Any experience with wall mount garage door openers?

[Roger Feeley]

We have a new three car garage. It came with very lightweight doors and torsion springs so I’m putting in wall mount (jackshaft) openers.
https://sp.menardc.com/main/items/media/CHAMB001/Install_Instruct/RJO20_instruct.pdf

I have two questions:
1. The rod that has the cable drum is really a steel pipe. I have to connect a coupler to the motor and if the pipe deforms, the motor will wobble some. Would it be a good idea to machine a slip fit aluminum plug to avoid deformation.

2. The motor appears to be supported in only two places: the motor coupling and a bracket below the motor coupling. It seems a bit weird to me not to have more attachment points. Is this to lessen the noise?

[Patty Hann]

I've been considering a "Jackshaft" opener for some time now.
I'll probably check back here in a year or so to see how happy you are with it.

And just a general FYI.... Chamberlain also makes the Liftmaster openers

[Bill Dufour]

I would drill the pipe at each setscrew location. At least dimple it if not clear through. One set screw clear through one wall of the pipe should be enough torque. A wooden plug is plenty good enough. I bet IPS pipe will be a slip fit since he tube is probably IPS pipe anyway.
Bill D

[Ron Selzer]

Have Liftmaster's at work, I installed them about 5-8 years ago. did not install all at once. They are on 10' high 16' wide commercial doors. Work fine, have replaced one out of 9. Forget what was wrong, cheaper faster to just replace and keep the old one for parts. They just work day in day out
edit to add forget about plugging, dimpling or whatever. They use a coupler that has two allen screws for the jackshaft and two for the opener. Work great, don't over think it. Installation goes fast, takes longer to program the door then to program it. one bolt is plenty.
Ron

[Alex Zeller]

I have 2 Liftmaster 7800 openers and have had no issues. The pipe may get deformed but not enough to wobble. I'm guessing I've had them for 14 years now. I did have one issue, the wireless signal was terrible. But I think that was the government. Since then they replaced the wall mounted panel with an upgraded signal. As for the opener's themselves I added weight to the bottom of the doors. They work by gravity pulling down on the door that has to be more than the spring force trying to lift it up. When the door is all the way up there's very little force to start it going back down. The installer just set it so the doors didn't open all the way but I wanted them to open as much as possible. There's a cable tension monitoring device that stops the opener if the cables going from the jackshaft to the bottom of the door doesn't have tension on them.

They are much quieter than the other style. Make sure you get wheels for the tracks that are quiet. I went with ball bearing ones and the loudest thing is the electric motor inside the opener, which isn't much.

The coupler slides over the jackshaft. It fits pretty tight. I know that the shaft has two dimples from the setscrews but the coupler keeps it from deforming. If you have wobble I think it might be something else going on.

[Jim Becker]

When the original 1993 era Craftsman door opener that was in this house died not long after we moved in, I had it replaced with a modern jackshaft opener and honestly, I'd never have one that hangs in the middle of the ceiling ever again. Since these also tend to be higher end, they also come with the bells and whistles, such as battery backup and app access as well as some level of compatibility with other apps like home security systems.

[Lee DeRaud]

When the original 1993 era Craftsman door opener that was in this house died not long after we moved in, I had it replaced with a modern jackshaft opener and honestly, I'd never have one that hangs in the middle of the ceiling ever again.
A former coworker got one last year that I bet you'd really hate. The motor unit attaches to the top of the door and the whole thing rides back and forth along the rail. He thought it was the slickest thing since WD40...to each his own I guess. :)

Since these also tend to be higher end, they also come with the bells and whistles, such as battery backup and app access as well as some level of compatibility with other apps like home security systems.
When I replaced mine a few years back, the cheapest Chamberlain that Home Depot sold at the time was under $300 and included all those features. The battery itself was not included, but it was something like $30 on Amazon.

[Lee DeRaud]

It occurs to me that "noise from garage door opener" is pretty much the definition of "first-world problem". :)

[Jim Becker]

A
When I replaced mine a few years back, the cheapest Chamberlain that Home Depot sold at the time was under $300 and included all those features. The battery itself was not included, but it was something like $30 on Amazon.
The Liftmaster I have now was more than twice the number you mention and professionally installed. The whole door needed adjusted at the same time. When they were done, the torsion spring was correct and it moved almost silently. It was impressive for a 16' door.

[John Ziebron]

When I turned my pole barn into a workshop 8 years ago I bought the Liftmaster 8500 for the 16W x 11H sectional door. Very easy to install; a one man job. It has an automatic deadbolt type locking feature and I like that it slows down near the end of travel. You can also program the open and close positions which is nice in my case since I don't need my 11 foot high door opening all the way. It's also the quietest opener I've ever had. 2 weeks ago I bought one to replace my old chain drive unit for the house garage but haven't had the time to install it yet.

Roger, the jackshaft coupling is a split collar (at least the pole barn one is, haven't opened the box with the new one yet) and there was no detectable distortion, wobble or slippage. I did not put any kind of plug in the tube. I was leary about the mounting too but 8 years in and no problem.

[Roger Feeley]

Thanks to all. Illl stop worrying.

[Roger Feeley]

When the original 1993 era Craftsman door opener that was in this house died not long after we moved in, I had it replaced with a modern jackshaft opener and honestly, I'd never have one that hangs in the middle of the ceiling ever again. Since these also tend to be higher end, they also come with the bells and whistles, such as battery backup and app access as well as some level of compatibility with other apps like home security systems.

I had to hunt a bit. We have a 26kw generator so battery backup isn’t necessary.

