Problem: RF Interference / Garage Door opener

[G671 0]

Hello,

 

I'm new to CCTV. Last summer, I installed a basic CCTV system on my house. It's an 8 Ch Lorex system. Edge2 DVR, with various dome cameras and one PTZ camera around my house.

 

I just installed a new garage door opener (Sommer Direct Drive). The transmitters operate on 310 mhz (rolling code). I'm having issues with the transmitters. They work terribly from outside my garage (from the driveway/street). I literally have to drive right up to the garage door to get them to work at all. I'm not done tracking down where the source of the RF interference is coming from (i.e. From one specific camera, from the DVR, all of the above? etc). But, it does appear that it has something to do with my CCTV system. I unplugged my surge protectors that all my CCTV stuff is plugged into the other day, and I was able to open my garage door from the street as I was driving toward my house.

 

So, I'm wondering if anyone has run into this before. What kind of options would work for me? Can I try installing those magnetic ferrite cores (beads) on all of my equipment? (on the camera power cables, DVR cable, etc). Can they be installed on the video cables, as well?

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009U14CVI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AAQ3GHQN09UUL

 

Also, should I try replacing my surge protectors with power conditioners that have RFI/EMI decibal suppressors?

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BQ91Y6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083CZK9I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A28V0P70G1J0LX

 

Thanks!

[the toss 0]

Hello,

 

I'm new to CCTV. Last summer, I installed a basic CCTV system on my house. It's an 8 Ch Lorex system. Edge2 DVR, with various dome cameras and one PTZ camera around my house.

 

I just installed a new garage door opener (Sommer Direct Drive). The transmitters operate on 310 mhz (rolling code). I'm having issues with the transmitters. They work terribly from outside my garage (from the driveway/street). I literally have to drive right up to the garage door to get them to work at all. I'm not done tracking down where the source of the RF interference is coming from (i.e. From one specific camera, from the DVR, all of the above? etc). But, it does appear that it has something to do with my CCTV system. I unplugged my surge protectors that all my CCTV stuff is plugged into the other day, and I was able to open my garage door from the street as I was driving toward my house.

 

So, I'm wondering if anyone has run into this before. What kind of options would work for me? Can I try installing those magnetic ferrite cores (beads) on all of my equipment? (on the camera power cables, DVR cable, etc). Can they be installed on the video cables, as well?

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009U14CVI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AAQ3GHQN09UUL

 

Also, should I try replacing my surge protectors with power conditioners that have RFI/EMI decibal suppressors?

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003BQ91Y6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0083CZK9I/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A28V0P70G1J0LX

 

Thanks!

 

 

There is no reason that I can think of that your cctv would interfere with a 310Mhz RF appliance.

[ssnapier 0]

I suppose there could be some freaky harmonics thing going on there, but I am wondering about the quality of your cables and their proximity to the antenna for the door opener. My thought here is maybe the shielding on your coax is jacked up (or super low grade) and you are getting some magnetic interference. I think this would point to more of a ground / isolation problem than anything with the opener.

 

Also, make sure that antenna is hanging down with clear line of sight to the street, I had an issue with that at my house where the opener itself was preventing the clicker from working until I grabbed the antenna from the top of the housing and made it hang straight down.

[G671 0]

Thanks for the responses, guys. Yeah, I'm not sure why, either. My CCTV system never interfered with my older Craftsman opener (but, that was probably 315 or 390 mhz). I'm going to try unplugging my surge protector with the cameras on it again tomorrow, to see if the range increases again (to make sure it wasn't just a fluke).

 

With the exception of my PTZ camera, most of my cameras have the cheaper siamese (black) BNC cable that you can get on Amazon. They're probably unshielded (or, low grade shielding)

 

Yeah, you wouldn't think that it would affect something in the 310 mhz range, but after I did the online research on "Garage Door openers and RF interference", trusty me, you would be amazed at how many things can cause problems for the transmitters. Basically, anything that requires an electrical outlet can cause a problem LOL Routers, street lamps, refrigerators, furnaces, plasma TV's, A/V equipment, fluorescent lights, LED lights, baby monitors, alarm clock radios, etc, etc. Yes, I've tried fiddling with the opener antenna.. straight down, up, sideways, etc. I even bought some doorbell wire and extended the antenna outside of the garage. None of them seemed to help.

 

I don't want to crawl around in my attic rewiring my CCTV (what a nightmare), so I'll just have to try some new things. I'll try some new surge protectors with RFI/EMI suppressors, some ferrite cores on my cables, and maybe plugging my surge protectors into a different outlet, etc, etc.

[G671 0]

Okay.. I tried disconnecting my garage opener's wall button from the opener. I read on a tech forum that the RFI most commonly gets in through that paticular wire. Acting as an antenna for interference. Wire goes up the wall, accross the ceiling, and into the garage opener. So far, so good. Got it to work from the street again after disconnecting it. I think those are my 2 main culprits. The CCTV system is throwing off some interference, and that wire is picking it up and feeding it to my opener. I also read on the tech forum that those ferrite cores placed on the wall button wire should indeed eliminate/reduce that particular problem, so that's what I'm going to try next.

