I installed one of these jackshaft openers to accommodate my high lift garage door which I high-lifted because of the lift I installed in there.
These things are really nice. Mounts to a couple 2-3 inches of torsion bar sticking out past your end plate. Super quiet, super compact, strong, easy to install and adjust. No mess hanging down in the middle of the bay, no belts or long chains to drip and adjust constantly. I'll give them this, these are truly a innovative design.
I know Wayne Dalton came out with a torsion bar opener assembly back in the 2005 or so, the "I drive" but you had to use it with their entire torsion bar setup (not a typical setup), and I guess it was plagued with endless problems and they ended up buying a lot of them back and taking it off the market after 2 or 3 years .
These seem to have a good track record so far, I think they've been out since 2008 or 9 or so, with no major issues.
I will also say this about Liftmaster, they keep changing their stupid codes every 5 years and f-ing up everyone's third party accessories, namely Homelink and Car2u equipped vehicles (of which a huge majority of late model vehicles come standard with), keyless entry systems and other "universal" remotes.
My K5 has a Gentex auto-dim/compass/maplight/Homelink mirror (same company that makes the OEM ones that go in OEM vehicles) . SInce about early 2012, Liftmaster changed yet again, and peoples $80,000 Porsche's and $20,000 chevys with Homelink won't work with it. They'll tell you it does, it says it on the box and in the marketing material online, but it only does if you buy an additional "repeater" kit, which is a complete joke. The repeater kit is another device, must be plugged in at all times, there's no "battery backup" for it, so a big reason alot of people buy liftmaster is their DC motors they use making it easy to make simple little recharge battery backup kits they sell, that all goes out the window with the repeater kit. I personally could care less about a battery backup, I'll use the emergency release, (or my whole house generator will kick in
), but for alot of people it's a huge selling feature for whatever reason. It also has a special remote, don't lose that, if you do, you'll never be able to program it again, because the remote is the learn button, it's the only way to teach any other device (the whole reason you bought the repeater) how to operate it.
When I looked online there's complaints about this in every corner of the internet, they've pee'd off alot of people. Most of whom were completely not expecting that, even alot of dealers where taken off guard, they sell a new latest and greatest liftmaster opener only to find it won't work with their customers vehicle and have to remove it or eat a repeater kit and still have a pissed off customer... and have wasted all their time. It just seems there's some dirty work at play, they could have very easily added a backward compatible mode with a dip switch or something instead of stupid separated "repeater" kit, so people with older stuff (not even that old, 2012 vehicles don't work with their new junk!) don't get screwed.
The Jackshaft version they sell now is the 8500. I bought the 3800, which liftmaster stopped making about a year ago but is the exact same model without the "new" security 2.0+ stupid stuff that doesn't work with anything existing. I already had another door with it's opener (an older liftmaster), I have a homelink vehicle and an existing keyless pad outside, and 3 other remotes in other vehicles... I didn't want to re-purchase all of that, so I found a 3800 online new in the box. It works just fine with the "older" stuff.
But, the jackshaft opener itself, works awesome. Exactly what I needed to fit the lift bay.
These things are really nice. Mounts to a couple 2-3 inches of torsion bar sticking out past your end plate. Super quiet, super compact, strong, easy to install and adjust. No mess hanging down in the middle of the bay, no belts or long chains to drip and adjust constantly. I'll give them this, these are truly a innovative design.
I know Wayne Dalton came out with a torsion bar opener assembly back in the 2005 or so, the "I drive" but you had to use it with their entire torsion bar setup (not a typical setup), and I guess it was plagued with endless problems and they ended up buying a lot of them back and taking it off the market after 2 or 3 years .
These seem to have a good track record so far, I think they've been out since 2008 or 9 or so, with no major issues.
I will also say this about Liftmaster, they keep changing their stupid codes every 5 years and f-ing up everyone's third party accessories, namely Homelink and Car2u equipped vehicles (of which a huge majority of late model vehicles come standard with), keyless entry systems and other "universal" remotes.
My K5 has a Gentex auto-dim/compass/maplight/Homelink mirror (same company that makes the OEM ones that go in OEM vehicles) . SInce about early 2012, Liftmaster changed yet again, and peoples $80,000 Porsche's and $20,000 chevys with Homelink won't work with it. They'll tell you it does, it says it on the box and in the marketing material online, but it only does if you buy an additional "repeater" kit, which is a complete joke. The repeater kit is another device, must be plugged in at all times, there's no "battery backup" for it, so a big reason alot of people buy liftmaster is their DC motors they use making it easy to make simple little recharge battery backup kits they sell, that all goes out the window with the repeater kit. I personally could care less about a battery backup, I'll use the emergency release, (or my whole house generator will kick in
), but for alot of people it's a huge selling feature for whatever reason. It also has a special remote, don't lose that, if you do, you'll never be able to program it again, because the remote is the learn button, it's the only way to teach any other device (the whole reason you bought the repeater) how to operate it. When I looked online there's complaints about this in every corner of the internet, they've pee'd off alot of people. Most of whom were completely not expecting that, even alot of dealers where taken off guard, they sell a new latest and greatest liftmaster opener only to find it won't work with their customers vehicle and have to remove it or eat a repeater kit and still have a pissed off customer... and have wasted all their time. It just seems there's some dirty work at play, they could have very easily added a backward compatible mode with a dip switch or something instead of stupid separated "repeater" kit, so people with older stuff (not even that old, 2012 vehicles don't work with their new junk!) don't get screwed.
The Jackshaft version they sell now is the 8500. I bought the 3800, which liftmaster stopped making about a year ago but is the exact same model without the "new" security 2.0+ stupid stuff that doesn't work with anything existing. I already had another door with it's opener (an older liftmaster), I have a homelink vehicle and an existing keyless pad outside, and 3 other remotes in other vehicles... I didn't want to re-purchase all of that, so I found a 3800 online new in the box. It works just fine with the "older" stuff.
But, the jackshaft opener itself, works awesome. Exactly what I needed to fit the lift bay.
