Reed Switch for Garage Door

Try Mouser.com part number 507-AMS-37

Jeff

The better one would be 507-ODC-59B. It's an Overhead Door Contact with a 2 to 3 inch gap (depending on the kind of door).

PDF file is at:

Mouser's catalogue page is at:

Interesting website. Good pricing too (from what I've seen). Do your homework before ordering anything online. A good reference is:

Good luck!!!

Frank Olson http:/

You can see a picture of how I set up mine here:

I have a Genie opener that already has a magnet on the trolley. I just stuck an alarm sensor on the one that Genie uses and ran the leads back to my panel over the Cat5 I had run to the ceiling during construction. I could have added a magnet to the trolley if it wasn't already there. The advantage to this setup is that there are no wires within reach to be tampered with and the sensor was about a buck (in a package of 10) at ADI. BTW, I use that contact to indicate to the Stargate that I'm coming or going. Stagate then forwards my landline to my cellphone and unforwards on my return. My wife and I have seperate numbers to make this work.

Thanks for the info everyone...

I got a few ideas to mull over now!

Sentrol makes one for burg alarms and I have had good success with them. I just ebay searched for garage door alarm switch and was able to find some for sale. They are hermetically sealed in a metal housing with an armored cable coming out of it similar to a pay phone handset cord. That's what has worked for me.

Not to threadjack, but i'm curious... it sounds like you're using your garage door status to indicate your departure/arrival. How do you deal with

1) your wife making use of the garage door 2) you opening the garage door to, say, take out the trash

Seems like you'd get alot of false departure/arrivals...

This is an area i've struggled with, making my house "smarter" about where i am and what mode it should be in. For now i've got my HA server tied into my alarm system so when i arm it in away mode, the house knows i'm leaving, and when i disarm it, it knows i'm back, but i have the convenience of being the only person in the house.

I can, of course, manually hit buttons on a remote to trigger specific modes, (which essentially i'm doing by arming the alarm), but i really want to get to the point where things happen automatically. Unfortunately I suspect this will never happen unless i'm willing to put up with a system that occasionally guesses wrong.

How have other people dealt with this? combinations of motion detectors and timeouts? any other interesting ideas?

BruceR wrote:

Are you kidding?? Bruce lives in Hawaii (which is the closest thing to "Paradise"). AFAIK, that means there is no "trash". I mean, sheesh!!!

:-)

Here are some links to the switches I was talkign about

2200 Series Overhead Door Mount

The GE Security 2202 Series overhead door magnetic contact is for use in the rigorous environments of commercial and industrial installations. The floor mount units are constructed with a low profile heavy cast aluminum housing. The reed switch assembly is fully encased in GE Security=C3?=C2=A2??s exclusive polyurethane potting material to prevent damage due to moisture or humidity. A wide operating gap distance of up to 3 inches makes installation easy and helps prevent false alarms caused by door movement or damaged and loose fitting doors. The 2202 Series is available with a universal style magnet that allows for greater installation flexibility.

Here's how I do it. First, we have 3 single garage doors so only the door for the particular car leaving/arriving operates. If I take the car that I drive exclusively, the operation is automatic as it is valid to assume that 99.99% of time I'm the one driving. It forwards when I leave and cancels when I return. I look for the door to open and close. If it stays open for more than 3 minutes it is ignored as the assumption is that I'm keeping the door open for other reasons.

For the door that has the Jeep that either my wife or I might use, the operation is the same except that, instead of forwarding, Stargate calls and asks me to dial '#' to confirm I want forwarding set. I ignore the call if it's my wife using it or dial '#' if I'm leaving. SG hangs up and then does the forwarding. If I'm already gone with the other car it doesn't call me. When the Jeep returns home SG call and asks if I want to cancel CF.

Our trash (YES Frank, we do have trash in Paradise but no place to put it) isn't kept in the garage but the timeout or callback features I mentioned would handle that. Overall reliability has been excellent with very few mistakes over the last 4 years I've had it this way.

Gasp!!! :-)