I/O Linc - INSTEON Garage Door Status - Not Updating???

It looks like if you have the N/O and COM wires hooked up to #3 and #4 it should probably work. You might want to contact Smarthome - they may have a list of door openers and how to get them to work.

Hooked up to #3 and #4, are you referring to terminals on the garage door motor? From the I/O linc (shown below) I have them connected to the same connection points as the wired-in opener. This morning I did attach a battery meter to the wires coming from the I/O linc wires and upon press it did not detect current. At lunch I will check the wires going into the I/O linc to see if they are not fully seated, although when I pull on them they seem to be. Below is an image as it was sent to me in the garage kit.
[img]http://www.alaskafamily.net/public-images/io-linc.jpg[/img]

[matt (support)]

Unplug the wires from the I/O-Linc, then experiment with touching the wires together (to complete the circuit) and separating them. Does that get the garage door to open/close?

I reset the device and tested with a volt meter... nothing. Will return and hope the next one works. They do not maintain a list of doors but said some of the newer doors with complex/LED wired-in switches are no compatible. Mine seems to be pretty basic. The volt meter is not detected voltage so it looks to be a bad one.

[matt (support)]

Was the voltmeter across the N/O and COM pins? Because that would always measure 0. You would want to measure the resistance across those pins, not voltage.

Or if you use voltage, make a jumper wire from +5 to N/O, then measure the voltage across COM and GND.

Was the voltmeter across the N/O and COM pins? Because that would always measure 0. You would want to measure the resistance across those pins, not voltage.

Or if you use voltage, make a jumper wire from +5 to N/O, then measure the voltage across COM and GND.

I did as you suggested Matt and measured resistance across N/O and COM pins with my multi-meter set to Ohms and did get a reading. Is this enough to tell that it's my garage opener and not the device or should I place a jumper as suggested and measure voltage?

UPDATE: I made a jumper wire as suggested and am seeing volts peak at 5volts. I looked around on SmartHome and came across an illustration that shows the wires from the I/O link going through the existing wall switch and not directly up to the garage door contacts. Could this be the issue? Attached is the illustration I found. The units only illustration was on sensor locations.

On a SmartHome review I also found, "If you have a more advanced garage door control button in your system, then you'll need to tap into that instead of just attaching the wires to the motor like the directions suggest. In my case, my unit has a door open/close button, a light button, a lock button, and an LED backlight all running off a two conductor wire. You can't just tap into the wires with the I/O linc. What you need to do is open up your wall control unit and tap into the electrical contacts that hook up to the button. You can test that you have the right ones by shorting them out with a paperclip momentarily the door should open/close. I then soldered the wires onto those nodes on the PCB and ran the wires to the I/O linc as usual."

[matt (support)]

Does the ohm reading, or the voltage if using the jumper, change as your turn the I/O-Linc relay on/off? If so, then the I/O-Linc is definitely working, and I think it is just a matter of getting it wired correctly.

The I/O-Linc is just acting as a switch via the relay. So it is just opening and closing the circuit across N/O and COM (or N/C and COM). That is why I suggest you take the switch wires and just experiment with shorting them across each other -- that is exactly what the I/O-Linc is going to do. So if that gets the garage door to open/close, then it will work. If it doesn't, then it sounds like the comment you found on the Smarthome review page is correct and you'll have to patch into the switch itself or something. I'm not sure about the details of how to do that though.

Does the ohm reading, or the voltage if using the jumper, change as your turn the I/O-Linc relay on/off? If so, then the I/O-Linc is definitely working, and I think it is just a matter of getting it wired correctly.

The I/O-Linc is just acting as a switch via the relay. So it is just opening and closing the circuit across N/O and COM (or N/C and COM). That is why I suggest you take the switch wires and just experiment with shorting them across each other -- that is exactly what the I/O-Linc is going to do. So if that gets the garage door to open/close, then it will work. If it doesn't, then it sounds like the comment you found on the Smarthome review page is correct and you'll have to patch into the switch itself or something. I'm not sure about the details of how to do that though.

The ohm reading and voltage do change when turning the I/O relay on and off so it appears to be in my wiring to the garage door motor or the door itself not being compatible. When you say shortening the switch wires are you talking about connecting across from N/O to COM on the I/O Linc or on the backside of the wired-in remote that came with the opener?I'm assuming you mean the wired-in remote.

As it is now I have an expensive door status that does not require batteries which will likely prevent me from returning it even if I don't find this to be compatible with my motor, although it sure would be nice to have door status as well as opening/closing the door. Let the troubleshooting continue...

On the I/O Linc I connected my wires to N/C and COM and when I activate the relay the led on my garage door opener turns off then back on when the relay turns back off which would prevent me from using the wired-in remote which obviously I would not want.

