Published on: July 3, 2019
The garage door safety sensors are designed to ensure maximum safety for your garage door opener operation. The Genie garage door safety sensor kit (Safe-T-Beams) uses an invisible infrared beam across the opening of the door, the system detects any object passing through the infrared beam of light and automatically reverses the closing garage door. The Genie Safe-T-Beam system is required by US Law as of 1993.
However, the Genie Safe-T-Beam kit is self-diagnostic. If there is an issue or obstruction there is a series of garage door opener light flashes or small lights on the safety sensors to let you know what the issue could be (see chart below). If you are experiencing a garage door that will not close and a blinking garage door opener light you may have an obstruction of the Safe-T-Beam infrared light. If there is no physical obstruction you may have light interference. If the sun or another bright source of light shines into the garage door safety sensor lens it can cause a false positive and reverse the garage door. This can be a nuisance but good news, there is an easy fix available.
The Genie Version 2, Safe-T-Beam system (Model GSTB-R) has a lens cover that protects from alternative light interference, as seen in the picture below. This updated version should eliminate any false positive safety sensor signals. This is a very easy upgrade to your existing Genie garage door opener that should only take a few minutes to install. You can reuse your existing wiring and mounting locations. You simply remove the wires from the current Safe-T-Beam sensors and unscrew them from the wall. Then reconnect the wires and remount to the wall. The garage door safety sensor beams should still be lined up. If not loosen the mounting to the wall slightly and realign them by hand until both the red and green lights are on both sensors (one each on the left and right sensors themselves).
If an operating problem continues and you cannot close your door you can disconnect your Safe-T-Beams from the operator and hold down the wall control button until the door closes (remote and wireless keypad will not work without Safe-T-Beams).
You have just successfully upgraded your Genie Safe-T-Beam system!
86 comments
hooking my safe t beams sensors up to my genie model 209. my sensors are solid green and my red blinks 3 times. what could be my interferance
My safety eyes show signs of interference…3 fed light flashes and green solid. Even at night so I know the sun isn’t the source. This is a new …. 1 week old installation and displayed normal until today. The safety beam work great. Any ideas?
@DougL – Yes, they are compatible.
The replacement sensors should be wired in series (transmitter to receiver, receiver to power unit). You can reuse the original wire if possible. At the beams you will need to cut off the plug in connect that goes into both beams (3 plugs total) as the new beams are wire up. After the plugs are cut off, the two wires will need separated and 1/2 an inch of the rubber sheathing with need stripped off the end of each wire. On the beam that has two sets of wires (4 leads) you will need to match the white wires and the striped wires together, then wire each set to a screw terminal (it doesn’t matter which wire set is on which terminal screw). On the other beams you will just have one wire going to each terminal screw (again it doesn’t matter which wire goes to which screw). Please let us know if you need further assistance.
I have a Genie model 12A opener and purchased Safe-T-Beam model GSTB-R to replace the original photoeyes. The old photoeyes would light up. After installing the new Safe-T-Beam I cannot get either the red or green led light to light up. Have been working on the alignment but cannot get any lights to light up. Frustrated as it stated on the box “Works with most Genie residential garage door openers that use a sensor system”. The most frustrating part is I tried getting a hold of anyone at Genie to tell me if this Safe-T-Beamwould work with a model 12A opener. NEVER heard back from anyone at Genie so I purchased the Safe-T-Beam. Can anyone tell me if these two components are compatible?
@Marlene – you may need to reset your limits. Please contact our customer service line at 1-800-354-3643.