DoorKing 6100 swing gate operator

I have been reading, digesting the manual and looking at how the gate operator arm moves.

The gate arm needs to be in a straight line when closed. And also in a straight line but the two parts to the arm on top of one another when open.

You need to shorten or lengthen the gate arm via loosening 6 Allen screws and making a slight adjustment then tightening the 6 Allen screws.

Unfortunately it's not exactly in a straight line when open or closed and the gate company welded it. So we need to grind off the weld if we want to adjust the arm.
 
You've been Doorking around with that bad boy for over a month now!
We are evolving replacing parts. By this weekend we will have replaced the main circuit board, and both gear housings. Not a whole lot left except except for the motors.

But it takes several weeks to become a DoorKing trained tech via a learn as you go method.
 
So I ordered a pickle fork set. Came Sunday. Put the pickle fork between the two pieces started to pound and cracked the lower arm in half. Now 180 degrees of the splined shaft was showing. Probably 150 degrees as the the remaining piece would not just pop off. Repositioned the pickel fork and started banging and now the pickle for is stuck on the shaft.

Looked more closely and saw that I could take parts off the top of the shaft and pull it out freeing the one part I want to reuse. That worked after some grinding.

Now how to unstuck a stuck pickle fork? Pound the tines on the fork? Attach the impact adapter and try my impact gun?

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Well after replacing the main gear housing in each gate operator along with the main circuit board the gate now works as expected. Had to buy some new parts for one gate arm as one flange was not the proper one and the aluminum gate arm broke trying to
get the arm off the old housing.

The savings in me just replacing worn parts saved thousands.

I would guess the real issue was one sensor was not sensing the gate movement properly. The sensor was part of the main gear housing, so it's new.

The HOA was planning on setting aside $6000 to $8000 to replace the gate operators in a few years. Now no longer needed.
 
Now I have to learn about reverse loops. There are loops in the pavement that detect the metal of the car and reverses the gate.

While the gate opens and closes properly now, the gate company disconnected the reverse loops.

There are several safety features. The reverse loops are needed however.

The first thing is to get a mega ohm meter. And test the loop wires to ground. Check for damaged insulation.
 
The gate operators have worked as expected for a week with no issues.

I originally thought there was some kind of metal sensor buried the the pavement to detect vehicles. But it's just a loop of wire going around a cutout in the pavement. Some kind of frequency is applied to the ground loop by the ground loop circuit card. Something must change when a metal object like a car goes over the ground loop that the ground loop circuit card can detect.

I received the megaohm meter to test the insulation in the ground loops and using the gate operator case as a ground to connect the meter, the reading in several hundred megohms. So insulation looks good.

I have read that a ground rod near gate operator is a good idea so I will get one. Will also remeasure the resistance using a ground rod in case the gate operator case is not properly grounded.

A little uneasy about pounding in a ground rod as it may be over the main power wires & FIOS coming into the HOA. Somewhat high voltage as it's before transformers.

Also tested across the two wires of each ground loop and that reading was less than 1 ohm so no cut wire.
 
So we read the instruction sheet for the dual channel ground loop detector circuit board. (Several times). Went over the pin switches. Watched the LEDs blink telling us various information.

Connected one ground loop, reset the board, looked good so we connected the other ground loop and reset the board again.

They seem to work as they should. The LEDs blink as cars go over the ground loops.
 
Hopefully you won't be Doorking around with the thing all winter!
Yes. I took this on out of necessity rather than choice.

I guess the gate companies want to install a new $6000 to $8000 gate operator rather than repair a 20 year old one.

I have to plan my retirement for when 2025 boating season starts.

But now I have a honey-do list of things I told wife I would work on after boat is put away and leaves mulched.
 
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