How I Made Linear's GD00Z-4 Work with LiftMaster's MyQ Door Opener

I just got this to work with my Craftsman opener. I originally wired it directly into the opener terminals and it didn’t work. I then soldered it to the button terminals on my wall remote, and it still didn’t work.

Once I soldered a wire between ss and com, it started working great, thanks!

@bm29759 and @Russell:

I’m having the same issue as you guys. I think its because when you trigger the GD00Z-4 to open, it supplies a steady current to the remote/switch for 1 hour for some reason (confirmed by my multimeter). This makes it “click” the button or remote button and act like you are holding the button down. That’s why it seems to “break” the button for that full hour…its because it basically is acting like its being pressed down.

Have you guys found a solution for this yet? I certainly haven’t :-1: . I’m not sure the SS-COM modification would do anything since we are getting it to trigger once already (which means the load isn’t too low and needing shorting).

Chris,

Brandon [bm29759] did a test, which might be giving us a clue. He disconnected his GD00Z-4 from everything, told it to open the door, and then pressed his door button to actually open the door. The GD00Z beeped and flashed its lights as usual; but, then it took one hour before it would respond to commands again.

I am growing suspicious that this is a small bug in Linear’s firmware. I believe they intended the GD00Z to wait some period of time between operations when it detects a problem. In this case, I believe the problem is “no external voltage detected.” I believe the one hour wait time is the bug. That is just too unreasonably long. One minute seems long enough. My WAG is, someone did some quick math to figure out how many ticks per second their timer is giving them, then multiplied that by an hours worth of seconds instead of a minute.

In any case, there’s two ways you might be able to help us out here. Start by disconnecting your GD00Z output from everything. If you have a continuity tester, turn on your continuity tester and touch the leads to hear the beep (we want to make sure it works). Connect your continuity tester to the GD00Z output, there should be no beep.

At this point the continuity tester is providing the necessary DC voltage for the GD00Z to believe that it’s connected to an opener. You should be able to operate the GD00Z normally. Your continuity tester should beep at the moment the GD00Z activates the opener relay.

If you don’t have a continuity tester, and you are willing to break your warranty, jumper the SS to COM. If my suspicion is right, then your opener will no longer see the “no external voltage detected” problem. Even when it’s not connected to anything, you should now be able to operate the GD00Z normally.

Hopefully you are able to try one or both of these tests. And let us know what you find!

Are you the guy that left this? Thanks!

I just bought a Craftsman 57918 (smart wall switch, backup battery, motion, WiFi), hoping I could add a gocontrol Zwave to add to my ST hub… then I saw lots of reviews saying it wouldn’t work… after 3 hrs of surfing, found that amazon review which brought me here!

I don’t know how to solder, but I will learn!
Where do I get that small wire to connect SS with Com? Has anyone made a video showing this process?

I should have my craftsman opener installed by sears by next week or so, I’ll order the gocontrol soon so I could do the hack.

I’ll be back for help I’m sure I’ll have questions.

Hey @mcavoya,

I’m getting some pretty weird results here… I ran two tests:

  1. Testing voltage of the output wires (although probably doesnt mean much since its not connected to anything): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbssAXNpd_U
  2. Testing continuity of output wires: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFxQXpxu8OM

As you can see, I get zero continuity between the wires after being triggered.

Even weirder, between test #1 and test #2, I waited about 3-4 hours and when I came back, I couldn’t trigger the GD004-Z again from my phone (it is paired with Abode for me). I click the “open door” button and nothing happened. I actually had to open and close the garage door using the wall button (it seemed like that “refreshed” the sensor to show it was actually properly closed) before it allowed me to test again for #2.

I do have another unopened GD004-Z that I was planning on installing to my other door…I’m starting to wonder if I just have a broken one on my hands. I haven’t done any testing on the other one I have yet because I was debating on sending it back or not before opening.

Do you really think this is something that the jumper from SS to COM could solve? If so, I’m willing to give it a go for us on my current one. Just want some ideas before I blindly do that.

I wasn’t surprised with the results of your first test. The GD004-Z doesn’t produce an output voltage. It just closes the dry contacts of a relay.

