How to integrate a 12 volt garage door opener on a motorcycle

How to integrate a 12 volt garage door opener onto a motorcycle Test Procedures

Summary: Install a garage door opener onto a motorcycle, and control it by flipping any switch on your handlebar.

Are you tired of fumbling around to open your automatic garage door opener while pulling up the driveway on your motorcycle?

We have come up with a cool, inexpensive way to integrate a garage door opener into your motorcycle.

You will need a 12 volt garage door remote, that will run your opener. Note: This will only work on bikes that run on 12 volts, most do. For 3 volt remotes, click here.

Open up the remote, most will just unsnap into two halves. Some models will have screws, check yours to be sure.

Now find the internal main button that operates to open/close the door. It should have four metal solder points around the button. You will need to find the solder point on either side that connects to operate the door when you push the button. To do this, install the battery, stand in the garage, and place a jumper wire across the solder points until you activate the opener. These two contacts will be where you need to solder in the jumper wire. What this does is make the remote constantly on.

Jumper wire installed

After the jumper wire is installed, you will next need to solder a wire to the positive and negative battery contacts. The wire length will vary depending on how long you need to reach the power source and a ground point on the bike.

Power and ground wires installed

Next you will be wiring in the power and ground. For the ground, find a screw or bolt that is attached to the frame of the bike. You may also wire the ground straight to the battery's negative terminal, but I would use this as a last resort.

Ground wire to frame Ground wire attached to frame

Now for the power source. The power wire from the remote will need to be spliced into a power source on your bike. Do not wire this directly to the battery or anything that is always on. It will drain your battery and cause your garage door to continuously operate. Find a source such as the high beam, low beam, or horn. This way it only operates when you hit that button on the handlebar. Splice the remote's power wire into the source power wire of your choosing.

I wired mine to the low beam power wire. I operate the bike in high beam constantly, so when I need to open my garage door, I just hit the headlight switch to the low beam position briefly. This sends power to the remote, which is jumpered to the always on position, and wallah, my door magically opens.

Now close your opener remote back up (you may have to cut holes for the wire to come out), and your ready to mount it.

The last step is to mount the remote somewhere on the bike, I prefer to mount mine under the seat area. This hides it completely out of view, and it still works perfectly.

With this mod, you will find it safer and quicker to open the garage door when pulling up the driveway, good luck and as always be safe.

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