7 Frustrating Reasons You Need Gate Motor Repairs In Darwin

When you have automatic sliding gates or swinging gates in Darwin, there are many things that can make them stop working and we’re going to list seven of them so you can do some troubleshooting before arranging your gate motor repairs.

The good news is, we’ve been repairing automatic gate motors in Darwin for many years so although the list of things that can affect your gate motors sounds pretty grim, these are the sorts of situations that we consider as “all in a day’s work”.

In fact, our “typical day at the office” actually means being on site in Darwin, Palmerston, and surrounding areas, fixing gate motors and operators that have had a bad run due to something wrong with the electrics, the punishing extremes of our weather, or the invasion of nature.

Yep, there’s a reason we’re all pretty tough up here. We have to be!

7 Frustrating Reasons You Need Gate Motor Repairs In Darwin

Some of the things that go wrong with gate motors in Darwin can be internal or external.

So let’s look at these causes and see if they match the problem you’re having with your automatic gates.

1. When the ambient temperature changes with the seasons and the moisture in the air gets pretty sticky, ants tend to congregate around low voltage electrical devices. Once they’re in, they enjoy nothing more than chewing through PC boards. If your gate operator is not working it’s worth checking if there is evidence of ants within the box.
2. A lot of gate motors have an internal fuse which can blow if there is a fault in the system. Sometimes you can do an easy check which a quick look BUT if you need to start opening up your gate motor, you’ll be meddling with what could be a potentially dangerous situation where you can accidentally get zapped by 240 volts. Please don’t open 240 volt gate motors unless you’re trained or licenced because it’s just not worth the risk PLUS it’s going to be an easy, affordable job for us to do for you safely.
3. If you have a solar-powered gate motor, there are a number of different reasons that could lead to your operator not working. For example, while you might be getting the correct voltage at the batteries, if they are in poor condition the load of the motor may bring them down to the point where the gate motor will not operate. This is why the Dunwrights Air & Electrical team always does load testing on all of our installations but also on every job we attend. This simple test tells you the quality of the battery condition and gives you an idea on bsttery life.
4. Another reason for low battery voltage could be the solar panel itself. Sometimes, solar panels might not be working to full capacity. We can quickly assess that when we’re in attendance.
5. Solar-powered gate motors can also stop working if the charge card / solar regulater has failed. This device is programmed to make sure your batteries do not over charge or undercharged, so you get good life expectancy out of them. This is something else we can test for you.
6. If your gate is in a 24 volt system, it might have started having problems due to one of the batteries failing. As a result, your sliding gate motor might only be getting 18 volts or less, which would make it no longer work.
7. Sometimes, your gate motors might be drawing too much current from the PC board and overloading it. That crucial bit of circuitry board is where all the magic happens so if that gets “fried”, your use of automatic sliding or swinging gates will also be fried. This one can be expensive to repair because the board will need replacing, but it’s not challenging for someone who works with gate motors in Darwin every day.

Remember, these issues are generally easy and straightforward for the team at Dunwrights Air & Electrical to repair.

And if your gate motor is beyond repair, we’ll be able to source and supply you with a solid, reliable gate motor that WILL handle operating in Darwin conditions with an equally solid warranty.

Automatic gate motors are more important in the Top End than elsewhere because few other places have a Wet Season that dumps water the way we have it. It’s on days like those you’ll be glad your got your gate motor repairs “done right”.