the board. In case different motor stopped after swapping – it means one channel of the board is faulty. If the same motor plays up after swapping them on board – it means it is the motor (wires) fault. Check the wire that goes form the motor to the connection box for any damage. It can be damage because it was rubbing on the ground, or a dog chewed it.
4. If you found that the other side of the driveway motor is faulty you should figure out if it is the motor itself of it is a wire under driveway is faulty. To do it, you should connect the far end motor directly to the controller and see how it works. At the same time you can check resistance of the motor wire cores by multimeter.
5. If the motor/motors with controller work fine – the problem is in the accessories (photocells, keypad, intercom, push button) that were disconnected. You should connect all accessories one by one and check the system again and again.
6. Also it is a good idea to check feeding accessories cores for a short. Check resistance between positive and negative cores of the accessories wires. If you found a short, check the devises and wires same way as was described for the motors (connect the accessories directly to the board, check wires resistant).
7. Replace the faulty unit or the broken wire.

General algorithm of looking for gate automation faults 2.