SOMMER 1052V000 Direct Drive 1.0 hp Quiet, Durable and Strong Garage Door Opener , Black

This review is for the 1.0 horsepower, 1052V000, Sommer garage door opener. The opener can be configured for either a 7 ½’ or 8’ high garage door. My door is 8’ high, 10’ wide and 2” thick. The opener had plenty of power for this door. The opener comes well packed. The combination installation, owner’s manual booklet (in both English and Spanish) is well written with excellent illustrations. The door comes with everything needed for installation (apart from the tools one would use). There are 2 remote controls, an inside wired control, 2 safety sensors, etc. I purchased, as an extra, an outdoor, wireless keyboard, which is very convenient and works well. Everything is of excellent quality and well designed. Sommer responded promptly to emails.This opener opens and closes the door with a motorized carriage that hangs below the rail. The carriage has one moving part, a gear which is attached directly to the motor. The gear contacts a chain that runs down the side of the rail. The opener is very quiet. It is slower than other types of openers. The two remotes each have two buttons. I set mine so that one button controls the door and one button controls the opener’s lights. The opener can be programmed to stop partway up or down. The opener can be electronically locked, a feature one might use if away for a time. The opener slows down before stopping at either end of its travel. After the door closes, the opener lifts back up just a little to relieve pressure. (This is the default setting.) A brick or 2 x 4 on the garage floor causes the opener to immediately go back up if contacted. If the sensor beam projected across the door opening is broken, the door immediately goes back up.I had two problems with the opener, neither of which was due to the opener’s design.Problem 1: After the opener was installed, the remotes seldom worked. None of the troubleshooting sections in the owner’s manual applied. Finally, searching on Youtube, I learned that LED light bulbs can interfere with the radio waves the remotes use to contact the opener. One could use incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs, or one could use special LED’s manufactured by Genie. These LED’s don’t cause interference. The Genie LED’s were available at my local Home Depot. I installed them, and this solved the problem. My guess is LED’s are so new the problem hasn’t made it to the owner’s manual yet.Problem 2: The opener worked well for nine months but then started to jerk to a stop and then continue when closing. I noticed the opener’s rail flexed downward quite a bit when opening or closing the door. The motorized carriage has two tiny, metal tabs each attached to a switch which stops the opener. The tabs are depressed by an adjustable stop at each end of the rail so one can control where the motorized carriage (and the door) stops. I believe the flexing of the rail over time deformed one of the tabs so that the stop switch was activated by dimples and cut-outs that are part of the rail’s design. I added two hangers in the middle of the rail to eliminate the flexing and replaced the motorized carriage. This solved the problem. The opener is to be installed with a bracket at the front, metal straps at the back, and the one hanger which comes with the opener in the middle of the rail. My opener was installed with a bracket at the front and the hanger at the back, which left middle of the rail unsupported. Thus the flexing.Be sure to unplug the opener or flip the breaker before working on the opener. The motorized carriage receives power from the rail, which is electrified.

The media could not be loaded. I bought this unit to replace a decades old sears 3/4 hp chain drive unit that was becoming unreliable in responding to commands from the key fob. The installation was somewhat complicated by the fact that the garage ceiling is only about 7 foot high and the clearance between the garage door and ceiling is under an inch. This means that the opener needs to be installed further back in the garage than is normal and requires the use of an extension bar to connect the opener mechanism to the door. This combination results in very loud operation as the wooden door is heavy and rattles severely if the door operation is not smooth (especially at startup). Although operation is a bit slower than the chain drive unit, the quiet and smooth operation more than makes up for the wait. With the old opener, I always hesitated opening the door at night since the sound would not only wake everyone in the house, but my (200 foot away) neighbor as well. I just finished the installation and tested the operation about a dozen times and no one heard the door. Installation was no more difficult than any other door opener although I wouldn't mind having an additional mount point at the midway point on the rail. It does not seem to work with Keyless Entry keypad so I will need to replace the out door keypad. It's definitely not a "smart" device so in order to integrate this with my google home system, I will need to purchase a 3rd party control unit.I just installed an ST-DC1 smart garage door opener board assy. Approx $15 on Amazon. This opener provides a convenient 24VDC connection for powering this board. Setup was pretty easy and the system seems to work reasonably well with my google assistant / home.

Out of the box, there was a broken part. I callled Sommer. Tech support had no voice mail . A recording tells you that. I called sales and described what was broken. The gentleman took my info and said it would take 5 business days to get here. There were no other questions asked. I received the part in two business days. I was replacing an old genie unit. The Sommer unit was very easy to assemble and install. The only bad part is this unit is very slow (~20 sec open or close) from what I’m used to (~10 sec). This unit is extremely quiet compared to my screw drive opener. All you hear is a low hum and the soft noises of the garage door parts moving. If these conditions stay the same, I could not recommend this unit any better. I am extremely satisfied with this purchase.