 

Well, its payday, so off to Amazon! LOL. Thanks again for the input

[vmi51314 0]

Interference is from something else outside the house, new cell phone tower, new military radio installation within 50 miles, etc. Although I have seen police scanners, satellite dishes, another garage door opener on zero lot line housing, & even a car alarm when the car was within 50' of the house stomp over top the garage door receiver

 

Other then making sure the antenna is straight & facing straight down toward the floor there's isn't much you can do with it. Lengthening the wire usually won't do anything or may make it worse. The receivers are tuned for the length of the antenna & changing it throws off the tuning.

 

You will probably need to change the radio controls to ones that have a different frequency. For years many mfg used 390 (in the US) & switched a couple of years ago to get away from the military radios.

Chamberlain went to 315 to solve the problem.

[ssnapier 0]

Just run some shielded wire for the garage door button.

[allensmith 0]

Last month our garage door opener remotes stopped working. The remote had to be held directly under the opener to open or close the door. The wall button worked fine. First thing we did was changed the battery's. No help there. Bought a new Chamberlain door opener. It did the same thing. Remotes had to be directly under opener to work.My friend suggest me to call good Locksmith to resolve all this problem then i called Locksmith Parkland for resolving my problem.

[the toss 0]

Holey resurrection Batman , a 2 yr old post brought back to life using NO useful information

[REC 0]

I'm glad this thread was brought back to life....I have been told by Liftmaster Garage Door openers that my only solution is to chose which item is more important for me to use....My security cameras or my garage doors. We have had a 4 unit security CCTV system for 5 years, which is also the age of our garage door openers, and just recently added four more cameras (two that are near the garage doors. If the two new cameras, that are next to the two garage doors are plugged in and active, the garage doors open from the wall button, the remote control, and the Homelink car button IF you are directly underneath the motor...However, the remote control and the Homelink car system will not work if you are 15 feet away in the driveway. The company that sold us the Liftmaster unit has stated he saw this same issue with a fire station in town, but they are still looking for a solution. Once you unplug the two cameras that are next to the garage doors, everything works normally again.

The camera installer (15+ years with a major company in town) moved the security camera wires to the two new cameras away from the garage door opener wires and behind our spray foam insulation and attached 19 magnetic ferrite cores/chokes, but the problem is still occurring. However, he did not install a ferrite core to the garage door wall button wires. On the previous threads, I never saw if this was a fix or not. Our installer was told by others in his industry that this situation between the camera and garage door openers interference was not possible and they have never heard of it. I would appreciate any information.

[the toss 0]

I'm glad this thread was brought back to life....I have been told by Liftmaster Garage Door openers that my only solution is to chose which item is more important for me to use....My security cameras or my garage doors. We have had a 4 unit security CCTV system for 5 years, which is also the age of our garage door openers, and just recently added four more cameras (two that are near the garage doors. If the two new cameras, that are next to the two garage doors are plugged in and active, the garage doors open from the wall button, the remote control, and the Homelink car button IF you are directly underneath the motor...However, the remote control and the Homelink car system will not work if you are 15 feet away in the driveway. The company that sold us the Liftmaster unit has stated he saw this same issue with a fire station in town, but they are still looking for a solution. Once you unplug the two cameras that are next to the garage doors, everything works normally again.

The camera installer (15+ years with a major company in town) moved the security camera wires to the two new cameras away from the garage door opener wires and behind our spray foam insulation and attached 19 magnetic ferrite cores/chokes, but the problem is still occurring. However, he did not install a ferrite core to the garage door wall button wires. On the previous threads, I never saw if this was a fix or not. Our installer was told by others in his industry that this situation between the camera and garage door openers interference was not possible and they have never heard of it. I would appreciate any information.

 

 

Your Liftmaster Garage Door man is feeding you rubbish and if what he says was true then I'm sure the FCC would be interested. As I understand it the problem is with the range of the door controllers when the cctv is also running. IF it is an interference problem the most likely culprit will be a noisy (defective) switch mode power supply running your cameras/DVR. When these go bad they can spew huge amounts of RF garbage over the entire spectrum. Another VERY likely cause of the problem is that the receiver on the door is off frequency. These receivers are generally mounted within the motor enclosure and are subject to quite a bit of vibration from the door movement. If it has drifted off its centre frequency then it wouldn't take much in the way of interference to drown out the signal from the door opener. It may be a combination of both the above scenarios. It WONT be the hardwired control switch. This simply operates a relay within the controller and so interference on this cable will have NO effect on anything. If you dont belive me then forget the ferrite beads and wire a 1 mH choke in series at the controller end of the cable.

If your garage opener is running at 310Mhz then your RF wavelength will be 0.9677m. So you antenna length would normally be a half wavelength harmonic ( ie 1/2 , 1/4 , 1/8 etc) with 1/4 wavelength being the best trade-off between length and gain. So I would expect your antenna length to be 24cm. As has been mentioned if it has been shortened then that will also affect the range of reception.

This demonstrates why I never recommend wireless gear for anything unless it is ABSOLUTELY the only option. What you gain in convenience is lost in fault finding/maintenance.

 

My credentials - Electronic security engineer for 18 yrs

Microwave radio engeneer for 24 years

Electronic Engineering Degree

Diploma in Electronics & Communications