[Jim Becker]

I had to hunt a bit. We have a 26kw generator so battery backup isn’t necessary.
We also have a whole house generator...now, but didn't back then. The battery backup on the door opener was standard equipment so it was nice to have. We don't really park a vehicle in the garage, actually. Well, I had our second in there for a couple of weeks after I detailed it to prepare for selling to a friend, but that was literally the first time in my life that I put a vehicle other than the Kubota tractor and ZTR in a garage. :D

[Roger Feeley]

We also have a whole house generator...now, but didn't back then. The battery backup on the door opener was standard equipment so it was nice to have.

Jim,
it takes our generator about 15 seconds to kick in which is long enough to cause our cable box to reboot. If I could find a little tiny ups for not much money, I could bridge that gap. Do you know of anything?

[Alex Zeller]

I didn't get the battery backup for mine because I worried the battery would die from not being used for very long periods of time. The battery looks like it's a sealed lead acid battery. They tend to freeze in winter and crack if they go dead. What would be nice is if you could get a mount for the common brands of cordless tools. If you didn't have a backup gen you could just plug your Milwaukee 12 battery into it and operate your opener. It would be even better if the charger had a 12v output that could be tied into the opener. I've always got a battery on the charger in the garage.

[Jim Becker]

Jim,
it takes our generator about 15 seconds to kick in which is long enough to cause our cable box to reboot. If I could find a little tiny ups for not much money, I could bridge that gap. Do you know of anything?
I have multiple small UPSs in use for Internet gear, etc., to cover that 15 second startup of the generator after a utility power outage. Lots of choices on Amazon, etc.

[Bruce Wrenn]

I didn't get the battery backup for mine because I worried the battery would die from not being used for very long periods of time. The battery looks like it's a sealed lead acid battery. They tend to freeze in winter and crack if they go dead. What would be nice is if you could get a mount for the common brands of cordless tools. If you didn't have a backup gen you could just plug your Milwaukee 12 battery into it and operate your opener. It would be even better if the charger had a 12v output that could be tied into the opener. I've always got a battery on the charger in the garage.Because you aren't deep cycling battery, why not use a flooded acid lawn mower battery from Walmart? Connect it in place of OEM battery. As a side note, for UPS, use a deep cycle battery, if you don't have a whole house generator.

[Alan Lightstone]

In my last house we had a Liftmaster jackshaft opener. Loved it. Much better than the ceiling mounted ones I have now. Wish I had them now.

I bought the battery backups. The batteries failed in a few years, and they wanted to charge an unreasonable price for replacements.

I just went online and bought the same size batteries, and cannibalized the old units to get the proper connectors. Worked like a charm.

[Alex Zeller]

When I bought the openers the batteries were very expensive. I just checked and they are about $40 for the liftmaster brand and less than half that for 3rd party brands. There's even lithium ion batteries available.

I have a generator but it's not set to come on right off. I figure if I'm not home then the only reason I need it to come on is to occasionally run the freezers and furnace. So it's set up on a delay for 3 hours. If I'm home I decide when to run the generator. For something like a garage door opener I can't see starting the generator up just to close the door after I'm leaving. I think it would be real easy to set the battery up so the liftmaster doesn't charge it. Instead a simple smart maintainer would take care of the battery to prolong it's life. When the power goes out to the charger it would switch to powering the openers. One battery could be used to power both of them.

[Roger Feeley]

In looking at the posts here, I see a lot of love for this kind of opener. Honestly, I just got them because the doors are really flimsy and I was looking at paying for a horizontal stabilizer bar. I’ve always thought that the track kind were a bit Rube Goldberg. They are kind of fussy to install and you have to run a lot more wire. The jack shaft opener seems more tidy to me.

But based on the posts here, I’m kind of excited to get my hands on these things.

thanks again.

[Brian Elfert]

I didn't get the battery backup for mine because I worried the battery would die from not being used for very long periods of time. The battery looks like it's a sealed lead acid battery. They tend to freeze in winter and crack if they go dead. What would be nice is if you could get a mount for the common brands of cordless tools. If you didn't have a backup gen you could just plug your Milwaukee 12 battery into it and operate your opener. It would be even better if the charger had a 12v output that could be tied into the opener. I've always got a battery on the charger in the garage.

Ryobi made a garage door opener that used the Ryobi power tool batteries for backup. It is discontinued due to a patent violation. There are rumors Ryobi may be coming out with a new garage door opener this year, or in 2024, as the ban on Ryobi selling garage door openers expires this year.

[Mike Brewster]

I have small UPS's at every place that has and entertainment or computer system. I'm in a rural area the has pretty frequent spikes and variations and it keeps me from having a bunch of reboots and other troubles. To keep on topic, I'm glad to see the good reports on the jackshaft lifters. A few years ago when I looked into them, there were several complaints. I did add electrical outlets to allow for them one day. Knock on wood, the old ones just won't die.

[Curt Harms]

Jim,
it takes our generator about 15 seconds to kick in which is long enough to cause our cable box to reboot. If I could find a little tiny ups for not much money, I could bridge that gap. Do you know of anything?

One thing I learned about small UPSs - check if the battery is replaceable. The lower end ones may not be. There's a risk that you pay more for one with a replaceable battery and a component other than the battery craps the bed after a few years. Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances.

[Jim Becker]

One thing I learned about small UPSs - check if the battery is replaceable. The lower end ones may not be. There's a risk that you pay more for one with a replaceable battery and a component other than the battery craps the bed after a few years. Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances.
I don't disagree, but a $25 battery for a $39 UPS is a toss-up after a few years vs just getting a new small UPS.