Background:
Our doors are made out of wood. They are extremely heavy and around 30+ years old.
Recently we notice our 3rd garage door stopping near the bottom of the track when closing and reverting back up.
The only way to keep the garage from reverting back up everytime, is to manually guide the garage door from by hand and apply a bit of pressure so that it doesn't trigger the door to stop and reverse.
We don't have any sensors on our doors. One thing I did also notice is that our spring is completely rusted out.
Couple of videos of what's happening when it's opening and closing.
Best Answer
Garage motors have a torque sensor to minimise the crushing risk. this means that if the motor is under too much load, it will automatically stop. My guess is that your track is bent, or dirty and is creating too much friction for the motor.
you can test the opening and closing force by releasing the motor (pulling the wire to bypass the motor) and manually opening and closing the garage door. (do you see that its difficult to open at any point?)
the solution is to clean the tracks with a cloth and apply some grease... now garage vendors dont like you greasing your own track, so check your warantee first... but you will be amazed what a good greasing will do to the tracks...
regarding the type of grease to use, i would check with the motor manufacturer, the reason they dont like it is becuase grease can attract dust if you are in a dusty area, typically I simply apply a petrolium based grease on a clean track and 99% of the time the problem goes away.