Okies, i was a little bored today, so i figured i'd mess around with my Xp8 again, teach myself new tips & tricks and push the envelope a bit.

I'm sure some of you have done this, so i want to double check before i fry my XP8 hehe.

I want to hook one of my XP8 relay controls to my garage door. It is just a standard Sears 1/2 HP garage door. I checked to see how much voltage the garage door was throwing out to the hard wired button, its 20v.

The XP8 manual says the relays can handle 3amps @ 30VDC or 12Volts/100ma. I am curious if i hook up my XP8 to the hardwired button and have it close the relay for .2 seconds if the voltage coming from the door transformer (20volts) is too much.

Im just a little nervous because it states both 30VDC and 12volts and i'd rather not fry my personal XP8 hehe.

The 12V/100mA spec. is for when the port is configured as a trigger "output". Basically, it uses the XP-8 power supply to source the voltage and current.

The 30VDC at 3 Amps is the contact closure spec. when using the relay as a simple single pole, single pole switch, which is what you'd be doing with the garage door hookup (set up as normally open). In device properties of the XP-8, under Relay Type tab, make sure Contact Closure (default) is selected for the appropriate port.

I'd say you're OK.

I haven't fried one yet doing that.

Got it working. I was 99.9% sure it was gonna work. just wanted to it by you guys first. It's one thing to have to do a RMA on a customer's equipment because of a surge. It's another thing to walk into your disty and have to explain to them you fried your own XP8 lol.

I have done this many times, just make sure your safety beams are working and positioned correctly so you don't crush any kids or cars by accident

Any chance of getting a camera back there?? We do garage door control on most automation jobs and have the control on the camera page so they are forced to see what is going on. Just an added layer of safety...

I dont have any TP... yet hehe. But i like that idea. i could get the remote to check the TV flag, and if its on switch the security channel though. That's a great programming tip thanks roddymcg.

As for the beams, they were originally installed when the door was put it in. but, again its a good tip to remember.

I think I read somewhere that there are "safety codes" dealing with garage doors and having controllers/buttons that aren't within eyesight of the doors.

It very well could have been the ramblings of any number of lunatics here or at IP.

Hopefully so. Do they expect that you sit and watch your garage door go all the way to the floor?

your garage door switches have to be mounted within eye sight of the doors by code. so it stands to reason that any other controlers would require some kind of view of the doors for liability sake. Our systems have garage cameras. and now that you can do a wake up and change page with contact on the K4 this is really cool. when the garage door opens the K4 wakes up and goes to that camera page

How did you connect and program the garage door? I would like to do it to a client. I think they would love that on the RK3 rather then look for the spare remote in the kitchen to open the garage door and then get the car keys to remote start he car.

i Ran cat5 from the XP8 to the door switch. My Garage door uses 24v from the motor to the switch. Because it was 24v i used all the striped conductors for negative, and solid conductors for postive. (I ran out of low voltage wire from a previous job). I would check yours voltage and make its no more than 30v and then use whatever cabling you feel comfortable with.

On the XP8 side i connected it to one of the relay outputs, and on the door switch in the garage i connected the two conductors to the screw terminals on the back of the switch. (mine were white and red terminals).

You can choose to run your wire to the motor if you wish. I choose not to because it meant taking down 36" tires from my tire rack near the ceiling heh.

After that, i set up a macro on the XP8
"Garage door"
- Set flag Garage door
- If flag TV is set Then
change TV to security channel
- Close relay Garage door
- delay .2 seconds
- open relay Garage door
- clear flag Garage door

This checks to see if TV is on, if it does, it forces the TV to watch the garage as the door is opening and closing. You can also set a timer in this macro or call another macro in 30 secs that tells the tv to switch back to the last TV channel.

added features of this application, you can have the garage door open from the Rk3 and then the client can turn on their remote car starter and they don't flood the garage of fumes. You can also tie this into a fob system, or card reader to open and close the garage door. A lot of possibilities.

Unless that door's really slow you should prompt the user to check the door on the TV/in person and then press another button to close the door.

sound simple enough. Thank

I love these kinds of threads. I would love to hear more creative uses of triggers and automation. I know we've had threads in the past about the "coolest" thing you've done, but what about these rather simple things that some are doing on every project.