Help.. Modifying a circuit to eliminate 30 minute time out

[zzjea]

Hey, I am brand new today with a newb project. I need to know if we have left our garage door open inadvertently so I bought a Defiance Wireless Garage Door Monitor where the receiver plugs into a wall outlet in the house and into which you can plug in any 15a device like a lamp and the transmitter in the garage is battery operated with a magnet and reed switch. The problem is it has a delay circuit of 30 minutes after which the relay is de-energized and the lamp goes off.

I want this to activate a light when the door is open and turn it off when the door is closed. That is not what this thing does so I have it all apart trying to see how they managed the 30 min. timing. I don't see anything obvious. I am not an electronics guy but I can solder (unsolder) and I know what capacitors, transistors and resistors usually look like. But I do not know theory and can't figure out how to turn this thing into an on-off switch. I can attach a couple of pics of the circuit board. I bought this with the idea that it might be so simple that even I could figure it out. There is not much there but I don't know what all of the components are doing so I can't make any educated changes yet. My idea is trying to bypass the timing part of the circuit and get the relay to reset when the door is closed.
Thanks for any help.

 

[Bluejets]

I want this to activate a light when the door is open and turn it off when the door is closed.

All garage doors I've seen do this already with the built-in light.

 

[zzjea]

All garage doors I've seen do this already with the built-in light.

I want to know if the door is open without having to go into the garage or go outside to view the door. This device can be put anywhere in the house to be reminded the door is still open. The garage door can't be seen from inside the house.

 

[(*steve*)]

Perhaps the easiest answer is to use a magnetic reed switch (like the window alarm switches) to detect that the door is closed.

If it's not closed it must be open!

 

[zzjea]

Perhaps the easiest answer is to use a magnetic reed switch (like the window alarm switches) to detect that the door is closed.

If it's not closed it must be open!

This setup I bought has a transmitter (magnet and reed switch sensor) that goes on the garage door plus the receiver I am trying to modify.

 

[ChosunOne]

zzjea, if you're still watching this thread:
I haven't been able to find the instructions for your model of "garage door monitor", but it sounds like the system is designed to turn on a light inside your house long enough for someone to have light to enter after they arrive, and possibly to alert someone inside the home that the garage door has just opened.

There is nothing in that arrangement that would lead me to expect the sensor-transmitter on the garage door to send a signal when the door closes; only when it opens. So even if you manage to bypass the timer function of your receiver-timer, it won't help. You need a system that includes a two different signals, one for opening and one for closing.

 

[AnalogKid]

Working with nothing but your posts, we are literally blind here. Please post close-up photos of the guts, such as both sides of the printed circuit board (if there is one). My guess is that there is a small microprocessor doing the timing, as 30 minutes is a loooong time for a simple resistor-capacitor timer circuit. Plus, the uC costs less.

Manufacturer, model number, anything?

ak

 

[zzjea]

zzjea, if you're still watching this thread:
I haven't been able to find the instructions for your model of "garage door monitor", but it sounds like the system is designed to turn on a light inside your house long enough for someone to have light to enter after they arrive, and possibly to alert someone inside the home that the garage door has just opened.

There is nothing in that arrangement that would lead me to expect the sensor-transmitter on the garage door to send a signal when the door closes; only when it opens. So even if you manage to bypass the timer function of your receiver-timer, it won't help. You need a system that includes a two different signals, one for opening and one for closing.

I ended up with a different solution. I damaged the receiver when trying to modify it so I took the sender and used the reed switch in it to activate the switch. I ran wire from the attic above the garage to the sender and soldered it to the reed switch. I used an old cell phone charger (5v converter) to provide power to the circuit and a 3 LED puck light as the signal. I ran the wires in the attic and plugged the cell converter into a wall outlet in the attic and the LED light through the ceiling into a entertainment center (built in cabinet, floor to ceiling). The reed switch was a NO switch so I had to put it at the far end of the garage door track to turn the light on in the house. I put a strong magnet on the garage door to activate the switch.

Works perfectly and circuit is always powered, not battery powered like the old switch (sender) was. If I get a NC reed switch I would put it near the bottom of the garage door and it would tell me if the door is open the least amount. I don't leave it part way open anyway, so I probably won't make that modification. When the garage door is open, the light in the living room (middle of the house) is brightly illuminated until the garage door is closing. On my Craftsman system, if the door does not actually close, it will cause the door to return to open and the LED will come on again.