If anyone has the Genie SilentMax 1000 and has figured out how to use the I/O Linc to open your garage door I'd be interested as to how you got it working.

For what it's worth, here's my understanding of how the setup works:

The IO Linc senses whether the door is closed via the magnetic contact switch. Watch the glowing green light to know if it's sensing.

The IO Linc duplicates the push button function of the button on your wall. The push button simply closes the circuit. When that is done, the garage door motor reverses, so if the door is closed, the door opens and vice versa.

Where my setup differs from your diagram is that I have the IOLinc mounted up on the ceiling of the garage right near the garage door motor. It plugs into one of the receptacles and the motor into the other. So, the IO Linc is right next to the motor. I run the NO and COM wires to the two screws on the back of the motor (in my case) where the push button wires attach. When the IO Linc is fired, the NO and COM wires become closed and the motor engages. I also have my magnetic contact sensor at the top of the door, not at the bottom. Both these differences make wiring much easier than running wires all the way over to the side of the garage where the pushbutton is located.

My suggestion: look on the side of the motor where the wires from the pushbutton attach and short them. The door should respond. Then, attach the IO Linc to the same wires. If you IO link is behaving normally it will open/close the door when attached and enabled. I've copied the relevant section from the Genie SilentMax manual; the sensors occupy spaces 1 and 2 of the harness, and the pushbutton wires occupy spaces 3 and 4. Here's the URL for the PDF: http://www.geniecompany.com/data/produc ... Models.pdf

Re the ohm meter, it should be 1000K+ when the IO linc is not engaged, and fall to 0 when engaged.

My suggestion: look on the side of the motor where the wires from the pushbutton attach and short them. The door should respond. Then, attach the IO Linc to the same wires. If you IO link is behaving normally it will open/close the door when attached and enabled. I've copied the relevant section from the Genie SilentMax manual; the sensors occupy spaces 1 and 2 of the harness, and the pushbutton wires occupy spaces 3 and 4. Here's the URL for the PDF: http://www.geniecompany.com/data/produc ... Models.pdf

Thanks hamw for providing the pdf, I'm quite familiar with it. Do you happen to have this opener... please say yes. I double checked the back side of my opener on the wall and have it wired exactly as the manual suggests from the opener to the motor. When I try to short the backside of the opener the LED of my opener goes out but nothing happens with the motor. It's much like in Indigo Touch when I pull up the device and select the number one in the I/O linc interface. Upon closer reading I see you suggested to short the wires going into the motor.. I'll try to get a wire in there, not much room provided. I removed the wires coming from the I/O Linc and used a single piece of wire to short between 3 & 4 on the motor and nothing. I did observe the LED going out on the wired-in remote but that was it, much like I see when I have the I/O Linc wired and select relay 1.

Any other suggestions? To me it's looking like this motor is just not compatible.

How about unscrewing the wires from the back of the push button remote, taking that out of the loop, and touching them together. If that doesn't work, I guess it may be that there is some specific signal generated by the push button box itself, but why would that be done except to make it more proprietary. If that's the case I might look inside the pushbutton box and see if it's possible to somehow activate/short the actual button to preserve the circuit.

How about unscrewing the wires from the back of the push button remote, taking that out of the loop, and touching them together. If that doesn't work, I guess it may be that there is some specific signal generated by the push button box itself, but why would that be done except to make it more proprietary. If that's the case I might look inside the pushbutton box and see if it's possible to somehow activate/short the actual button to preserve the circuit.

So I took the wired-in button off the wall and touched the two wires together and nothing. While the button was off the wall I took a photo of its backside with wires removed and the front side with wires reattached (Hence the red LED being on).

I wonder if I sent a message to Genie or called their tech support if they could tell me anything?

[matt (support)]

I'm afraid I'm not sure about this one.

I was referring to shorting the wires themselves, since that is all a typical momentary closure push button switch does. But it looks like your switch is doing more than that and a simple short across the two wires running to the controller isn't enough.

Weird. I agree w/contacting Genie.

I emailed Genie and got word back. I have yet to find the part number but received the following:

Dear Mr. Klein,

You will need to install a dry contact kit on the unit to use a non-series III control with this unit. The part number is 38013r. Please contact our office with any questions.

Thank you,

Ron Mong
Customer Service Agent
The Genie Company

If you don't mind a little minor soldering, run another pair of wires to the Insteon NO output contacts from the two vias on the PCB marked with the red arrows as shown in the picture. I did this and tested it by shorting the two wires together. I haven't actually hooked it up to my Insteon output yet, but it should work. The marked vias are in parallel with the tact switch operated by the up/down actuator. Good luck, and thanks for verifying that the SilentMax doesn't operate as earlier models did. I just replaced my 10 year old Genie with the SilentMax and ran into this problem.