I was surprised (and a bit disappointed) that the continuity tester test did not work as expected. That was exactly what I did here when I was figuring out how to get mine to work.

One possibility is – the voltage from your continuity tester is lower than mine, and it’s not enough to trick the GD004-Z into working. If that is the case then the short would work. But, if the unit is defective then you’ve just voided your warranty.

I’m afraid I can’t offer any suggestions there. But, please do keep us posted with whatever you decide to do.

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Hey @Mii, hope you see this. I am attempting the same “fix”…did this work as a sustainable solution? Did you solder the leads to the connection points as shown and use additional wire to pair the button to the opener? Anything else I can learn from your experience?

@mcavoya (and others).

My GoControl works fine on the ZWave side. It knows whether the door is opened or closed, telling it to open or close makes it beep and flash, but it never opens or closes the door.

I have a Liftmaster 1D7675, with a four button wall controller - open, light, learn and lock.

At first, I tried connecting SS and COM as described here. No luck - the same behavior as above, beeping and flashing but no opening or closing.

Then I tried the solution from Dave at https://forums.stringify.com/t/linear-gd00z-4-garage-door-opener-and-liftmaster-myq-workaround/302/20

Still no luck. And now my wall button also stopped working.

The green light on the wall button is flashing slowly (about once a second). This is not the rapid flash from having pushed the lock button (and I also tried unlocking).

I removed the GoControl cables from the wall button. Still no luck. Still slowly flashing green light, and the wall button (incl the light button) doesn’t work.

I’ve tried reseting the opener (long press on the learn button on the motor). I’ve tried power cycling. It doesn’t matter if GoControl has power or not. I’ve even tried re-soldering and removing the cables again. But I’m stuck with the slowly flashing green light and a closed garage door.

Operating the door using the arrows on the motor works fine though.

Any ideas?

/P

Beginning of 2019, same issue with a Chamberlain/Liftmaster/Pro from 2012 (strange model number). SS->COM patch worked as described. Thank you, @mcavoya , for doing the legwork on this. Also very happy at the ease of disassembly/reassembly of the box - was a 5 minute project. I suspect this might also be the source of the problem with reviews of this model where it stops actuating after 6mths to a year - weak cap? That circuit needs to be revisited. Thanks again!

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Well, after about two and a half years, my GD00Z-4 has stopped working.

Everything behaves as expected (door position correctly indicated, flashing light and beeping for ten seconds, etc.), except the relay does not close.

I pulled the GD00Z-4 and its sensor from my garage, and put them on my bench. I removed my jumper wire, and connected the relay contacts (the “push button” contacts) to a 5 Vdc supply through a series resistor.

Then I watched the SS test point with my voltmeter. When the relay contacts were open (“button not pressed”) SS was close to 0V. When I “pressed the button” (shorted the relay contacts) SS was close to 2.5V. So that monitoring circuit seems to still be working.

Next I watched the relay contacts with my voltmeter. My meter was set to VDC with the MAX/MIN function enabled. The meter normally shows 5V. When I used SmartThings to activate the door, I expected the MIN value to go to near 0V; but, it did not change. So the relay did not close.

One side of the relay coil is connected to +12 Vdc. The other side of the coil goes to a pair of transistors to ground. I used a small resistor to jump around the transistors to ground, and the relay clicked. So the relay seems to be functional.

Next I watched the base/gate of the transistors with my voltmeter. It normally showed 0V. So when I used SmartThings to activate the door, I expected it to go to some positive value. It does not.

I traced that signal all the way back to the processor. How do I know it’s a processor? There is a “PIC ICSP” programming header right under it. The red arrow in the following photo shows the pin that should drive the relay, and you can see the programming header near the bottom.

I peeled off the label (no point in worrying about warranties now!), but the silkscreen on the part had been buffed off. In any case, that pin always stays low. It never tries to close the relay. So now I have an expensive door position sensor.

My adventures with the GD00Z-4 have come to an end. I will not buy another. I’ll find some other solution. In fact, I have already started down that path.

I was annoyed that I could not use Google Assistant to open/close the garage door, so I wrote my own SmartThings device handler and app to convert a Z-Wave relay into a door opener. All I have to do is get my own tilt sensor, and update the app to behave like the old garage door app. You can find that project here: https://github.com/mcavoya/garage-door-button

I hope Linear figures out why the GD00Z-4 has so many reliability issues. Best of luck to everyone still trying to make it work.

I installed a UNIVERSAL SECURITY+ 2.0™ INTERFACE MODULE from Creative access solutions https://www.creativeaccesssolutions.com/Universal-Security-20-Interface-Module_p_13.html

It installs between the GeoCOntrol Linear door controller and the Garage door opener. It allows SmartThings to open and Close a MyQ garage door opener

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Hi there just thought I would confirm a solution the worked for me as well.
I think there are some threads above that cover this. I have a 8500w liftmaster and I used an 882lm switch for this

The nice part about this is you only risk messing up the 882lm that costs about $22

Chaimberlain 7675 MyQ GDO, I soldered direct to an old remote opener and it worked for a couple months, then fried the remote opener. I wired I another opener a few days ago and it fried within a day. Second one was compatible with any security protocol, had lots more chips on its board, maybe too sensitive. So I found this thread, I think I will try the original post’s trick soldering the jumper in the GoControl module, but In the multiple posts, I couldnt tell if that worked for sure for the MyQ openers… thanks everyone who took the time to share all this!

mcavoya - I know I’m very very late to the party, but I did want to thank you for the SS to COM short as it worked perfectly for me and made my GD00Z-5 fully functional with a LiftMaster 8500. Very much appreciate all the input you gave on the subject.

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I’m always glad to hear when someone else can get this to work. I hope your GD00Z-5 lasts (much) longer than mine did. Have fun!

Hey mcavoya,

First of all thank you so much for posting this. I bought the the GD00Z-5 in correlation with my Chamberlain B730 Quiet Drive opener. Doing some R&D, it wasn’t on GoControl’s website of incompatibility. My old opener was too loud to be below the master bedroom so I swapped and read that the GoController was compatible with my SmartThings setup.

Like you and everyone else, I installed to spec. Got normal manual operations from the door, but the controller would only beep; no movement whatsoever. Calling the company, of course they tell me it wasn’t compatible with my Chamberlain because of the MYQ system. They told me that Chamberlain makes a proprietary system, I didn’t want it because it wasn’t compatible with SmartThings.

Some house keeping notes for those attempting this fix:

  1. Remove the entire circuit board from the housing and solder from the bottom.
  2. The wires that are used for the manual button and the controller are the perfect diameter to use for the “SS” and “COM” holes.
  3. Use rosin core solder. NOT ACID CORE!!

I did this at work tonight so I will update in the morning when I get home if this worked or not.

Those are great tips. I’ve been doing this for so long that it didn’t even occur to me to mention those details.

Update: It didn’t work. I just purchased the Security 2.0+ contactor. I will report back if it works or not. After that I’m just going to wire a spare remote and call it a day. I don’t wanna deal with this for months.

Thanks for the help though.

As an alternative to using the unreliable Linear GD00Z-4 to control a MyQ opener, have people considered trying this SmartApp? It unfortunately does have some hardware requirements (gateway or bridge, plus a tilt sensor), but at least those don’t generally and reliably stop working on most people.

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I hope you are still monitoring this feed. I understand your frustration in trying to make what should be a simple garage door opener function. Just looking for a little quick advice if you are still available.

I have two Liftmaster 3850P garage door openers with battery backup.
They are wired to the 398LM Smart Control Panel.
Remote is 315MHz Liftmaster 373P (three button)
I also have two Craftsman garage door openers that work fine, so the question is only for the Liftmaster 3850P.

We upgraded our security system, and Tech installed ZWave GD00Z-5 on all 4 doors. Craftsman models worked fine. Liftmaster with ‘Smart Control’ only beeped, no movement, so they were removed.
Installing tech initally told me there was no fix, then referred me to this site, and told me I might be able to make it work if I order 2 GD00Z-5 and ‘2 clickers’, go to this site and do some soldering.

I presume ‘Clickers’ are wireless remotes. Do I still need to do soldering on wireless remotes?
In reviewing the previous posts, it appears that only soldering the jumper from SS to COM fixed the problem, or am I missing something?